Photo of the Hockey Playoffs Now: 28 February 2012

As usual, the hockey playoffs started in Chelsea. And as usual, the district featured four te…uh, wait, what? The district changed this year? Gabriel Richard went elsewhere? I…I don’t know what to say. Well…okay. I can adjust.

As I was saying, the district featured ~~four~~ three teams: Chelsea, Dexter, and Lumen Christi. The odd number of teams meant somebody got a bye. Like pretty much everything else in non-football MHSAA playoffs, I’m sure it was determined randomly, and Chelsea ended up getting the bye. (To be frank, though, Gabriel Richard tended to function as a bye on skates, so I’m not sure their departure changed much.) This left Dexter and Lumen Christi to fight it out to see who got to face Chelsea. I mean, not to actually fight it out, but to play hockey. Which…yeah, I guess that’s not too different.

For Chelsea hockey, this matchup is something like a Michigan fan watching Ohio State and Michigan State play each other in anything. Dexter and Lumen Christi are the Bulldogs’ most not-loved hockey rivals, so Chelsea’s ideal outcome would be one in which neither team wins and the Bulldogs get hot fudge brownies with ice cream. Sadly, nobody has found a way to make that a possible outcome of a hockey game, so one of the teams had to win. The expectation was that Lumen Christi would win, but hockey playoffs can be strange, so…here, look at the photos.

I’m including the next photo solely for my own amusement.

The gentleman behind the glass is Mike, the reporter who was covering the game for Heritage. You’ll note that he’s hard at work shooting video. Good work, Mike.

Dexter played a surprisingly good game, but it seemed like they were always a step behind on the scoreboard. For every moment like this…

…there was a Lumen Christi goal to retake the lead. (By the way, check out the water bottle in the above photo.)

Still, the pesky Dreadnaughts wouldn’t go away.

And the Dexter goalie made some great saves to keep his team in the game, perhaps none bigger than this glove save on a breakaway:

The Dreadnaughts were facing a one-goal deficit when, with under two minutes to play, they managed to get one in the net to tie the game.

And there was much rejoicing in the foreground and mourning in the background.

The rest of the third period passed without a goal, so they headed to overtime.

It seemed either Lumen Christi had found a new source of energy or Dexter had expended all of its energy: the Dreadnaughts struggled even to clear the puck out of their own zone in overtime. When you can’t clear your own zone, eventually you’re going to give up a goal. They did.

And again, there was much rejoicing in the foreground and mourning in the background.

The above photo needs a little explanation. You can see that the Lumen Christi players are excited about the game-winning goal, but you can’t see what they’re looking at. Let me clue you in: the Dexter bench is immediately to the left. And while sometimes one frame can be misleading, in this case it’s not. As they skated by, the Lumen Christi players made a point to celebrate at the stunned Dexter players on the bench. I don’t care who you are and what you just won. That’s not okay.

Meanwhile, the poor Dexter goalie was trying to absorb the loss.

His teammates joined him.

I may have fun with Chelsea’s rivalries, but in all seriousness, photos like the last two are among my least favorite photos to take. It doesn’t matter who’s in them: I can’t take joy in watching athletes deal with a season-ending loss. Those photos can be emotionally powerful, but I still don’t like having to take them.

Photo of the YOST YOST YOST YOST YOST Now: 25 February 2012

To conclude the regular season, Chelsea hockey traveled to Ann Arbor to play Skyline. Given the substantial gap between the two teams and the mercy-shortened meeting earlier in the season, the game promised to be somewhat less than exciting. However, I decided to head to Ann Arbor to take in the game anyway. Why? Because Skyline’s home ice is none other than Yost Ice Arena, a classic old barn of an arena that’s a joy to visit simply because it’s YOST.

I’m posting only two photos from this game, but because they’re photos of Yost, they’re the equivalent of 20 photos. I went primarily for the venue, so I took photos of the venue.

If you’ve never been to Yost, you should make plans to go to a Michigan hockey game next winter. The building is a classic sports venue with character only age can produce, but it’s THE BEST because of the environment Michigan hockey crowds provide for games. I like to call it the happiest hockey place on earth. Here, this happens every game (watch all the way to the end — it’s worth it):

If you’re a sports fan, Yost should be on your list of venues to visit.

Finally, one humorous note: go back to the first photo and look at the little pink spot on the far left side. I didn’t notice it the first few times I looked at the photo, but when I did notice it I had to laugh. Here’s a closer look:

That’s a little girl where she’s certainly not supposed to be. She must have climbed up the retracted bleachers to…I don’t know, get a better view? She must have decided there was something appealing about that spot.

Oh, and as for the game: Chelsea won a lot to a little. With the win, the Bulldogs finished undefeated in the conference.

Photo of the SEC Championship Hockey Now: 22 February 2012

Saline hockey visited its old home rink in Chelsea for a big game: Chelsea and Saline were at the top of their respective SEC divisions, so the game was a conference championship game of sorts.

I’d rant about the good old SEC days and how Saline used to be a huge rival for Chelsea but now they’re just an acquaintance that Chelsea says hi to every now and again when the divisions get together for coffee and how silly it is to have one conference with two divisions and how it would be so much better just to end the sham and have two officially separate conferences because things were better when I was younger dagnabbit and you kids these days have no idea what a real high school athletic conference is anymore, but…well, this is easier:

[insert humorous but bitingly effective rant about the good old SEC days and so on and so forth]

Okay, I feel better. On to the photos.

Take a look at the linesman in the background:

Is he:
A: Confused and calling the runner safe at second because he thinks he’s at a baseball game
B: Gesturing to the imaginary crowd that’s cheering his imaginary speech
C: Pretending he’s Hockey Moses parting the Blue Line Sea
D: Declaring the play onside

From L to R: “Hooray!”; “Hooray!”; “Nobody ever pays me in gum.”

Midway through the second period, the Saline goalie wandered far, far away from his net to play the puck in order to keep it away from a fast-approaching Bulldog. There were two problems with this strategy: first, the Bulldog was approaching faster than he thought, and second, the Bulldog had more on his mind than simply playing the puck. As soon as the goalie touched the puck, the Bulldog arrived, and…well, here, take a look at the next two photos:

The photos do a good job conveying the impact, but let me emphasize this: he hit the goalie hard. No, wait. He hit the goalie all-caps HARD. It would have been a big hit on a regular skater. It was devastating on a goalie.

As one would expect, the Saline players on the ice took serious exception to this breach of hockey etiquette and quickly let him know what they thought of his hit. The goalie stayed down and got attention from the trainer while the referees sorted out the penalties. The final tally for the feisty Bulldog: a whopping 17 minutes in the box. They gave him a 2-minute minor, a 5-minute major, and a 10-minute misconduct. Surprisingly, he didn’t get ejected, but here’s a bit of perspective: he spent the equivalent of one full period in the penalty box. That’s not something you see every day.

What became of the goalie, you ask? Well, as soon as the penalties were announced, he popped back up and skated around like he’d just had a 5-Hour Energy. In other words: he was fine.

(Fun fact: those two photos got top billing in the newspaper.)

Eventually they got back to the game, and…hey, look, Chelsea scored!

And then…uh oh, Jacob has the puck…

…and guess what? Yeah, another goal.

The game was tied at 2 when the Saline goalie got bulldozed, but Chelsea scored the next 3 goals and Saline scored the next zero goals, so…you get the idea.

With the 5-2 win and another win against Skyline three days later — don’t worry, you’ll see a couple photos from that game, too — Chelsea finished the 2011-12 season undefeated in the SEC.

Photo of the Rivalrypuck Now: 15 February 2012

Chelsea and Dexter met in hockey. Having won at Dexter — which is actually at Ann Arbor, but that’s a minor technicality — Chelsea was looking for a regular-season sweep of the Dreadnaughts, while Dexter was looking for the basic dignity of not having been swept.

Chelsea put together an early scoring chance that was thwarted only due to this penalty:

The resulting power play led to a goal.

The Dexter goalie took a moment to wave hello:

Oh, and he was making a save, too. Look in his glove.

As is generally the case in Chelsea/Dexter hockey games, there was plenty of hitting.

There may have been a few penalties, too.

Come on, ref. The statute of limitations expired on that penalty before I committed it. You can’t charge me with that.

One particular penalty was especially Chelsea/Dexterish. Dexter brought the puck into the zone, and a Chelsea defenseman decided to play defense. The Dreadnaught responded by putting the defenseman in a headlock, and…well, here. Take a look.

The defenseman didn’t think too much of that tactic.

There may have been a few words exchanged.

Thanks to my super-special long-range hearing — it’s my mutant ability — here’s the dialogue from that encounter:

Chelsea: I say, good sir, were you aware that your arm encircled my neck and forcibly removed my helmet?
Dexter: Indeed I was aware of this, my good man. In fact, that was my very intention.
C: I am shocked by this unforeseen revelation! What would cause you to show such disdain towards me? I thought I conducted myself quite honorably.
D: Frankly, I was offended by your deliberate refusal to grant me free access to the offensive zone. It caused me to conclude that you held some manner of personal grudge against me.
C: Why, I was unaware I had given you such an infelicitous impression! You are always welcome in my zone. Do accept my most sincere apologies.
D: Think nothing more of it! And likewise, do accept my most sincere apologies for my unseemly fit of violence. I will make an effort to better restrain my temper in the future.
C: Of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me, this gentleman in the striped shirt has requested that I accompany him to the penalty box.
D: Ah, how regrettable! His colleague has made the same request of me. Let us hope our time of separate confinement is edifying.

I make no guarantees as to the accuracy of the above dialogue, but usually I get these things right.

After the penalties were sorted out, the game continued.

In the end, Dexter’s bid for dignity fell short, and Chelsea celebrated a regular-season sweep of its county rival.

Photo of the Fire-Breathing Hockey Now: 7 February 2012

Chelsea hockey welcomed Lake Orion to town. It’s important to note that the Orion part of Lake Orion is pronounced OR-ee-un, and not o-RY-un like the constellation. Please adjust your mental pronunciation accordingly. If you’re reading this out loud to your loved ones, you may adjust your verbal pronunciation as well. Also, please tell your loved ones I say hi.

As you might expect, Lake Orion features a lake named Orion. Yes, that makes it the War of 1812 of town names. Come on, be nice. Anyway, LO also boasts a GM manufacturing plant and a mansion on whose grounds Amelia Earhart flew an experimental glider in 1929. Oh…and one more thing. Lake Orion has a dragon.

That’s the seriously wonderful Lake Orion High School Dragon logo on the shoulder of the hockey jersey. (Is that BLOOD dripping from its mouth? TELL ME IT’S BLOOD.) As a fan of meaningful and unusual high school mascots and logos, this one caught my eye right away. What I didn’t know until later is that there’s a story behind the mascot. From the town’s Wikipedia page:

The story of the Lake Orion Dragon says that sometime in the 1800s a group of local kids played a prank by building a fake dragon and launching it out in the lake. A number of people saw it and soon Lake Orion was known for its dragon. There are a number of stories around about who made it and how they built it but it is widely agreed that it was a prank.

Obviously the dragon is significant enough in the town’s lore to have become the high school’s mascot. That’s fantastic. Well done, Lake Orion.

Anyway: the Dragons showed up to play some hockey. Lake Orion has a solid hockey program, so the expectation was that it’d be a tough game. Indeed, that was the case.

It was clear from the beginning that Lake Orion is a very good team…but Chelsea isn’t exactly frozen liver, so the game stayed close. This made it hard on me: I like to alleviate the stress of a close game by talking to myself a little bit, but because I was sharing the Lake Orion penalty box with their backup goalie and standing right next to their bench, I had to keep my talking quiet and nonpartisan. That can be difficult — especially at moments like this:

I did keep quiet, though. I’m a professional. (When I need to be.)

Sometimes the goalpost is a goalie’s best friend. Sometimes…like this time:

Goalie shots like this can be a fun hockey version of Where’s Waldo in which you look for the puck:

Chelsea managed to find a couple goals in the third period:

Those goals propelled Chelsea to victory over Lake Orion.

Photo of the Itty-Bitty Hockey Players Now: 1 February 2012

Okay, just one last post from this hockey game. We covered the game itself and the unexpected physics lesson in the third period, but we haven’t yet covered perhaps the best part of the game: the itty-bitty hockey players who entertained the crowd between periods.

Tiny hockey players are wonderful. If you’ve never had the chance to watch kids skate, you’ve missed out. Do you think puppies are cute? HA! They can’t hold a candle to miniature hockey players. That’s partly because puppies don’t have opposable thumbs, but it’s also because they’re not as wonderful as kids on skates.

The entertainment after the first period featured a penalty shot exhibition.

The entertainment after the second period featured perhaps the most chaotic hockey game I’ve ever seen. They dropped the puck and let all the kids play at once. There had to be 20-30 kids chasing the puck!

A number of the kids stuck around for the third period, when they got to see a hit shatter a pane of glass. You can bet at least some of those kids went home more excited than ever about hockey.

Photo of the Did I Do Thaaaaaaat? Now: 1 February 2012

At the end of the last post I promised more photos from the Chelsea/Woodhaven hockey game. You promised to be suitably excited. (Yes you did. Don’t argue.) I’m fulfilling my promise. Are you?

Midway through the third period the game was heating up with some good action and a few solid hits. One particular hit brought the entire game to a halt. How? Well…here, take a look. I think you’ll figure it out.

That’s not a pile of diamonds dropped by some swashbuckling pirate who found himself confined in the penalty box, largely because diamond-carrying pirates don’t play hockey, you weirdo. No, those are the remains of the pane of glass — okay, fine, plexiglass — that shattered when a fine gentleman from Woodhaven gently nudged a fine gentleman from Chelsea into the glass. The fine gentleman from Woodhaven was censured by the authorities because he was a bit dilatory in the execution of his wallop, but there was a more pressing matter to be dealt with: there was a gaping hole where once there had been a pane of glass.

As the teams headed to the locker rooms, the first matter of business was to clean up that mess.

Yes, that mess. Cleanup involved several helpful folks.

It also involved shovels.

Even the man known as the Bulldog Clock Guy, the scoreboard operator for home Chelsea hockey games, pitched in.

Once the broken glass was out of the way, replacement glass arrived by special courier.

When the ref arrived with the glass, the other ref blew his whistle and penalized him for delay of pane. (That didn’t happen. But if it had, he would have been my favorite ref of all time.)

The crew started to install the glass…

…but soon discovered it was the wrong size: it was too large. Off they went to find another pane. Again they began to set the glass in place…

…and again they discovered it was the wrong size: it was too small. If my memories of children’s literature serve me right, the next pane should be juuuuuuust right. Right?

Oh, look! Here it comes now!

The crew again put the glass in place…

And…hey! It fit! It was filthy, but it fit.

If this had been a kids book, it would have been called Stripeyshirt and the Three Panes.

Stripeyshirt tried the first pane of glass.

“This pane is too big!” he exclaimed.

So he tried the second pane of glass.

“This pane is too small,” he said.

So, he tried the last pane of glass.

“Ahhh, this pane is just right,” he said happily and he fixed it in place.

With the mess cleaned up and the replacement glass (finally) in place, the game resumed. If you didn’t see the previous post and you’re wondering how the game concluded, go do that now before I hold you in contempt of blog.

(Programming note: there’s one more set of photos from this game. Trust me, you’re going to want to come back for that post.)

Photo of the Actually Playin’ Hockey Now: 1 February 2012

Woodhaven hockey traveled to Chelsea to play some hockey. What’s Woodhaven, you might be asking? Well, it’s one of the towns in the hockey-loving area commonly known as Downriver. Aside from having a high school and a hockey team, Woodhaven is home to the Ford stamping plant. (Contrary to popular belief, a stamping plant does not produce angry toddlers and teenagers. It also doesn’t apply stamps to envelopes.)

When you shoot enough hockey in one place, you start to recognize the referees. I always recognize this one…

…in part because he has an especially enjoyable “Yeah, yeah, I hear you, but you’re wrong” face when the coaches and/or players start complaining.

Chelsea has an official athletics twitter feed that provides schedule and score updates. During this game I acquired ACTUAL FOOTAGE of the twitter feed being updated. Look at the gentleman on the right side of these three photos. You’ll see him pull his phone out of his pocket in order to post the score update to twitter.

Many area schools now have twitter feeds providing sports updates. It’s a great use of twitter. If you’re so inclined, you can follow Chelsea athletics at @ChelseaBulldogs.

Chelsea scored a lot of goals in this game. Here’s another one:

But it wasn’t all sunshine, roses, and Pepsi Throwback for the Bulldogs. In this case, one Bulldog not only ended up in his own net, but also had a penalty called against him. He did not agree with the call.

The game had an abundance of penalties. At one point the teams were playing 3-on-3 hockey and the scoreboard looked like this:

But Chelsea kept scoring anyway.

Did Chelsea win? Well, here. This photo might answer your question:

You may have noticed the post title is a little different from other hockey posts. That’s because there were two other notable events that occurred during this game, each of which deserves its own post. Those will be up next. Are you excited? Of course you are!

Photo of the Hockey Now: 21 January 2012

While Saline was playing on one of the Ice Cube’s rinks, Chelsea was over on another rink playing Ann Arbor Huron. The Saline game ended early due to the mercy rule, so I made it to the other rink in time to see the third period of the Chelsea game.

Before the third period could begin, the refs had to fix a blemish on the resurfaced ice. Anthony kept an eye on their progress.

When the third period began, Chelsea was leading Huron 2-0. That didn’t last long. On paper the teams weren’t evenly matched, and after two periods of close play, the paper came to life. Chelsea scored early and often.

Like I said, early and often. Oh, here’s another goal:

The hockey mercy rule is an eight-goal differential after two periods, and maybe halfway through the third — if that — Chelsea scored its sixth goal of the period to bring the game to an early end.

Photo of the Hockey Now: 21 January 2012

The Ann Arbor Ice Cube hosted an SEC hockey showcase. What? No, not that other SEC with the slimy football coach. The high school conference in southeastern Michigan. Were that other SEC to have a hockey showcase, it would involve a bunch of people standing around entirely baffled by that slippery cold white flat surface.

Anyway: Saline played Hockey Frankenstein. You may remember HF from its getting whack-a-moled by Chelsea. I doubt there was much suspense here to begin with, but let me remove whatever there was: the result of this game was similar to the result of that game. Saline scored a bunch of goals and the game ended after two periods.