I did notice the guy oin the background when I was quick deleting between periods through the lcd! I had noticed him earlier walking around the rink (the last pic I deleted of the fight sequesnce that was well & truely out of focus on the fighters - worse than the 1st one - showed him with his camera almost ready, but he had lost the moment by then as the fight had finished!)
Absolutely agree with your comments in regard to both sets of photos though.
The 1st fight one was because I had just been shooting in landscape with the uppermost focus point enabled when the fight started to kick off. I was lucky with the 1st cross checking pic as the camera had focused on the guy on the right, however with the next one, it had focused on the ref! Unfortunmately not much I could do due to the speed at which it kicked off!
The breakaway shot went through the netminders legs which is why you can't see it in the pic you mention & as I stated before, I always use manual exposure settings of f2.8 & 1/500. With the light levels available at our rink, that is all you can get away with & have to try to be nailed on with your focus point due to the shallow depth of field as a result.