Category Archives: Chelsea

Photo of the Basketball Rivalry Game Now: 20 January 2012

When the Chelsea/Dexter girls game wrapped up, the boys took the court. While these weren’t two undefeated teams like those that had just finished playing, their records weren’t relevant: Chelsea/Dexter games are a Big Deal no matter what.

The Dexter student section did its best Children of Yost impression during Chelsea’s introductions.

When it came time for Dexter’s introductions, they continued what seems to be a burgeoning tradition: they shut off the lights and got their WWE on with a couple spotlights and a lot of yelling. I didn’t get any worthwhile photos from this year’s intros, but they did the same thing last year:

When the intros were done and the lights came back on, there was a strange white powder rising from the Dexter student section.

You can caption that in your own head. I don’t need that trouble.

With all the pregame festivities out of the way, the players finally started doing all the running and dribbling and passing and shooting and fouling and whatnot. The gym was mostly full and the game was entertaining enough to keep the crowd loud.

Chelsea students showed up to make some noise. There were a number of CHS athletes in the crowd:

The three students in the middle play other sports for CHS. Who else plays for CHS? This crew:

That’s the Chelsea girls basketball team cheering on the boys. Yes indeed, the 11-0 Chelsea girls basketball team. As you can tell from the photo, they made plenty of noise.

One of Chelsea’s signs got all scientific:

Hey, remember what I said about basketball referees standing in front of me?

I guess an arm is better than a back. That’s progress, right? But if any of you happen to be working on some sort of invisibility device, I’d suggest testing it on basketball referees who like standing in front of me. Please? Thank you.

Dexter lead nearly the entire game, but Chelsea wouldn’t go away: Dexter pushed its lead to double digits a couple times, but each time Chelsea managed to bring it back down. Still, the Bulldogs couldn’t quite take that final step of gaining the lead, so Dexter got the win.

Both teams — boys and girls — will face each other again later in the season.

Photo of the Basketball Rivalry Game Now: 20 January 2012

Being close neighbors and similar towns, Chelsea and Dexter tend to be heated rivals in high school sports. Over the past few years the football rivalry has been…uh…slightly one-sided, but in the same time frame the basketball rivalry has been anything but lopsided. This has helped the basketball games draw large — and loud — crowds, making the games even more fun.

On Friday the teams met for the first of their two yearly meetings — in a girls/boys varsity doubleheader. The evening started with the girls game, and it had plenty at stake: both teams came into the game 10-0. It was a game befitting the combined 20-0 record, as the teams spent nearly the entire game separated by no more than four points.

The Dexter student section showed up and made an effort to distract free throw shooters:

As it was a low-scoring game, there were plenty of solid defensive plays. This particular play later in the second half was a big stop for the Bulldogs:

Yeah, that shot never got anywhere near the basket.

Though the lead was narrow, Chelsea held it for much of the second half and got the win to improve to 11-0.

Come back soon for photos from the boys game!

Photo of the Basketball Now: 10 January 2012

Chelsea basketball visited Skyline. I made it to Skyline’s football stadium last fall, but this was my first trip to the gym. I already ranted about the school’s name, colors, and mascot in a previous post, so I’ll let you go back and read that if you really want to see an irrelevant guy complain about inconsequential matters.

As for Skyline’s gym: it has its good and bad points. The good: it doesn’t have seating on all four sides, so it tends to look more full than other newer gyms. Since basketball games around here seldom attract large crowds, I prefer this arrangement. Also, the gym has an…exciting sound system. Do you know how many speakers they have in the rafters? You do if you were following my twitter feed that evening. If not: 37. Thirty-seven. Yes, there were so many that I had to count them. It got loud.

The bad: I have only one bad point to list, but for photographers this one point can outweigh any and all good points of a gym. Are you ready? Okay, here it is: it was dark. No, strike that. It was all-caps DARK. The problem wasn’t the number of lights in the gym or even unnecessary and baffling opaque light covers — I’m looking at you, Saline — but instead was the lights themselves. You know how fancy restaurants have mood lighting? Yeah, that’s exactly what the Skyline gym has. It’s like they popped in a few 25-watt soft white bulbs and decided that was good. Was it? No. No it wasn’t.

(For the record, it’s fine for spectators. Just not for photography. And most gyms in the area aren’t much better — if at all. It’s just that I’d hoped for more from an otherwise good gym in a very expensive building.)

The Skyline basketball team is very talented this year, so it was a tough night for Chelsea. This photo sums up much of the evening.


So does this one.

Still, basketball is basketball: no matter how badly you lose, there are always scoring highlights. The only time basketball teams get shut out is when the NBA has a lockout. ZING!

The evening belonged to Skyline, so there was plenty of this:

And at one point in the third quarter, Skyline’s star athlete did this:

That dunk ended up providing me with the funniest photo of the evening:

I did not alter that photo. I laughed out loud when I saw it, but I did not alter it. Leave your captions and/or jokes in the comments.

After getting the crowd fired up with the dunk, he greeted his teammates with a big smile on his face.

This might have been a foul. Maybe just an itty-bitty little tiny one:

With the game well in hand, this player got on the floor, and immediately it became obvious that his teammates’ goal was to help him score. Over and over they passed him the ball and got him shots.

I don’t know why they were so determined to get him points, but when I noticed what they were doing, I started rooting for him to score. (Every time I’ve seen a Chelsea team do something similar, it’s been for a good reason.) Sadly, he didn’t manage to score any points. But every time he put up a shot, the Skyline bench was ready to erupt. It put a smile on my face.

Photo of the Hockey Now: 17 December 2011

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.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 16 December 2011

Chelsea basketball faced Bedford. Officially they’re known as the Kicking Mules, but in basketball it’s illegal to kick the ball, so the mascot may require some adaptation to be appropriate. The Dribbling Mules? The Free-Throw Shooting Mules? There are any number of possibilities, really.

Anyway: Chelsea basketball faced the Bedford Fill-In-The-Blank Mules. On that particular evening they must have been the Rented Mules, because Chelsea beat them like…oh, you get it.


“No, see, you have to turn right onto Old US-12. Then you’ll see Thompson’s Pizzeria shortly after you pass M-52.”

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 Santa in an Abandoned Factory Now: 11 December 2011

If you’ve driven down Main Street in Chelsea, you might have noticed a decaying factory building just south of downtown. For decades that factory housed Federal Screw Works, but in 2005 the company shut it down. It’s been maxin’ and relaxin’ ever since, taking up space and looking all hip and run-down like that weird guy at that too-cool-for-school coffeeshop. (However, redeveloping that guy would be a lot easier than redeveloping the old factory site.)

One Sunday afternoon my editor called and wondered if I was free to join her at FSW. She said the University of Michigan was putting on some sort of event there, but she couldn’t really explain it over the phone. I don’t know about you, but I don’t get invited to abandoned warehouses very often — probably because my name isn’t Horatio Caine — so I said I’d be there.

When I arrived, I realized why she couldn’t really explain it over the phone. Here’s an excerpt from the brochure that accompanied the event:

In the collective optic, oscillating between fetishism and lament, ubiquity and monumentality, engagement and distanciation, a state of being and coming undone, the ruin has resurfaced as a site of symbolic appropriation, chimerical exploration, material contestation, and fabricated desire. Welcome to Federal Screw Works.

Later:

Can the self-reflexive cultivation of enthusiasm for the ruin help build support for its transformation; can the pluralistic reimaging of ruin help concerned constituents speculate about alternative futures for a derelict site? In consideration of these questions, Federal Screw staged an event and collective exploration, a first step in a forthcoming master plan for Chelsea Common.

Make of that what you will. To this decidedly non-academic layperson it appeared to be an art exhibition housed in a crumbling factory. It might hold more meaning to all y’all in the academic or art worlds, but I’m just a guy in the taking pictures for money world. I don’t fly in that stratosphere.

When I walked into the factory I was greeted by raucous percussion echoing through the cavernous main room. The source of that percussion? Santa. No, seriously. Santa was playing the drums. What, you don’t believe me? Here’s a picture.

You can get a sense for the level of decay the factory has suffered by the standing water on the floor. The roof, the roof, the roof doesn’t do its job very well anymore.

Here’s the whole scene. If the wall on the right side appears to be a bit newer, that’s because it is. It was hastily constructed after the original wall suddenly collapsed a few years ago.

Okay, fine, that wasn’t actually Santa playing the drums. How do I know this? Primarily because Santa is a jolly old fraud,* but also because his name was in the brochure. His name is Leo Denoyer.

*(Hey, if your Santa-believing child is reading this blog, he’s old enough to know better.)

On the left side of the above photo you can see a low wall. On the other side of that wall was a display of balloons.

This had nothing to do with barrage balloons in World War II, though that would have been a nifty historical reference. The brochure lists the balloon display as “Phytoremediation forest doppelgänger“.

A couple rooms away was a mildly disorienting display that involved optical illusions and disposable shoe covers. (The shoe covers weren’t part of the display. They actually were for covering shoes.)

When I sent the photos to my editor, I provided the following caption for the above photo: “Optical illusions: fraud for your eyes.”

There were people wandering around with cameras, but I have a sneaking suspicion I was the only oddball getting paid to take photos. Here’s one of those other camera people taking a picture of the mildly disorienting display.

The FSW factory is a very large building, and the gentleman in charge indicated they had a very limited budget for the project. This meant most of the building was simply left in its naturally dilapidated state, as seen here:

Though I may not be able to explain the event that was taking place in the building, I can tell you that I was excited to see the interior of the old FSW building. Having lived in Chelsea for 30 years now, and having watched the building slowly decay over the past six years, I’ve long been curious to see the interior of FSW. Now I’ve seen it.

…And, like few others, I’ve seen Santa playing the drums in it.

(In case you’re curious, here’s the article my editor wrote. She did a much better job of making sense of it all.)

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.