Well, a half-session at a time, VRH slowly establishes itself as the second league, conference, whatever of Burton hockey. Saturday even saw VRH�s first homegrown rookie make his debut. Here is Stefan to fill you in (note to Stef: do you know how many times I had to change �Jarod� to �Jerod� in this write-up?).

If anybody had any doubt about the validity of the new rouge Vancouver Roller Hockey, they should now face to truth that this league is here to stay. Today we played another half court session with the following players showing up: Bernie, Doug Posnick (Jerod's cousin), Jerod, Lorne, Laird and myself. The session was scheduled to start at 11am, however Doug and Jerod were nowhere to be seen. A good hour and a half later they showed up after having a flat tire on their way over. Bad luck, but hockey was on, all was good.

The first game featured Bernie, Doug and Stefan pitted against Jerod and Lorne with Laird the lone goaltender. Lorne and Jerod got off to an quick start with a goal by Lorne. Then after some stellar goaltending by Laird, Lorne netted another goal, however this time it was on his own net, thus Doug got the point. After this point we entered the deadlocked phase where nobody could score on Laird. I wouldn't be surprised if it lasted a good 30 minutes. Part of the reason was Lorne, who ate McDonald�s right before coming, was going through some serious gut rot. While this meant that team Bernie, Doug and Stefan were getting numerous shots, and numerous chances they just couldn't put the puck in. Finally after a few longer water breaks Lorne got his energy back which lead to another 2 goals by team Jerod-Lorne.

At that point having their team not technically scored one of their goals Stefan was about ready to give up and do a team change. However after a bit of convincing they all decided to play the game out to 5 instead of 3. This was a good thing for team Bernie, Doug, Stefan as they were able to finally net some goals. 2 goals later and the game was tied at 3 a piece, and the Lairdowall was beginning to show signs of weakness. A little later Lorne came in on a fast break and netted his third goal of the game giving their team a 4-3 lead. Shortly after however team Bernie, Doug, Stefan came right back to tie the game and put it into sudden death overtime. In the end team Bernie, Doug, Stefan would persevere and complete the comeback. After game one each player had 4 points except for Bernie who had 3.

The next game the cousins (Doug and Jerod) had to play together so they challenged Bernie, Lorne and Stefan to a game. While Bernie and Stefan were working on getting used to playing with Lorne and vise versa, Doug netted a goal on the short side on a pass from Jerod to give them the early 1-0 lead. Again Laird continued his dominance in net, stopping a parade of shots from Lorne and Bernie in the slot on separate occasions. As play continued on Bernie, Lorne and Stefan began to gel. Lorne started a rush into the zone dekeing out his man, then passing off to Stefan. Stefan who was also being guarded pulled a behind the back pass right back to Lorne who was rushing towards the net. Lorne with a head full of steam put the puck home making the game 1-1.

As the game went on both teams started to tire, they had been out playing for at least 2.5 hours in a highly defensive match. As both teams began to tire some really bad mistakes were made. Bad passes out of the zone, inabilities to clear the zone, and some terrible defense was happening on both teams. On a scramble for a ball after one of these plays Stefan found himself in the slot with the ball. He quickly through a low snap shot on net and passed the screened Laird to make the game 2-1.

Both teams at this point were reaching their end, and soon after the last goal Lorne scored the 3-1 goal, and also the session ender to the second ever Vancouver session of hockey.

Just some useless information of my own. Laird played an excellent positional game, stopping most first shots without many rebounds. Doug played the match in aggressive roller blades (the big ass clunky ones with tiny wheels). Lorne went from all energy to McDonald�s no energy, then back to normal Lorne. There was a big volleyball tournament next to the rink with lots of girls jumping around, this seemed to catch the attention of all the players. Joern couldn't play because his sister was in town, she wanted her Turkish boyfriend to play a Canadian sport, and at one moment it seemed as if we were going to see Joern and the Turkish debut, he backed out of the offer and decided not to, meaning Joern was out as well.

All in all another great session, we played for a good 3 hours, and more games are being scheduled as we speak. While these sessions are in no way stats padders (unless of course you are a goalie) they sure are enjoyable, and this fall looks to be very promising.

Thanks for the excellent write-up, Klopp! Looks like Laird was putting in yeoman�s work. Two games in three hours! No wonder he netted 114 saves in 2 games! An astounding .898 save percentage. Stefan led the session in scoring with 3-4-7-23. Now, it�d sure be nice if BUSH could actually put a session together.

Useless Stats: Stefan moves up from 11th to 9th in the season scoring race. Laird�s huge session shoots him up to second in season save percentage and third in saves. Lorne is second in GPG. Laird�s .898 is second-best this year and fourth all-time; his 114 saves rank third this year. Stefan moves into third in three-star points while Lorne moves to fifth. On the all-time front, Lorne passes Justin for fourth in games played. Laird needs ten games for 400. Session streak records are not applicable as only two games were played. Laird has tied Nathan for the most 110+ save sessions with six. Dallas continues to lead the SDF for an eleventh straight session, the third-highest total and second-longest streak ever. Stefan, however, is now right behind him in second and poised to take over the number-one ranking within the next couple of sessions after a five-year absence from the top of the charts. Other big changes see Lorne jumping up to third and Jerod to sixth. K.J. plummets to tenth. On the GDF, Nathan�s injuries finally drop him off of the top as Brodie reassumes the lead with Laird poised to usurp him next session. The next BUSH session will be included with this ranking if it occurs within the next 30 days or before VRH plays their next session, whichever comes first.

Burton Cup: With the permanent establishment of a second conference of Burton hockey during the middle of the season, it is no longer viable to conduct the Burton Cup in its current format. The standings will thus be frozen in their current position for the rest of the season. The Cup itself is now intended for direct competition between BUSH and VRH.