With the return of Joern, and the continually better weather we scheduled a session for the Monday of the long weekend. We got good response from everyone and appeared to have enough people for 3 on 3 or more.

As it turns out we had a few complications last minute. The first problem was not everyone looked to be showing up. We still decided however to keep the session at the Robson Park rink. On arrival we found the rink to be in full use by some foot hockey players, so after gathering the troops we decided to do some exploring and checkout the Queen Elizabeth Park rink. The only person to ever see the rinks there was Bernie, who's only comments were that they were big but extremely nice.

We arrived to find a massive complex of tennis courts, basketball courts and two gorgeous rinks. The first was a regulation sized rink, the second being a rink a bit smaller, which looked to be an ideal size for 3 on 3 or more. The rink itself had pristine boards, nice nets, and great netting all around. I was completely blown away by this complex at Queen E.

We quickly claimed the smaller rink and got some teams sorted out. Since we were down to 3 on 2 Joern decided Pedro and myself should challenge Andrew, Bernie and Lorne because we were the two fastest skaters. We chose Bron as our goalie and started right into our game.

The first game was utterly dominated by Pedro and myself. Joern was very shaky in net, and his team in front of him was not utilizing their extra attacker. The game ended 5-2.

The next game Joern picked up his game and started his dominance that extended through the rest of the day. In addition the team in front of him started to utilize all 3 skaters, in addition to Pedro and myself starting to feel some fatigue. Team Joern went on to win the second game 5-1.

The third game saw team Bron get up to 2-0 lead, only to have team Joern come back and score 4 straight goals. Pedro and Stefan picked up their game however and charged back with 3 goals to complete the comeback.

The fourth game we started to see the major effects of the big rink. Fatigue was setting into both teams which opened things up tremendously. Stefan alone probably had well over 10 breakaways during the game (getting shutdown by Joern on every one of them). After a good amount of time we found the game deadlocked at 4 each. As Stefan and Pedro were up front applying the presure on Joern the puck came out to Lorne. Lorne spotted Bernie heading down rink and fed him with a breakaway pass. Bernie moved in on Bron shooting five hole. Bron made the initial save, with the rebound shooting straight back out to Bernie who netted the rebound. This tied the series at 2 a piece.

At this point several players were too tired to continue so we decided to finish off the series via a shootout. Bron during the shootout really began to shine stopping the first 4 shooters, with Joern having Pedro and Stefan scoring each on their second shots. With the fifth shooter Bron stood up strong once again and won the series for his team.

All in all, a fantastic session at a really awesome rink. It is great to finally find a rink the perfect size for 3 on 3+ hockey. I foresee many more sessions being played at Queen Elizabeth Park.

Thanks, Stef! Finally someone played! And I didn’t have to correct anyone’s spelling in the recap! Lorne and Stefan each had nine goals this day, but Lorne had more assists and so takes first star with 13 points in four games. Even-handed Pedro, at 7G, 5A on 30 shots, takes second as Stefan only notched two assists to finish third with eleven points in total. 44 shots in four games is impressive, however. Joern faced a lot of shots in four games compared to Bron, and was up to the task in the new rink, finishing with .784 to Bron’s lower-than-usual .746.

Season Stats: Stefan closes the gap on the leading BUSH trio as he moves to within 14 points of Justin’s scoring lead while having played eight fewer games. Lorne is one point behind Oliver for fifth, and Pedro ties Mitch for tenth. Lorne and Stefan both move ahead of Seamus into third and fourth in goals and are both right behind K.J. for second. Stefan passes Oliver for fourth in assists. Stefan takes over the lead in shots from Justin with Lorne moving up to fourth and Andrew to tenth. Joern passes K.J. for second in season saves. Stefan and Bernie tie Graeme for fifth in games played on the year. Bron moves up to fourth in games goaltended. Lorne moves up to third in three-star points while Stefan is tied for fifth. Lorne continues to hold massive leads in both PPG and GPG, while Pedro now sits second in GPG and Stefan is back up to fifth. Stefan has all but erased Lorne’s lead in shots-per-game with this session. There were no session top-fives recorded this week.

On the all-time front: Stefan needs 23 points to become the sixth player to reach 700. Andrew needs five points for 100. Bernie is 14 assists ahead of Seamus for second all-time. Lorne passes 400 assists and is seven behind Lee for fourth. Joern needs one assist for 300 and is six assists behind Stefan for seventh. Andrew passes 250 career shots. Andrew is one point behind Tony for fifth in all-time VRH scoring. Lorne passes Seamus for fifth in all-time games played. Lorne passes Lee for the all-time three-star points lead. Stefan needs three games for 300. Bron falls behind Pat for third in saves-per-game. Lorne’s streak of ten-goal sessions ends at eight (the second-longest streak ever) while Stefan’s ends at six. Lorne’s 15-goal streak ends at three. Bron’s streak of 90-save sessions ends at three. Lorne’s 15-pointer streak ends at nine (also second-longest ever) while Stefan’s ends at seven. Stefan’s 20-pinter streak ends at four, Lorne’s at three. Bernie plays his twelfth consecutive session, Lorne his eighth, and Stefan his seventh.

SDF/GDF: Lorne retakes the lead in the SDF from Seamus as Lee continues to fall and Pedro has now moved up to seventh ahead of Kyle and Oliver. Seamus loses the lead in both rankings as his absence from goal puts Bron on top of the GDF with Joern catching him.

Well, invigorated by a new rink, VRH is back on track. The silence from BUSH, meanwhile, is unacceptable. Who will play next? Who knows? As long as it’s someone, and soon.

Not only can you check out the Records and Honours as usual, you can now browse through session photos! We won’t tell you which sessions have photos, though; that’ll ruin the surprise! You can add your own Burton Hockey pics as well; just upload them to Flickr and tag them with the boxscore ID you see at the bottom of the page above the comment box!