Photo of the Actually Playin’ Hockey Now: 1 February 2012

Woodhaven hockey traveled to Chelsea to play some hockey. What’s Woodhaven, you might be asking? Well, it’s one of the towns in the hockey-loving area commonly known as Downriver. Aside from having a high school and a hockey team, Woodhaven is home to the Ford stamping plant. (Contrary to popular belief, a stamping plant does not produce angry toddlers and teenagers. It also doesn’t apply stamps to envelopes.)

When you shoot enough hockey in one place, you start to recognize the referees. I always recognize this one…

…in part because he has an especially enjoyable “Yeah, yeah, I hear you, but you’re wrong” face when the coaches and/or players start complaining.

Chelsea has an official athletics twitter feed that provides schedule and score updates. During this game I acquired ACTUAL FOOTAGE of the twitter feed being updated. Look at the gentleman on the right side of these three photos. You’ll see him pull his phone out of his pocket in order to post the score update to twitter.

Many area schools now have twitter feeds providing sports updates. It’s a great use of twitter. If you’re so inclined, you can follow Chelsea athletics at @ChelseaBulldogs.

Chelsea scored a lot of goals in this game. Here’s another one:

But it wasn’t all sunshine, roses, and Pepsi Throwback for the Bulldogs. In this case, one Bulldog not only ended up in his own net, but also had a penalty called against him. He did not agree with the call.

The game had an abundance of penalties. At one point the teams were playing 3-on-3 hockey and the scoreboard looked like this:

But Chelsea kept scoring anyway.

Did Chelsea win? Well, here. This photo might answer your question:

You may have noticed the post title is a little different from other hockey posts. That’s because there were two other notable events that occurred during this game, each of which deserves its own post. Those will be up next. Are you excited? Of course you are!

Photo of the Wacky Winter Olympics Now: 27 January 2012

The two Chelsea elementary schools — North School and South School, and don’t let anyone tell you they have different names, because they’re wrong — have a friendly competition to see which school can eat more servings of fruits and vegetables. At the end of the competition, the students are rewarded with the Wacky Winter Olympics, in which the teachers compete against each other in a collection of games that are — as the title suggests — wacky.

The Wacky Winter Olympics bring the entire Chelsea elementary school population together in one gym. Chelsea is a small town, but it still has a lot of kids.

When you pack that many kids into a small gym and get them excited about a competition, there’s one inevitable result: NOISE. After enduring last year’s bedlam I told myself I’d bring earplugs next time. This was next time. Guess what I forgot?

The kids made signs to support their schools.

This particular sign was my favorite:

It says “Go North Creek, Helho South Metos, Get a tayst of us.” Were that a sign written by a high schooler, it would be sad. But since it’s a sign written by a young elementary school student, it’s just plain wonderful.

(If case you’re having trouble with the lexicon of youth, here’s the deciphered sign: “Go North Creek, Hello South Meadows, Get a taste of us.” North Creek and South Meadows are the names some would insist applying to the schools. However, as with the Methodist Home and the old high school, we longtime Chelsea residents know better.)

If you doubt the noise level in the gym that day, the student at the bottom left of this photo should convince you:

The wackiness began with a beanbag toss.

The students were ecstatic when the North teachers won the first event.

The next event involved a basketball and plenty of intensity.

After that came my personal favorite. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it involves one teacher pushing another on small carts.

This event also featured plenty of intensity.

Every time I see that photo, I hear Braveheart’s “FREEDOM!” in my mind. Except She’s a teacher, so maybe she’d be yelling “LEARNING!” or something.

That’s my brother doing the pushing in the above photo.

The next event had teachers catching footballs in laundry baskets.

Then the teachers found a fascinating way to carry balloons.

Between events, the Beach Middle School principal helped get the wave started.

Then the teachers started dragging each other around on blankets.

Here’s my brother again:

Hey, I reserve the right to exercise nepotism. If you have a problem with it, I’ll take unflattering pictures of you.

Since this was the fruit and veggie challenge, it seemed appropriate that at least one of the events involve fruit or veggies. How about bowling with cantaloupes? Yeah, that works.

The final event featuring all the teachers was the ever-popular tug of war.

To conclude the Wacky Winter Olympics, the principals and PE teachers teamed up for a few challenges. To make it more fun, they dressed up as fruits and veggies.

One of the challenges involved stacking cups as high as possible within the time limit. The grape team created an impressively high wall of cups.

South ended up with more servings of fruits and veggies, but North ended up winning the olympics.

With the Wacky Winter Olympics concluded, the teachers got their sportsmanship on with a handshake line.

Photo of the Data Centerin’ Now: 19 January 2012

On a snowy Thursday morning I headed towards Ann Arbor with one of the fine folks from Edgar Norman Creative for a photo shoot with the fine folks from Velocity Data Centers. Oh, look! Here’s one now!

That’s Steve. Everybody say hi to Steve. He’s a nice guy. And if you need a sturdy data center for your business, Steve is your man.

The appealing texture of those doors distracted me…

…but eventually we got back to Steve.

Hey, do you remember that I said his data centers are sturdy? He had a sample of the wall:

Believe me, it’s solid.

After a while, Mike stepped in for his moment in front of the lens.

Mike is a nice guy, too.

Then Steve came back for a few more photos.

Eventually, Steve put an end to it.

Okay, I’m sorry. That was a terrible joke. Actually, Steve was still cheerful, but we had what we needed.

Photo of the Hockey Now: 21 January 2012

While Saline was playing on one of the Ice Cube’s rinks, Chelsea was over on another rink playing Ann Arbor Huron. The Saline game ended early due to the mercy rule, so I made it to the other rink in time to see the third period of the Chelsea game.

Before the third period could begin, the refs had to fix a blemish on the resurfaced ice. Anthony kept an eye on their progress.

When the third period began, Chelsea was leading Huron 2-0. That didn’t last long. On paper the teams weren’t evenly matched, and after two periods of close play, the paper came to life. Chelsea scored early and often.

Like I said, early and often. Oh, here’s another goal:

The hockey mercy rule is an eight-goal differential after two periods, and maybe halfway through the third — if that — Chelsea scored its sixth goal of the period to bring the game to an early end.

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.

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!