Stefan and Bernie made the trek over from VRH to play in Burton Saturday. It was a sweltering April day that saw nine games sweated out over four hours. Few sessions in history have been as utterly exhausting as this marathon. Sticks in the middle produced Seamus, Oliver, Justin and Graeme against Bernie, Chris, Stefan, Kyle and K.J. for the first series, and this series wasn’t even close. Justin was on fire out of the gate, scoring nine points in the first two games as his team won 5-1 and 5-2, ensuring that Chris’ save percentage for the day would be ruined. Seamus showed no rust at all in his first goaltending session of the season. For the next series, goalies were switched and Bernie was transferred to Oliver, Justin and Graeme. It looked to be more of the same as Justin got another four points and his team won 5-1. This was a lot closer than it looked, however. Constant corner battles for the puck, lots of physical contact and end-to-end rushes made for a crazy first two games. After the first three games, K.J. still didn’t have any points, and Kyle and Stefan had only two apiece. This changed dramatically in the second game of this best of five as Kyle came alive to lead his team to a 5-2 victory. Seamus held the fort as the Kyle-Stefan-K.J. team finished off the series 5-1 and 5-0; K.J. figuring on nine of the last ten goals. Chris had to leave, so K.J. went in net and proceeded to dominate like few goaltenders have ever done in Burton. Justin was there only in spirit for the last half of the session, scoring three points in the last four games and sucking air like oxygen was going of style. K.J. backed Graeme, Kyle and Oliver to a 5-0, 5-2 series win as Kyle figured in on nine of the ten goals his team scored. The guys wanted to push the session game total to 12, but the final game lasted well over 40 minutes and killed any chance of that. Despite two great deke goals from Mitch, Justin, Kyle, Graeme, Bernie and Seamus won the final game 5-4; it took almost fifteen minutes for the golden goal to be scored. This was certainly not a session you could envision happening in Vanciouver. Stefan said that if this session had taken place at Ambleside, there would have been 13 or 14 games played. Everyone was absolutely wrecked at the end; some players could barely walk at the end. Justin, especially, was beaten to a pulp with numerous lacerations all over his back and a chunk of meat sliced away from his elbow. Also notable was Kyle being laid out by a fencepost along the boards and sent flying.

In a session that pretty much destroyed everyone who played in it, only Kyle was able to break 20 points even though nine games were played; he finished with 16-9-25-72. Oliver and K.J. tied for second star with 17 each; K.J.’s total is especially notable considering he spent the last third of the session in net. The O’Connors were incomparable in net as usual. K.J. laid down an amazing .917 in net; the third-best mark ever recorded. He garnered more saves in three games than Chris did in six. Seamus was excellent throughout the session, but especially in the last game; he finished with .824. Chris was still at his season average with .735.

Season Stats: We see a bit of a gap form this week as Seamus enters the net. K.J. now leads with 95, four ahead of Justin and eleven ahead of Seamus. Stefan holds in fourth while Oliver and Graeme moves ahead of Lorne into fifth and sixth. Justin leads K.J. by three in goals. K.J. moves just ahead of Seamus to take the lead in assists 49-48. Justin vaults into the shot count lead and needs one for 200 on the year. Stefan moves up to second. K.J. narrowly moves ahead of Oliver into the shooting percentage lead. K.J. leads both major categories, as he has a massive lead in goaltending with Seamus a distant second. Seamus moves to third in saves. With no BUSH platooning this year, Lorne has a massive lead in PPG and GPG, while Seamus now ranks ahead of Stefan in APG. With Chris missing the last series of the session, only Seamus, K.J. and Justin have played all 37 BUSH games this year. K.J. ties Seamus for the lead in three-star points. Stefan falls to fourth in PPG as it becomes evident that playing in VRH is skewing per-game statistics this year; a result of the 2-on-2 dynamic there as opposed to 3-on-3 with a sub most days in BUSH. K.J. is easily first in saves-per-games; Seamus is fourth. Kyle’s 25 points this session rank third for the year; his 16 goals tie for second. Graeme’s 12 assists rank fourth. Kyle’s 72 shots are second highest in a session this year; Justin’s 64 rank fourth. The O’Connor brothers post the two best goaltending sessions of the season. Seamus’ 117 saves are second-highest this year.

On the all-time front: Kyle jumps from 20th to 16th in all-time points. Oliver passes 700 assists. Stefan passes Joern for seventh in assists and needs one for 300. K.J. passes 200 assists. K.J. takes back the all-time goaltending lead from Seamus, and by quite a large margin. Seamus is one game behind Lorne for fifth all-time. Seamus falls to fifth in saves-per-game. K.J.’s amazing .917 ranks third all-time for sessions. Justin records his third straight ten-goal session. Amazingly, although he has recorded ten goals 21 times, this is the first time he has scored more than 15. Stefan records his seventh-straight 15-pointer, K.J. his fifth, and Justin his third. Kyle records his second career 25-pointer. Seamus plays his 21st consecutive session, Justin his 17th, Bernie his tenth, Chris his seventh, and K.J. his sixth.

SDF/GDF: Seamus takes the SDF lead right back from Lorne as K.J. jumps up to third and Kyle rockets up to seventh. Justin drops two spots to fifth. Seamus also takes over the GDF from Bron, with an excellent rating of .8365.

We should see another BUSH session later this weekend! Stay tuned.