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.

Yes, the puck trickled across the line.

Photo of the Wrestling Now: 21 January 2012

Chelsea hosted a wrestling match gathering meet party competition soiree game thing. I apologize: I’m not hip to the language of wrestling. I like the sport of wrestling, but I’m not around it enough to know the lingo. Several schools got together on a Saturday and wrestled for a while. Can I call that a wrestlemania, or will I get sued? Ah, who cares:

Chelsea hosted a wrestlemania (but not THAT Wrestlemania).

If you’ve never been a wrestling spectator, there’s one important truth you need to know: there’s lots of yelling.

Yeah, the spectators do some yelling, too, but most of it comes from the coaches. They yell instructions.* Most of the instructions sound like they’re intended to bring some sort of pain or humiliation to the opponent. This is an actual phrase yelled by an actual coach: “Push his head down!” This resulted in the wrestler’s pushing his opponent’s face into the mat. Which…well, I guess that’s cool as long as he didn’t plan to use that face at some point in the future.

*(Okay, let me clarify: good wrestling coaches yell instructions. There once was a wrestling coach who kept yelling “Just wrestle!” Let’s just say it wasn’t effective coaching.)

Here’s another important truth of wrestling: at some point somebody’s body will bend in a way it really shouldn’t.

Wrestlers will talk about leverage and other noble-sounding notions, but to my novice eyes, it looks like a wrestler’s goal is simply to bend his opponent in strange ways so as to convince him to pin himself in order to avoid pain. It’s almost like a self-defense class that turned into a sport.

For the record, the position in the above photo resulted in a stoppage immediately after I took the photo. A good wrestler will turn his opponent into a pretzel, but the refs are careful to make sure the pretzel doesn’t get injured.

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.

Michigan winter 2011-12: A photo essay

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: 13 January 2012

Dexter hosted Ypsilanti.

Just as Skyline had a better team than Chelsea, so did Ypsi have a better team than Dexter. The game went much the same way. This photo…

…is not a photo of a Dexter layup. It’s a photo of an Ypsi block. There might have been a few of those.

The Dexter student section has been unusually sedate this year, but it had a solid presence for this game:

Dexter has a decidedly more interesting mascot than my good friends over at Skyline:

If you’re a naval buff, you might be distressed that they spelled it Dreadnaughts and not Dreadnoughts. Why did they do that? I don’t know. I’m from Chelsea, remember? We don’t understand that town over there to the east.

(Seriously, though: if you know why it’s not spelled with an O, enlighten us!)

Referees have a difficult job, and they take more unnecessary abuse from more people than even those nattily-dressed London soldiers who have to stand perfectly still no matter the absurd things tourists do. They should get more respect than they do. (Referees, I mean.) Having said that: come on, basketball referees. Stop standing in my way already.

That shot is okay, but it would’ve been doubly okay had the referee not gone all Stripey McBetterDoorThanWindow on me. I know the referees don’t base their position on the annoying photographer in the front row, but sometimes it seems like they do. Basketball referees of the world: your backs are not unusually photogenic. Please stop placing them in front of my camera. THANK YOU.

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 Basketball Now: 30 December 2011

The Dexter basketball Christmas tournament wrapped up with both Dexter teams playing in the championship games. First up was the Dexter women’s team facing South Lyon.

Dexter won the game to win its own Christmas tournament. Actually…it might be a holiday tournament. Whatever. I’m calling it a Christmas tournament.

Oh, right. Dexter won.

The men’s championship game featured Dexter and Saline.

Saline wasn’t feeling cooperative, so it didn’t let Dexter sweep its own tournament.

Photo of the Basketball Now: 29 December 2011

Like Chelsea, Dexter hosts a basketball tournament over the Christmas break. I showed up at the gym to watch Dexter and Willow Run share the Christmas spirit through intense competition.

What’s that? What does a basketball game have to do with Christmas, you ask? Well…when they called traveling, we all thought of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem! And when they called a charge, we all thought of the charge Herod gave the wise men to find Jesus! And when they called an illegal screen, we…uh…

Hey, look! Pictures!

I would like to note that the above photo offers me an opportunity to poke some fun at Dexter football. I would also like to note that I am declining to take that opportunity. Let the record show that I have taken the high road once in my life.

Meanwhile, Coach Swoverland would like his team to remember the loneliest number.

Just as I’m a fan of adapting the Bedford mascot to various sports, so am I a fan of adapting Willow Run’s name to various sports. In this instance, wouldn’t Willow Jump be more appropriate?

As a bonus, Van Halen would approve of that name.

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.