Chelsea
T.A.D.: Week 1 vs. Ann Arbor Huron
Freshmen: defeated by Huron, 0-23
JV: defeated Huron, 41-14
Varsity 2010 record: 1-0 (0-0 SEC White)
First, a note to assuage the inevitable curiosity: T.A.D. is the team’s slogan this year, and it stands for Trust, Accountability and Desire.
Okay. On to the game.
Location: Ypsilanti, MI (Eastern Michigan University’s Rynearson Stadium)
Opponent: Ann Arbor Huron
Mascot: The River Rats
Real Mascot: The Hurons. If Pioneer can be the Pioneer Pioneers, then Huron should be the Huron Hurons.
Last Decade vs. Chelsea: 0-4. Huron is 1-6 overall against Chelsea, with the lone victory coming in the first game between the teams in 1997.
What’s the story?:
Ever since the end of the 2009 season, the Chelsea football program has been bombarded with countless variations of the same question: “What are you going to do without Nick Hill?” While it’s easy to answer that question with countless variations of “Chelsea football is more than one player,” the only answer that quiets the questions is the answer on the field. The game against Huron provided the team’s first opportunity to show that Chelsea football is not just one player, but a complete and consistent program.
First Quarter:
When phalanges met football (phootball?) to open the 2010 season, senior Matt Gillespie — whom AnnArbor.com described as “diminutive” — gave Chelsea the fastest start possible: he returned the opening kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown. After the first of Huron’s four first-quarter three and outs, Nate Udell kept the party going with a 48-yard touchdown pass to Mason Borders; after another Huron three and out and a 41-yard Chris Ballow punt return to the 20 yard line, sophomore Berkley Edwards scored his first career varsity touchdown, giving Chelsea a 19-0 lead only six minutes into the game.
The rest of the quarter was decidedly uneventful: Chelsea’s offense took a nap and lost a fumble, and Huron managed to gain exactly one first down.
Second Quarter:
Chelsea’s offensive nap continued into the second quarter, and its sleepiness even rubbed off on the defense: after Bradbury Robinson‘s gentle reminder to Huron that the forward pass is indeed legal, Huron used a 38-yard pass play to invade Chelsea territory on its way to a touchdown. That touchdown ended the slumber of the Chelsea defense: while Huron’s next drive crossed midfield, it stalled well out of danger at the 40. However, Chelsea’s offense continued to doze, so the half ended with Chelsea leading, 19-7.
Quite inexcusably, there was no marching band entertainment at halftime.
Third Quarter:
It seems there were no alarm clocks in either locker room at halftime: for over 11 minutes of the third quarter, the closest anybody came to any sort of excitement was a missed 48-yard field goal by Chelsea. But just when the game was beginning to feel more like golf than football, senior quarterback Brian Paulsen woke up the Bulldog faithful with a six-yard touchdown run with only 25 seconds left in the quarter, giving Chelsea a 26-7 lead. Huron produced a glimmer of hope with a 29-yard pass play to end the third quarter inside the Chelsea 40…
Fourth Quarter:
…But a series of negative plays and penalties pushed Huron back out to midfield, ending the drive with a short punt and effectively ending hopes for a comeback. From that point the game consisted of Huron playing football mostly against a cast of Chelsea backups on both sides of the ball. Even so, Huron couldn’t finish a drive, so the score remained unchanged through the fourth quarter.
Final Score:
Chelsea: 26
Huron: 7
Don’t Forget My Number:
- Berkley Edwards led Chelsea in rushing with 71 yards and one touchdown on 13 carries. Joey Newland wasn’t far behind: he had 68 yards on 13 carries. That is an important answer to the question of what the team will do without Nick Hill because it stands in stark contrast to the Hill era, when Hill would have a couple hundred yards and the next back would have three Solitaire victories on his iPhone.
- Mason Borders led Chelsea in receiving with 109 yards and one touchdown on 5 catches.
- The Chelsea defense led both teams in Total Awesomeness, clogging running lanes better than a ball of hair clogs drains: Huron gained only 77 yards rushing, finished 1 for 14 on third down conversions and punted nine times.
Photographic Evidence:
All I said was that there were fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies on the other sideline. They must have been hungry.
The Huron kicker just wanted to tell Matt Gillespie a secret…
…And Gillespie said, “Sure! Come tell it to me in the end zone.”
Either they’re enthusiastically volunteering…or they’re doing the wigalow. Hands up high, feet down low!
Wonders Mason Borders: “Wait…wasn’t there supposed to be a defense?”
Logan Yordanich can multitask: he can make a tackle and look at the camera at the same time!
Side effects of Chris Ballow may include missed tackles.
“Okay…I think we should all go to the Eminem and Jay-Z show in Detroit. Oh, and I guess we should run a play now, too.”
Is that defender going to be able to stop Berkley Edwards from crossing the goal line?
Of course not! You can’t stop the Berkley Express from reaching his destination.
Huron tried a radical new strategy of not blocking anybody. It was a remarkable success.
Charlie Hess will make you jump! Jump!
Logan Yordanich can push you out of bounds simply by gesturing at you.
Well, look who’s Mr. Popular!
Though Huron’s scouting indicated otherwise, Nate Udell is, in fact, not ticklish.
Calling Joey Newland’s running lane a gaping hole is like calling Warren Buffett moderately wealthy.
No, really: Joey Newland is in there somewhere.
Yes, the Chelsea student section is that intimidating.
Brian Paulsen can’t shake the feeling he’s being followed.
Aaron Johnson knows the answer to your question.
Now that he has your attention, can Logan Yordanich interest you in a timeshare?
You’d think EMU would have opened more than one checkout lane.
“You know what would get that stain out and leave your jersey brilliantly white? Tide with Bleach. Trust me.”
Cal Bauer and Anthony Catalina are all about teamwork.
Be careful — if you make eye contact with Matt Gillespie, he’ll steal your soul!
The scoreboard operator cleared the score too quickly, but trust me: Chelsea won, 26-7.
Next Week:
The Bulldogs face the Trojans of Monroe. The game is in Chelsea on Friday at 7pm. Be there!
Photo of the Now, vol. 225: Sounds & Sights edition
Chelsea’s summer-long Sounds & Sights on Thursday Nights events features one extended weekend with three evenings of concerts under a tent on a downtown parking lot.
Thursday evening: Champions of Breakfast
Thursday evening: My Dear Disco
Friday evening: the Howling Diablos
Between acts Friday evening, the CHS drumline entertained the crowd.
Friday evening: the Sun Messengers
Saturday afternoon: Koala Tease
Saturday afternoon: Dr. Dwayne and the Bad Boys From Spain
Saturday evening: Noteworthy
Saturday evening: Fifty Amp Fuse
Photo of the Now, vol. 224: Green thumb edition
In mid-July, the Chelsea Garden Club held its biennial Garden Walk, an event that gives the public a chance to walk through ten of the Chelsea area’s more beautiful gardens.
The Mastie garden:
The Mann garden:
The Larson garden:
The Dreher garden:
The Inwood garden:
The Cooper garden:
Ice is back, day 13: paint it cool
On the morning of day 13, the rink was finally ready to paint.
I arrived at the arena shortly after 9:00, when the crew was preparing to lay paint. The paint that provides the nice bright white color comes in powder form to be mixed by the paint crew, as Dan and Tom are doing here.
Painting ice is much different than painting more typical surfaces like wood; instead of drying over a longer period of time, the paint freezes shortly after it’s applied. When it’s frozen, it’s sealed with a thin layer of ice on top of it.
To cover the ice, it takes 300 gallons of white paint applied in three coats. The crew used a small garden tractor to pull the paint sprayer, a clever device that looks and operates much like a very small crop sprayer.
Thanks to those three coats of paint, the ice gained its familiar white color and the room seemed considerably brighter.
With the white paint applied and sealed, it was time to add the hockey lines. While it might be fun to freehand the lines, neither hockey players nor officials would appreciate crooked lines, so the crew put down string to ensure straight lines.
You may have noticed that the string has also been sealed with a layer of ice to make sure it doesn’t move. This was accomplished with a small pump sprayer, as shown here in the hands of Dan.
The painting process itself is fairly pedestrian: it involves paint, a brush and a lot of work.
Of course, there are also a few circles necessary for a good game of hockey. To create the proper circles, the crew cut string in the circles’ radii, attached them (one at a time, naturally) to a spike and drew the circles on the ice.
As the day progressed, the surface began to look more and more like a real sheet of hockey ice.
The center ice circle still looked bare, but that didn’t last long: that’s Tom standing next to the circle preparing to paint the arena’s name around the circle.
By 6:15 nearly all of the essential lines and circles were painted and sealed, leaving only the graphics to be added.
The graphic work occurred the morning of day 14, but a schedule conflict prevented me from being there to document the process. That means the next day will show the considerably less exciting process of flooding the rink to add the last inch of ice on top of the paint.
Ice is back, day 12: there’s gonna be a floody, floody
Required reading: day 1; day 3; day 6; day 7; day 8; day 9; day 11
On day 12 the sand was frozen, which meant it was time to begin flooding to build the ice. I arrived after the flooding began, and the difference was obvious thanks to the glossier surface. (I would have said the difference was clear, but that would have been an offense worthy of severe pun-ishment.)
The gloss was provided by the first thin layer of ice on the frozen sand.
Like the rest of the replacement process, flooding was somewhat tedious and time-consuming; in order to build the ice gradually, the water is added with garden hoses, one thin layer at a time.
To minimize splashing, the hoses need to be kept close to the surface; since holding a hose at ground level for hours would be murder on the workers’ backs, they used a simple and wonderfully appropriate solution: they taped the hoses to hockey sticks.
The flooding continued until there was a base of ice suitable for painting. And since I’m sure that’s what many of you really want to see, let me give you the good news: the next post — day 13 — will feature eight and a half hours’ worth of photos of the process of painting the ice.
Ice is back, day 11: she’s a cold-hearted rink
By day 11, the sand was thoroughly soaked and ready to be cold as ice.
Before the crew could start building ice, they had to prepare a hard base on which to build the ice; the sand, having been fully soaked, could now be frozen to provide that base.
You may note the flurry of activity on the hardening surface. You may also note the sarcasm oozing from the strokes and counters of that sentence. Do you remember how thrilling it was to watch the sand dry? Watching the ice freeze was only slightly more thrilling. But it was a warm June day outside, so it was nice to spend some time in a cold arena.
When you dump a bunch of water on the floor, you’re bound to end up with plenty of humidity in the room; that consequence can be seen not just by the fog in the above photo, but also by the view through the glass shown in the below photo.
Next up will be day 12, when the floodgates opened.
Ice is back, day 9: soak it to me soak it to me soak it to me
With the very large, very flat sandcastle complete, Tom brought out the sprinklers.
Sprinklers are typically used to help grow crops or grass or happy children on a hot day, but in this case they were being used to grow ice: the sand had to be thoroughly soaked before the crew could start building ice on the sand.
Next up is day 11, when a cold front moved through the arena.
Photo of the Now, vol. 221
Each Saturday morning from late spring through summer, farmers descend on Park Street in Chelsea to offer a variety of fresh produce at Chelsea’s farmer’s market. I was dispatched to get a few photos of this week’s market.
The market also features inedible offerings like flowers and even jewelry.
But really, once you see these, it’s hard to think about anything else.
Photo of the Now, vol 220: in memory of Lt. Joel Gentz
Two weeks ago, Air Force 1st Lt. Joel Gentz, a graduate of Chelsea High School, was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Yesterday, his funeral procession brought Main Street to a halt as grateful Chelsea residents stopped to pay their respects to a man who died in service to his country.
The rock in Pierce Park received an appropriate paint job.
Businesses around town expressed their gratitude, too.
Ice is back, day 8: a day at the beach
By day 8 the sand was dry enough to host a party, so arena employee Tom invited a few hardworking friends to build a very large, very flat sandcastle.
Building a sandcastle so large and so flat takes plenty of work, including bringing in the new sand…
…raking it out…
…and packing it down with a roller.
While all that hard work was happening, Tom also made sure to check the sand against the laser level to make sure all that work produced a flat surface.
Shortly after I took the above photo, Tom declared the sand base complete and packed up the level, leaving the rink ready for the next phase of the project.
That next phase will be day 9, when all that drying became a distant memory.
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