After a well-deserved week off for the BUSH crew following the longest session in history last week. One can imagine the excitement when it was released to the public that a long-lost friend of Burton Hockey would be making his return after six years-in goal of all places. Brandon Blair waded his way into a very deep BUSH goaltending pool today, maskless to boot. In fact, opposing goalie K.J. ditched his too, meaning both goalies would have to be prepared for massive slapshot in the face.

If today’s session had a title, it would be ‘Searching For Balance’. With seven skaters, it was a challenge all day to find teams that worked, producing six different line-ups over the eight games. When Brandon started hot out of the gate, the opposing team almost threw their hands up in the air. ANOTHER great goalie? Again? Can’t we get at least ONE stiff in the pipes this year? Despite only lasting 20 minutes, the first game featured 59 shots on goal between the two sides as Brandon teamed with Troy, Kyle and Lee to win 5-2. Lee notched four assists here. Of course, Brandon had to top his .926 in the first games, so with new teams that wound up being even more unbalanced than the previous match, he posted a seven-save shutout in his second career game in net. K.J. was brutally assaulted by BUSH standards, posting a mere .750 as Kyle, Ben and Nathan lit it up.

Another rearrangement paired the Orrs with Troy and K.J against Ben, Kyle, Nathan, Shem and Brandon. Subs were the difference here, as Team Orr capitalised on every moment Ben was off to win otherwise close-fought games 5-3, 5-3. Instead of pushing for a best-of-five, however, it went back to sticks, which was a mistake, especially for the resulting tandem of Ben. Brandon, Nathan, and Graeme, who were swamped 5-1, Brandon letting in five of twelve.

Abandoning sticks in the middle for the moment, teams were engineered for the next series, and balance was finally arrived at with Brandon, Ben, Shem, Nathan and Troy against Lee, Kyle, Graeme and K.J. The two highlights of the series were both on slapshots provided by Mr. Grenier. The first goal of the first game was a massive slapshot that was carried through with such force that Kyle fell over on the follow-through, prompting him to yell out, ‘I’ve become Terryn Stenseth!’. In the second game, well, remember how Brandon decided not to wear a mask? Kyle unleashed an unholy shot that nailed Brandon right in the jaw, flew over the boards and across the street halfway onto the neighbouring property. Mr. Blair’s subsequent scream of anguish could be heard in Arrow Park and may have carried over the Valkyrs to Winlaw. And, yet, he didn’t even drop to his knees; he kept on, winning both games 5-3.

We went back to sticks for Game 8, and the intriguing trio of Lee, Kyle and Shem was produced. Shem rarely plays without a sub and hadn’t all session, so he was definitely an x-factor; no one had any idea what to expect. How about a 5-3 win over a younger, faster team, plus three points for Shem? Because that’s what happened, and that’s how it ended. Another fantastic goaltending session, and another great rookie goaltender to boot. Hopefully Brandon is back in the fold now.

Well, it was a proverbial stat-killer for the skaters today, but playing a full eight-game session did help quantity-wise. Scoring was close all day between the individual skaters even if wasn’t between the teams, and the top five were close all day. Lee led the way with 13G-8A-21P, just edging out Kyle (12G-8A) and freshly-tattooed Troy (9G-11A), who tied for second at 20. Also close behind were Ben (8G-10A) and Nathan with a career session of 11G-6A. As you can see, shots on goal were distributed fairly evenly. Truly, the stars were in goal. Brandon continues the stream of outstanding goaltending this season in BUSH with a sick .841 on 138 saves in his debut session. K.J. had a slow start but came back to post .815 on 141 saves.

Here are the game scores:
Brandon Troy Kyle Lee def. Graeme Ben Nathan Shem K.J. 5-2
Brandon Kyle Ben Nathan def. Graeme Lee K.J. Shem Troy 5-0
Graeme Lee K.J. Troy def. Ben Kyle Nathan Shem Brandon 5-3 5-3
Lee Ben Shem Troy K.J. def. Ben Brandon Nathan Graeme 5-1
Brandon Ben Shem Nathan Troy def. Lee Kyle Graeme K.J. 5-3 5-3
Lee Brandon Kyle Shem def. Ben Graeme Nathan K.J. Troy 5-3

Unfortunately, Bernie is ultra-late with Saturday’s VRH SuperSession stats, so this session is actually going to go up before that one does. This understandably skews the stats for the next day or so, so these are provisional. The VRH write-up (tomorrow, hopefully) will be more accurate.

Season Stats (provisionally): Lee finds himself with his largest scoring race lead of the year, 106 points ahead of Ben 462-357. Kyle goes past 300 but may be third or fourth behind Oliver based on yesterday in VRH. K.J. is within eight points of Mitch for fifth in season scoring. Shem needs three points to become the 15th player to reach 100 this year. Kyle passes Mitch for third in goals and is just one behind Ben for second. Ben is now shown second ahead of Oliver in assists (but almost certainly isn’t). K.J. passes Stefan to enter the top five in assists. Troy needs twelve assists for 100. Shem passes Pat for ninth in assists. Ben needs 49 shots on net for 1,000. Troy enters the top ten in shots on goal. Brandon debuts second in save percentage. K.J. jumps from tenth to seventh in saves and reaches 500 in a year for the first time ever. Lee is shown ahead of Oliver in games played right although that isn’t the case. Ben ties Mitch for provisional third in games played. Kyle plays his 100th game. K.J. jumps to seventh in games goaltended. K.J. joins the logjam at fifth in goalie star points and passes Lorne for fourth in total star points. Lee falls from second to fourth in the tight APG race behind Ben and Seamus. Kyle falls just below 8.00 shots-per-game. Brandon debuts fourth in saves-per-game while K.J. passes Shem for fifth. K.J’s 141 saves and Brandon’s 138 saves rank fourth and fifth-highest in sessions this year.

On the All-Time Front (provisionally): K.J. is 15 points behind Justin for seventh all-time. Graeme passes Laird to enter the top ten in all-time scoring; he passes Stefan and Laird to move to eighth all-time in BUSH. Shem needs three points for 100. Lee is nine goals behind Lorne for the all-time lead and needs 16 for 800. Kyle passes Mitch to enter the top ten in all-time goals. Troy needs eleven goals for 100. Graeme is twelve assists behind Laird for tenth all-time. Kyle becomes the 12th player to score 200 assists; Ben needs 15 for 200. Troy enters the top 20 in assists and needs eight for 100. Ben needs 49 shots on goal to become the 13th player with 1,000. K.J. becomes the eleventh goalie to make 1,000 saves. Kyle passes Simon for 16th in games played. K.J. passes Shawn for 12th in games goaltended. Brandon records a shutout in his first session. K.J. becomes the eighth player with 200 three-star points. K.J. passes Lorne for ninth in goalie star points. Lee records his 40th ten-goal session, two behind Lorne’s record of 42. Nathan records his first. Ben is now eighth all-time in ten-assisters with eight; he has back-to-back such sessions. Ben becomes the ninth player with 15 career 15-pointers. Nathan records his first 15-pointer. Lee passes Lorne for the lead in 20-pointers, 26-25. Kyle passes Justin and K.J. for sixth in 20-pointers with 13. Kyle and Lee both have back-to-back 20-pointers. K.J. has back-to-back 80-save sessions, and posts 130 saves in a session for the first time. Of course, so does Brandon. Lee plays his 21st consecutive session, Ben his 17th. Terryn’s consecutive session streak ends at nine. Brandon easily erases Pat Strachan’s record for saves in a rookie session with 138. His PPS of 979 is the second-best mark by a rookie ever, two weeks after Jesse’s 983 set the record. Three of the five best rookie save percentages and save totals, and four of the five best rookie PPS totals, have been recorded this year. Lee is eight goals away from setting a new mark for goals in a season. Ben’s 172 and Kyle’s 171 are fourth and fifth-highest ever. Ben’s 185 assists rank third-most ever. Ben is 49 shots on goal from becoming the second player ever after Lee to record 1,000 in a season.

SDF/GDF: We’re still waiting for the VRH session stats to came in before we can update the rankings.

Once Bernie finally sends the results of the VRH session in, you'll find that boxscore posted as well. Don't forget to check out the always-changing Records and Honours page in the Links section.