A goaltending battle for the ages ensued tonight at John McCormack Memorial Park with rookie sensation Shem ‘ShemWow!’ Hanna taking on battle-hardened veteran Justin Gordon (a.k.a. David Government, a.k.a. Gordongo). A cloudy, muggy atmosphere enveloped the rink in darkness and sweat all session, but it didn’t slow the goalies down this day. Today also marked the return of Bernie Koth-Kappus to BUSH for the first time since March 2008.

The first series pitted Lee, Oliver, Mitch, Justin and Bernie (who found that his bearings were virtually frozen and consequently missed the entire first game repairing his skates as a result) against Ben, Terryn, Shem and a rare appearance from Nathan Robson on skates. As is becoming the norm this month, none of the first twenty shots went in as the goalies stood on their heads (there were so many outstanding saves tonight that it is simply impossible to try and recount them). Terryn scored the first goal unassisted, and Ben and Nathan hooked up for the second to take a 2-0 lead in Game 1. That was all the scoring they’d get in. Even though the rest of the game was played quite evenly between the two squads, the combination of Lee and Mitch was just too potent when it counted as they scored five unanswered goals to win the game.

Although Team Shem gained a sub in Bernie for Game 2, it was a sub that had stayed awake from the previous night until 2 pm this very afternoon celebrating his ten-year high school reunion, got three hours of sleep, and was then rustled out of bed straight into driving duty to get to the rink. How Bernie even managed to stay awake through the session was a miracle. Game 2 went much the same as Game 1 with Team Gordongo (Justin donning a Roberto Luongo home sweater to Shem’s black late-80s Canucks throwback) taking it 5-3. Lee and Mitch had eight points each that series, and shockingly, Ben was held to just two points firing shots from every point of the rink but unable to beat Justin more than once. While Justin was .847 after the first series, Shem was a below-par .757, which makes their final totals for the day even more astounding. Cue Game 3.

It is only on the rarest of occasions that two goaltenders produce 40 saves each in the same game. Although the length of the game wasn’t necessarily longer than others, the volume of shots, and the volume of outstanding saves, made this game a singular experience in Burton history. Shem (backing Bernie, Lee, Terryn and Oliver) battled Justin (backing Nathan, Mitch and Ben) down to the wire. With David Government and ShemWow! matching each other save for save, break for break, we were saying ‘Wow!’ every time. Shem finally notched his lone win of the day 5-3 at the end. An incredible wall-to-wall display of goaltending that left everyone stunned agape and speechless.

Game 4 reunited Lee and Mitch, pairing them up with Terryn and Shem against the sub team of Ben, Oliver, Nathan, Bernie and Justin. Ben finally had some luck in this game as his shots began to go in This game was also headed for mythical status until the cover of darkness kicked in around 3-2, finally making it too hard for the goalies to see the blistering shots. Lee and Mitch hooked up for more tandem scoring plays, but their opponents were equal to the task, and took the game 5-4. The last three goals went in less than five minutes. Shem went .898 in the last two games; Justin .893. It was an excellent four-game slugfest, but the days of 6:30 pm starts are over for this season. We can’t afford to have sessions this good cut this short due to darkness. A superlative 135 minutes of hockey today.

What a battle in net! Just five shots difference between the two all-world goalies tonight. Shem had one more save than Justin (102-101, both goalies averaging just over 25 saves per game), but Justin let in four fewer shots to take the day .878-.850 in one of the greatest goaltending duels in Burton history. The skaters were definitely overshadowed tonight. Nevertheless, two scorers managed to nail the vaunted 15-point barrier right on the button. Lee went 9G-6A on 45 shots while Mitch went 7G-8A on 50 shots to share first-star honours. This is Mitch’s first career first star; the distinction of having the most three-star points without a first star now going to Simon Hilton. Ben unleashed an unholy 67 shots on goal in just four games, but those first two games hurt him, leaving him to share third star with Terryn at nine points with identical tallies of 6G-3A.

Here are the game scores:
Lee Oliver Mitch Justin def. Nathan Terryn Ben Shem 5-2
Lee Oliver Mitch Justin Bernie def. Nathan Terryn Ben Shem 5-3
Bernie Lee Terryn Shem Oliver def. Nathan Mitch Ben Justin 5-3
Ben Oliver Nathan Bernie Justin def. Lee Mitch Terryn Shem 5-4

Season Stats: While Lee runs away with the scoring title, the battle for second is tightening up. Kyle holds on at 242, but Oliver has moved into third at 239 with Stefan at 234 and Mitch at 232 and Ben at 217. Shem ties Bernie for 13th. Lee opens up his assist lead on Oliver to thirteen, 159-146. Ben passes Kyle for fourth in assists. Lee needs just one shot on goal for 800. Mitch passes Stefan for second and passes 700 shots, while Ben jumps over Oliver into fifth in shots. Ben and Oliver become the fifth and sixth players to reach 500 shots this year. Justin jumps up to fourth ahead of Lorne while Shem just edges ahead of K.J. and Bron into sixth in season save percentage. Shem passes Joern to move back into second in saves. Mitch becomes the third player this year to play 100 games. Shem is games behind Stefan for fourth and needs seven for 100. He also passes Lorne for second in games goaltended. Ben is five points behind Kyle for third in three-star points. Mitch ties Pat for seventh. Lee passes Kyle for second in PPG, Tony for fifth in GPG, and Ben for first in APG. Terryn now qualifies for the shots-per-game category and debuts fourth. Lee and Ben pass K.J. for fifth and sixth. Justin passes K.J. for third in saves-per-game and is marginally behind Nathan for second. Shem jumps from eighth to sixth. Justin’s .878 is the fifth-best session so far this year.

On the all-time front: Oliver needs four points to become the first player to score 1,500. Lee needs one for 1,300. Ben is 13 points behind Simon for 16th all-time. Lee is within sixty goals of Lorne for the all-time lead. Bernie still needs two goals for 400. Mitch passes Kyle for tenth in all-time goals. Oliver becomes the third player past 3,000 shots and is 71 behind Lorne for second. Ben is the 18th player to reach 500 shots. The standard to be eligible for all-time goaltending records has been increased to 250 shots against, which serves to remove Troy from the top of the goaltending list and elevate K.J. back to number one. Justin becomes the sixth goalie to make 2,000 saves. Shem passes K.J. for tenth in saves. Justin is seven games played behind Laird for sixth all-time. Mitch needs eight games for 200. Shem ties Shawn for eleventh in games goaltended. Ben passes Laird for 15th in three-star points with Mitch five points behind Laird. Ben falls slightly behind Dustin Marchischuk for fourth in PPG. He does shoot up to seventh in shots-per-game, just ahead of Lee and just behind Lorne and Kyle. Shem jumps from seventh to fourth in saves-per-game. Lee ties Lorne for the most 15-pointers ever at 49. Mitch is one behind Kyle for ninth, 14-13. Ben’s streak of 15-pointers ends at eight. Lee’s ten-goal streak ends at four sessions. Shem has two back-to-back 80-savers in full sessions. Oliver plays his 29th consecutive session, Lee plays his 13th, Bernie and Ben their ninth. Lee now has the second-highest scoring single season ever at 328 points, 47 points behind his 2006 season, as well as the second-highest season assist total at 159 (Oliver has the record with 177 in 2000; Oliver’s 146 assists this year rank fourth). Lee’s 799 shots are third; Mitch’s 701 are fifth.

SDF/GDF: Pat spends his eleventh straight session on top of the SDF (the fourth-longest streak ever), as Ben’s slightly-off session keeps Pat narrowly in the lead. Pat’s inactivity will drop him out of the top spot next session. Lee moves up to fourth and Stefan to fifth. On the GDF, Dom holds court for a fifth straight ranking while Justin moves up one spot to fourth and Shem two spots to sixth.

Don’t forget check out those Records and Honours on the Links page before you leave. Tuesday should see an earlier start time in order to help deal with the slowly-fading daylight. But it’s also shaping up to be sunny and hot. Tune in next time to see how the BUSH crew copes.