ELSIE — The log has been blessed. Now home goals can (hopefully) commence.

Fans of the Portland Timbers soccer team gathered en masse on Sunday, May 19, outside Camp 18 Restaurant on U.S. Highway 26 to bless a section of Douglas fir, a 2-inch round of which team mascot Timber Joey will lop off each time the team scores a goal.

Jim Serrill — former mascot Timber Jim — had been exciting fans at Providence Park with his chainsaw since the 1970s, until his retirement in 2008. His replacement Joey Webber — known as Timber Joey — took over and felt the tradition needed to continue.

More than a decade ago, Serrill, Webber and a group of fans traveled to Timber Junction, including a side trip to Camp 18 for breakfast, to acquire the first log of the season.

“We actually loaded up the trailer by hand with the first Timbers log in 2009, and helped a guy out who was suffering from diabetes, got his wood split for him,” Webber told the crowd Sunday at Camp 18.

The ceremony has grown, with Timbers fans packing a banquet room at Camp 18. Instead of Timber Joey finding, scaling and delimbing a tree, Hampton Lumber finds a log between 18 and 24 inches thick needing removal for safety or disease concerns. The log, often from the forests of Clatsop County, this year came from near Grand Ronde.

After gorging on breakfast and presenting a check for more than $4,200 to Meals on Wheels, Timbers fans filed out to a gravel lot, where the 10-foot section of Douglas fir sat on a trailer. They draped their wreaths over the top of the log and joined arms.

Patch Perryman, a capo in the Timbers Army fan club, placed his hand on the log and recited the Timbers Toast, an old Irish wedding wish Serrill passed on to the team.

After taking in the moment, a smaller group of fans with children in tow made their way to a field next to the Camp 18 Loggers Memorial, where they planted 2-year-old Douglas fir seedlings donated by Hampton Lumber and packed in by co-owner Jamey Hampton.

The log-blessing ceremony came a little later than usual this year, with the Timbers on a 12-game road trip while Providence Park in Portland is remodeled and expanded. Timber Joey will hopefully christen the log June 1 during a home match against the Los Angeles Galaxy.