Mother Nature wreaked havoc on BUSH Wednesday. Lee had a session line-up ready to roll when a fair-sized storm rolled into the valley mid-afternoon. Rushing to judgement after a phone call from an unnamed chain-smoking goaltender, the session was called off at 4:30, only to be reactivated 20 minutes later when it became blatant that the amount of rain that may occur would be minimal and the storm was already dissipating. Thus, we played on. A few puddles greeted us, but they were dealt with quite handily (no, we didn’t use a ShemWow! to mop them up). Rain would come during Game 3 and stick around though most of Game 5, but it was light enough not to be a bother.

Two players of note: all-time goaltending leader Terryn Stenseth made his debut on skates, and Kyle Grenier, he of one career game goaltended (and four career shots faced) made his formal rookie debut in net. Sticks in the round gave us Leeroy, Panis, Terrorist and Norton vs. Mitch D., Cage, ShemWow!, Grenier and Benny (to be less formal about it). The first series was a demolition derby on wheels, especially for Lee, who blew four (four!) wheels in the first game alone. In a knock-down, drag-out battle that lasted 45 minutes, Team Kyle eked out a 5-4 victory with big numbers from Ben and Kyle. Did I mention Kyle was goaltending? Game 2 was somewhat luckier for Lee; he only blew one wheel. His two goals and an assist helped his team win 5-3. Terryn was already showing big ability by this point, and Oliver was an assist machine. No one, however, could have predicted that the goaltender, Kyle, would be tied for the session scoring lead after the first two games (which he was happy to point out to everyone within earshot!). Lee blew another tire in Game 3 (one that was brand-new for the game, to boot), sounding like a low-flying helicopter every time he skated by. Oliver put his scoring slump to bed for good here with two goal en route to another 5-4 win to take the series for his team.

With some reservations from the opposing squad, Ben, K.J. and Terryn were put together on the same team with Kyle in net against Lee, Oliver, Mitch, Shem and Nathan. Ben manned the point and swam through seas of sticks and flesh to drive to the net, and K.J. was his usual sniper ace as they led their crew to a 5-3 victory. With some tinkering, Lee finally found a combination of wheels that wouldn’t cause one of them to randomly explode, and his crew fought back to even Game 5 4-4 (Shem had three points here), but Ben buried a point shot to win the series. A final game was played with Lee, Ben, Terryn and Kyle vs. K.J., Mitch, Oliver, Shem and Nathan. This, too, went the distance. Ben was a wrecking machine here with four points, Kyle chipped in three more assists from goal, and their team pulled out another 5-4 game.

In what may begin to be a regular occurrence, Ben takes first star for the second time in three sessions (keeping in mind he didn’t play the full session Sunday) with a balanced 11G-9A on 67 shots (sixth-highest shot count this seen this year). Lee, despite playing a fair bit of defence in the second set, wound up with 12G-5A on 61 shots for second. K.J., at 10G-6A, just nudged out Oliver and Terryn (in his rookie skating session) for third star. In goal, it was an even battle all day. Nathan continues his yeoman-like patrolling of the Burton net, stopping a huge 127 shots for .825, just edging out an impressive rookie session from Kyle (111 saves and .816). Kyle’s ten assists from six games in goal is one of the nuttier stats ever produced in Burton (Nathan once got ten assists from goal back in May 2004, but needed eleven games to do it).

Here are the game scores:
Lee Oliver Terryn Nathan def. Mitch K.J. Shem Kyle Ben 4-5 5-3 5-4
Lee Oliver Mitch Shem Nathan vs. Ben K.J. Kyle Terryn 3-5 5-4
Lee Ben Terryn Kyle vs. K.J. Mitch Oliver Shem Nathan 5-4

Season Stats: The top ten stays fairly static other than Lee increasing his lead over Stefan and Ben getting close to Pat in sixth. Kyle needs three points for 200 and five more to catch Stefan for second. Shem passes Bernie for 13th. Lee passes Kyle for the lead in goals 122-113, and K.J. passes Oliver for sixth. Oliver passes Stefan for second in assists. K.J. passes Mitch for sixth in assists. Lee takes the lead in shots away from Stefan, who is just four shots ahead of Mitch. Ben jumps from eleventh to seventh in shots. Kyle debuts fifth in season save percentage and fourth in saves-per-game. K.J. moves into a tie for fourth in three-star points. Lee passes K.J. for third in PPG. Ben falls from the top five in APG. Nathan’s 127 saves rank third-most in a session this year.

On the all-time front: Lee passes 1,200 points and is now less than fifty away from Lorne for second all-time. K.J. needs four for 700. Ben jumps from 27th to 23rd in all-time points and is two points away from 21st. K.J. passes Laird for ninth in assists. Lee passes Lorne for the all-time lead in shots with 3,144. Mitch passes 1,000 shots. Nathan is 37 saves behind Chris for second all-time. Lee is two games behind Justin for sixth all-time. K.J. becomes the tenth player to play 300 games. Nathan is four games goaltended behind Joern for third all-time. Terryn becomes the second rookie skater this year to record ten assists in a session, tied for the second-best mark ever. Kyle’s 111 saves ties Scott Edison for fourth-highest save total by a rookie netminder. K.J. becomes the sixth player with 20 ten-goal sessions. Kyle ties Joern for seventh in ten-assist sessions with seven. He becomes the first player ever to have four consecutive ten-assisters, an amazing feat considering he was in goal today and his streak wasn’t even on the line. Oliver has back-to-back ten-assisters. Lee is three 15-pointers behind Lorne for first all-time (49-46). K.J. ties Lee’s record of eleven consecutive 15-pointers. Mitch’s streak ends at eight while Ben’s goes up to five. Terryn reaches ten assists and 15 points in his first session on skates. Nathan passes Chris for second in 80-save sessions with 22. He has back-to-back 80-savers. Kyle gets his first 110-save session in his first full session in goal. Nathan passes Laird for first all-time with his eighth 120-save session. Oliver plays his 24th consecutive session, the fourth-longest streak ever. Mitch plays his ninth, Lee his eighth, and Shem his fifth. Lee’s 115 three-star points are fourth-highest ever for a single season.

SDF/GDF: Pat is on top of the SDF for the sixth ranking in a row, tied for the fifth longest streak ever. Kyle and K.J. swap second and third, and Ben continues his ascension with a two-spot jump to fifth. Steve W.’s inactivity sees him drop from fifth to 15th. Lorne recovers a bit to seventh although his actual ranking remains the same. Shem leads for a second time on the GDF, with Nathan just marginally falling behind Terryn for second and Kyle leaping from 17th to fifth.

Check out those Records and Honours on the links page before you leave. BUSH is a lock for weekend action; VRH is trying to get one together as well. Your humble statistician will also be down in the Lower Mainland starting Monday and is looking forward to live VRH action for the first time this season.