Category Archives: Sports

Photo of the Hockey Now: 14 December 2011

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.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 13 December 2011

Chelsea faced Flat Rock. Wait, what? No, Flat Rock isn’t Nebraska’s version of Plymouth Rock. It’s a small town in southeastern Michigan. It’s a town where they still actually build actual cars in an actual factory in the actual state of Michigan. It’s also a town that — according to Wikipedia, which is completely reliable all the time no matter what, right? — is home to a Law & Order: SVU actor.

These young fans brought a little extra encouragement for two of the Bulldogs:

Photo of the Basketball Now: 9 December 2011

Chelsea basketball faced South Lyon. Both my editor and I kept getting confused, though, because South Lyon’s uniforms were nearly identical to Saline’s. I’m pretty sure we both referred to them as Saline at least once. Hey, don’t judge: we see Saline much more frequently than we see South Lyon.

For the uninitiated, this is a basketball:

The student section was happy to see Cody:

This is what happens when members of the student section ask you to take a picture:

Jack would like you to look over there:

But Logan is looking at you:

It was a close game, but the Bulldogs fended off the South Lyon Lions — the Fightin’ Redundancies — for the win.

Photo of the Hockey Now: 7 December 2011

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.

Photo of the Hockey Now: 19 November 2011

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.

Photo of the Cross Country Finals Now: 5 November 2011

The MHSAA cross country lower peninsula championship is a great event held at a remarkable venue: Michigan International Speedway. It’s become one of my favorite events to shoot, in part simply because of the venue.

Like last year, both Chelsea boys and girls qualified for the championship. Here you can see the division 2 girls race starting with the racetrack in the background. (The Bulldogs are in the center of the photo in the yellow and white uniforms.)

After getting a few photos at the start, I took up residence at the finish line.

A little while later, the division 2 boys race made its way through the course and approached the finish line. When the lead runners rounded the final bend and came into my view, do you know who was leading the way to the finish line? Well…you might. But if you don’t, I’ll tell you: it was Chelsea’s own Bryce Bradley!

In the following photo, you may notice that his knee brace is no longer bracing his knee. Instead, it’s bracing his ankle.

Despite his knee brace’s well-intentioned but entirely unhelpful relocation, Bradley crossed the finish line in first. And not only did he finish in first, but he had the fastest time across all four divisions. In other words, Bryce Bradley was the fastest high school cross country runner in the lower peninsula. Is that impressive? Oh man, that’s impressive. That’s impressive.

(If you’re curious, his championship time was 15:20.6.)

At the awards ceremony, Bradley received congratulations from the second-place finisher.

He then smiled just a little bit. Just a little tiny bit.

It Takes 11: Week 2 vs East Lansing

Varsity 2011 record: 1-1 (0-0 SEC White)

The Enemy:
Opponent: East Lansing
Mascot: Trojans
Last Year’s Record: 7-3
Previous Result vs. Chelsea: 24-16 EL win (2007)
Last 10 years vs. Chelsea: 1-0
Miscellany: East Lansing High School is just across town from Michigan State University. MSU is the Spartans; ELHS is the Trojans. MSU is green and white; ELHS is blue and white and wears uniforms strikingly similar to those of Penn State, an MSU rival. Perhaps best of all: ELHS fans frequently utilize the cheer “Go Blue!” — a favorite cheer of Michigan, MSU’s hated rival. I might be tempted to make MSU-related jokes, but whether by accident or by design, ELHS is as far from MSU as ethics are from OSU football.

The Photos:


Mark Moundros covers the points. Do you cover the points?


Grant Fanning will give you five good reasons.


The marching band paid tribute to CHS cross country runner Kersch Ray, who had been hit by a car that morning and was in a coma.

In the first half, Tyler Geiger grabbed an interception and returned it for a touchdown:

After that, the Chelsea defense got back to its regularly-scheduled tackling.


The student section saw the signs. They opened up their minds. They saw the signs.


This isn’t quite the intent of the slogan, but…hey, it works. Actually, it works remarkably well. Excellent work.


Frowny face.

Photo of the JV Football Now: 15 September 2011

The Chelsea JV football team faced the Ypsilanti Braves (because I know a number of YHS grads who will enjoy that reference). It was a close game, but it finished well for Chelsea.

One Ypsi extra point attempt was extra something, but it wasn’t extra pointy. The ball ended up about 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage, where Chelsea recovered it.

In high school football a failed extra point can’t be returned by the defense, so shortly after the Bulldogs picked up the ball, the whistle sounded. But before the whistle sounded, the Ypsi player tried to make a nonstandard tackle.

For the kids out there: that’s not proper tackling form. Try to avoid that unless your preferred style of tackling is not tackling.

The Chelsea defense spent some quality time with defensive coordinator Corey Knight.

Meanwhile, head coach Chris Orlandi had his eyes on the field.

It’s no surprise he was watching the field. Fascinating things were happening on the field!

At one point, Coach Orlandi wanted to turn right, but he used the wrong arm to signal, so…would that make it a left turn signal? Of course, he wasn’t on a bike or in a car, so it’s not really important that he used the wrong arm.

Photo of the Demolition Derby Now: 23 August 2011

The Chelsea Fair doesn’t ease into the excitement: the first night of the fair features one of three nights of the fantastic demolition derby. I’ve been going to the demolition derby at the Chelsea Fair for as long as I can remember, and I wouldn’t think of missing it. Watching cars smash into each other until only one can move? I’M THERE. It’s like my life, but on purpose.

To keep speeds at a vaguely reasonable level, this classic old Dodge fire truck wets down the arena before the first heat.

As this is a sporting event in the United States of America, it’s prefaced by the national anthem. This respectful gentleman is one of the referees. When he’s not standing with his hat over his heart, he’s responsible for (among other things) enforcing the rules of the derby, keeping track of which cars have been disqualified and stopping the action when there’s a problem (usually either a fire or a dangerous part of a car lying loose in the arena).

This gentleman wanted the crowd to get excited.

The crowd obeyed.

Remember when the library had kids paint the car it was sponsoring? This was the final product.

Remember: reading can take you anywhere, kids — even into a demolition derby. That’s especially useful because you can’t actually drive in a demolition derby until you’re an adult. Sorry. We adults have to save some of the fun for ourselves, you know.

If you want pretty cars, a demolition derby is not the place for you.

This kind of fire is acceptable and, in fact, very common:

Last year one car had flames shooting out its exhaust pipes the entire time, and just a couple minutes into the heat the pipes were so hot they were glowing red. It was wonderful.

It’s also very common for radiators to break on impact:

As seen above, it’s often spectacular. It’s usually accompanied by a hilarious “FOOM!” sound that draws everybody’s attention.

See? It’s spectacular!

Some of the cars feature creative paint jobs:

You have to enjoy them before the heat starts, though, because the paint jobs inevitably get covered in layers of mud and destruction.

Yes, the red car was still moving at this point. You might be surprised at how much a car can be destroyed and yet still move. You can thank your local automotive engineer for that.

Not all radiator problems involve the “FOOM!” and the cloud of steam. Sometimes a pipe gets knocked off and starts spraying steam:

That would probably be a lot more amazing if it actually helped propel the car, but it doesn’t. It just looks cool. It might help take the wrinkles out of your clothes, too, if you could get your clothes near it. But if you think it’s a good idea to take your clean clothes into the middle of a demolition derby just to get rid of the wrinkles, you have far greater problems than wrinkles.

Here’s where that red car stopped moving:

Why did it stop? Well, take a look at the smoke pouring from its front tire. The tire let loose from the wheel, so the wheel was just spinning freely inside the tire. It’s like one of those silly spinner rims, but it’s at least 50% more functional.

It was a beautiful evening for the demolition derby:

Yes, I know you’re sad you weren’t able to be there. Maybe you shouldn’t let than happen next year, eh?

Hey, here’s a question: what happens when you get old and grow facial hair?

You get a white baird! Okay, okay. Sorry. That was terrible.

Seriously, though, occasionally there’s a fire that requires the firefighters’ attention. When that happens the car is disqualified and the driver exits to sympathetic applause. For some reason in this case the car was cleared to continue, but a few minutes later it required more attention from the firefighters:

At that point they deemed the car unfit to continue and the driver made a hasty exit.

What’s that? You’re disappointed to see the derby photos end? Why, you’re in luck: those aren’t the last derby photos! I spent the next evening at the derby as well, so there’s another set to come. Stay tuned.