Chelsea hockey faced…uh…well, it’s complicated. The team they played was an amalgamation of Lincoln, Belleville, and Willow Run. What would you call that? Bellecoln Run? Linlowville? Eh. I prefer to call it Hockey Frankenstein.

Hockey Frankenstein was undermanned. The game wasn’t close.

Remember how I said the game wasn’t close? Here’s visual evidence:

That’s the shot chart from the first period. Chelsea’s shots on goal are on the left; Hockey Frankenstein’s shots are on the right.

Later in the game, Jacob found himself with the puck and open ice through to the goalie.

He set up his shot…

…and put the puck in the net.

Chelsea won the mercy-shortened game.

Chelsea hockey faced Lumen Christi, one of its most strenuously not-so-liked rivals. For a time it looked like Chelsea was going to run — er, skate — away with the game, but Lumen Christi scored a few third-period goals to make it interesting. Regardless, the good guys won.

Who had the answer to the Lumen Christi defense? These guys did.

Get? They’re raising their hands because they had the answ…oh, never mind. I know that was a stretch. Just go with it.

Gravity is a powerful force, but as any good hockey player knows, sometimes it needs some help. The Bulldogs are nothing if not helpful.

Since the Bulldogs did plenty of scoring, they also did plenty of celebrating.

Plenty of celebrating. (The crowd enjoyed it, too.)

See?

The Bulldogs were celebrating more good times than Kool & the Gang.

Chelsea hockey faced the Ann Arbor Skyline Eagles. It would have been great if I could have said Chelsea hockey faced the Ann Arbor Schembechler Aviators, but noooooooo, the school board had to be as generic as it possibly could have been. Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if all the mail that arrives at Skyline is addressed to “Resident” or “Occupant.” That’s how generic they made this school. It’s sad, really. Where is Skyline High School? Why, just look for the skyline! In…every city…on earth. Who are the Eagles? Why, they’re the sports teams at the local high school…in dozens of towns…across the state of Michigan. WHOA. Way to be proud of your city, school board. You created the store brand of high schools. The Store Brand High School Fightin’ Generics. Go team!

Anyway. Skyline hockey isn’t what you’d call “great” unless your meaning of the word “great” is “undermanned,” so the game got a little lopsided.

“Hooray! Our high school has a meaningful name and our logo is easily recognizable!”

Okay, I know I complained a lot at the beginning of the post, but I’m not quite done. I have very important sartorial complaints. Specifically, I have absolutely no love for Skyline’s colors and logo.

First, the color scheme: it’s actually baby blue and white. Officially I think it’s Carolina blue, but let’s be honest: it’s baby blue. The problem with this color scheme is that it doesn’t lend itself to appealing sports uniforms. (North Carolina basketball may get away with it, but that doesn’t mean you can.) A good color scheme features contrasting dark and light colors so you can produce good home and away uniforms. Baby blue doesn’t contrast with white. No, to the contrary: they’re peas in a pod. Baby blue actually hangs out with white all the time. They go to the clubs together and dance like nobody is watching, primarily because nobody can see them. They both vote the same straight ticket on election day. They like the same awful romantic comedies. The only contrast they know is the setting on their tv.

To combat the problem caused by this color scheme, the Skyline hockey folks introduced an actual contrasting color into the away uniform. In the photos it looks like a dark blue; in person it looked dark blue at one moment and black the next. I’m still not sure which color it was. In either case, it looked considerably better than the original color scheme. I’d say it looked 800% better than the original color scheme, but 800% of 0 is still 0, and the original color scheme looks 0 good.

In summary…dear high schools: if you have to introduce a third color to make your color scheme suitable for sports uniforms, you need to pick a different color scheme.

Now: on to the logo. A Google image search for “eagle logo” turned up a few very appealing results. The common traits of the best eagle logos? They’re all simple, easily recognizable at varying sizes and distances, and easily adapted to numerous settings and purposes. The Skyline eagle logo? It’s none of those things. You can see it in many of the above photos, but here’s another look:

That’s a nice complex artistic rendition of an eagle head that might look great as part of a high school art show. It’s too bad sports jerseys aren’t an art show.

Okay, now I’m done complaining about the Store Brand High School Fightin’ Generics and their ill-conceived color scheme and logo. I’ve been holding that in for a while. I feel better now.

Chelsea hockey faced Riverview. They’re called the Pirates, but it was the Bulldogs who made off with the loot of victory. Arrrrrrr! (Special note for the MHSAA: there was no actual loot involved. Only victory. Arrrrrrr!)

Midway through the game, one Riverview player leveled a Chelsea player with an illegal hit.

After a few minutes, he managed to make it to his feet and woozily skate off the ice with some help.

He spent the rest of the period talking to the trainer.

He didn’t return to that game, but there is good news: he’s now back in action.

Chelsea won the game by a large margin, so there was plenty of celebrating.

There also were a few penalties. Here, Connor can’t believe they called that penalty:

One Chelsea fan got especially excited about one of the Bulldogs’ goals:

I was tasked to shoot a few photos for the newspaper that covers Riverview. Here’s one.

There. That proves I’m an equal-opportunity blogger, right?

There’s an old axiom that says “When push comes to shove, you’re probably playing hockey.”*

*This axiom is not old because it does not exist.

Later in the game, Joe managed to maneuver around both the defense and the goalie to give himself a wide-open net.

Yeah, he put it in the net.

Always remember: Coach Wright is watching you.

Chelsea’s Arctic Coliseum hosted a hockey skills clinic put on by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. This clinic was notable for two reasons:

1)My nephew signed up for it, and
2)Brian Rafalski was one of the instructors.

Who’s Brian Rafalski, you ask? Gasp! Obviously you don’t follow hockey here in Michigan. Brian Rafalski is a Dearborn native who was a part of three Stanley Cup-winning teams in his highly successful NHL career. The first two Cups were with the New Jersey Devils, and the last was with his hometown Detroit Red Wings. He retired from hockey this past spring.

So…yeah, a hockey skills clinic with Rafalski as an instructor is a Very Big Deal. The man knows his hockey skills.

This is my nephew.

It was a very humid day outside, and to make matters worse, a storm dumped a bunch of rain down during the clinic. What happens inside an ice arena when it’s absurdly humid outside?

Fog. Lots of fog. Visibility was good for a while after the Zamboni ran, but eventually the fog took over again.

Here, an instructor outlines a drill.

Here, an instructor listens as the other instructor outlines a drill.

That instructor is Brian Rafalski. Everybody say hi to Mr. Rafalski.

Here’s Mr. Rafalski with some of my family in the background.

Yes, I took that picture very much on purpose. Okay, so it’s not my family with Rafalski…but it’s my family in the same frame as Rafalski. Close enough.

Of course, I also got a photo of my nephew on the ice with Rafalski.

And finally, here’s the whole set of instructors.

I’ve made a bit of a Big Deal over Rafalski’s presence because he’s such a well-known hockey player, but I don’t want to shortchange the rest of the staff. The clinic was very (VERY) well-run, and that’s a credit to every man on the ice. If you have an FCA-run hockey camp in your area and you have a child who plays hockey, I’d encourage you to take advantage of it.

In the first round of the playoffs, Chelsea hockey faced rival Lumen Christi.  Due to the Chelsea/Ypsi basketball game that overlapped the hockey game, I could shoot only the third period of the game.  That meant I missed Chelsea’s building a lead over LC and instead arrived just in time to see LC tie the game.

That was actually the go-ahead goal in the third period, but the sentiment was the same.

Because it’s an intense rivalry, the Chelsea students aren’t afraid to let the LC players know what they think:

He’s not celebrating a goal; he’s jumping to avoid the player on the ice.  The puck is under the logo.

The go-ahead goal shown in the first picture proved to be the winning goal for LC, bringing Chelsea’s season to an end.

Oh, and is hockey a rough sport?  Uh…yeah.  Look what can happen even with a full face shield!

Chelsea hockey vs Saline:

Hockey teams are very protective of their goalies.  If you take an unnecessary whack at a goalie…well, you end up with something like this:

Chelsea hockey vs Churchill: