Despite a forecast of rain, Nathan Robson was determined to get in another session of hockey. The rain held off through Thursday afternoon, and a 3-on-3 session was played in cloudy 5°C weather. Troy and Seamus returned to the circuit, and Shem was back to continue his strong play from Monday. But who would fill the other goal? Today, the rotating wheel of doom landed on the 6’6” Frank Courage, replete with broken foot. Even Graeme wearing his skates only came to the middle of Frankie’s forehead. In the tiny Burton nets, the crossbar came up to his belly button. On paper, a goaltending beast. Still, he was a rookie with a broken foot. Just the fact he even tried today is worthy of a hearty congratulations from all.

Sticks in the middle produced apparently lopsided teams, and so Graeme was switched with Nathan to produce Lee, Seamus and himself with Shem in goal against Kyle, Troy and Nathan with Frank. The result was not pretty. Shem stood on his head and completed barred the door on Kyle and Troy, stoning them chance after chance after chance. Seamus reached a huge milestone on the second goal of the game; his assist from behind Frank’s net out to Lee was his 1000th point in Burton Hockey, making him the fifth player in history to reach the number. He also had an interesting goal to win the game; Troy attempted to pass the puck from beside the net out to Kyle on the opposite side. Instead, Troy's pass hit Seamus’ stick dead centre and deflected past Frank to give Shem his first shutout in months. Seamus pointed out this game, and despite the shots being fairly even at 15-14, Kyle, Troy and Nate were left seething. Game 2 didn’t start much better; Frank was victimised again as Lee, Seamus and Graeme scored four goals in a row to start the game. Kyle finally beat Shem on a breakaway to end the shutout streak, and Troy potted another, but Shem held on for a 5-2 win and took the series.

It was decided to switch the goalies and continue with the same skater line-ups. Now backed by Shem, Kyle and Troy teamed up and went on a tear dominating play while Nathan held fort screening and blocking. Troy had Frank’s number this series, and exploded for six goals. Shem kept at his furious pace in goal, stoning Seamus and the Orrs repeatedly en route to a second shutout and a 5-0, 5-1 series win. His save percentage after four games was a breathtaking .951.

With three hundred percentage points between the two goalies and four lopsided games, drastic measures were taken for the final series that Shem was none too pleased about. Kyle, Lee and Seamus were placed with Frankie against Troy, Graeme and Nathan with Shem. The effect was immediate and positive, as every game in this series was hard-fought down to the wire. Shem was finally overwhelmed as BUSH’s three highest-volume shooters unloaded on him, sending him back down to earth. Troy, meanwhile, went torpedoing up the rink every time he had the ball, putting shots on Frankie who, after a bad start, found his groove in the last two games, going .842. Shem still had a couple crazy saves left, however, including a shot that Lee tossed up over the goalie’s head, only for it to land on the goal line; Grenier almost got there in time to cement the tally but Shem laid his stick down in the nick of time. Fittingly, this great series went to the wire before Kyle potted the winner from centre on a tic-tac-toe.

So maybe this is the final BUSH session of 2009. Who knows? What we do know is that the scoring stats were amazingly even after seven games today. Troy’s goal scoring onslaught powered him to the lead by a point, notching 14-6-20-52. Just behind him were Kyle (10-9-19-44) and Seamus (8-11-19-46) who tied for second. Lee did what he had to do today to become the first player to score 600 points, 300 goals, and 300 assists in a season, finishing at 10-8-18-40. In goal, even with a bumpy ride in the final series, Shem did more than enough in the first two to ensure his day would be great; he was more than happy with .858 on 103 saves with two shutouts. Frank had a very rough introduction to Burton Hockey, but went from .632 after four games to .695 after seven games with 73 saves. With a broken freaking foot!

Here are the game scores:
Shem Lee Seamus Graeme def. Kyle Nathan Troy Frank 5-0 5-2
Kyle Nathan Troy Shem def. Lee Seamus Graeme Frank 5-0 5-1
Kyle Lee Seamus Frank def. Troy Graeme Nathan Shem 4-5 5-3 5-4

Season Stats: Lee indeed reaches the absurd heights of 600 points, 300 goals and 300 assists in a single season. Kyle becomes the second player this year to reach 400 points. Troy is nine points behind K.J. for eighth. Shem ties Andrew Smart for 16th. Seamus and Graeme become the 18th and 19th players to score 100 points this year. Troy passes Lorne for ninth in goals. Seamus crosses the 50-goal plateau; Graeme needs one. Shem ties Bernie for eleventh in assists. Graeme crosses the 50-assist mark and moves to 19th. Troy passes K.J. for seventh in shots. Seamus enters the top 15. Shem passes Justin for fourth in save percentage. Frank becomes the record 30th goaltender seeing action this year. Lee passes 200 games played on the year and is six behind Oliver for the lead. Kyle passes Stefan for eighth and is three behind Bron for seventh. Troy needs five for 100, and Nathan enters the top 20. Shem needs to goaltend two more games for 100. He also ties Joern for second in season shutouts with four. Troy passes Stefan for fifth in three-star points and is five behind Pat for fourth. Shem is now fourth in total star points. Troy passes Lee for fourth in GPG, and narrowly holds his lead over Lee and Pat in APG. Shem falls behind K.J. to sixth in saves-per-game.

On the All-Time Front: Lee is 23 points away from 1,600 and 54 points from Oliver’s all-time point record. As mentioned above, Seamus becomes the fifth player to reach 1,000 points in Burton history; he is 18 points ahead of Bernie for fifth all-time. Troy passes Pat for 17th all-time. Nathan and Shem move up to 28th and 29th, respectively. Lee is 15 goals ahead of Lorne for the all-time lead. Graeme is five goals behind Mitchell for eleventh. Seamus passes Stefan for fifth in all-time assists and is seven from 500. Graeme passes Laird to move into the top ten in assists. Troy passes Robert for 15th. Nathan needs two assists for 100 (and to tie Joe Chwachka for 20th); Shem needs six. Graeme passes Mitchell for eleventh in shots; Troy passes Simon for 18th. Shem in 90 saves behind Lorne for eighth all-time. Seamus is four games played behind Laird for eighth. Kyle needs three games for 200; Troy jumps from 25th to 23rd. Shem needs two games to goaltend 100. Seamus is 15 three-star points behind Oliver for fourth. Troy moves to 14th. Shem passes Lyle for fifth in goalie star points and is 15 behind Chris Jackins for fourth. Kyle’s lead in the all-time shots-per-game race lasts three days before he just falls back of Dallas into second again. Lee becomes the first play to record 60 15-pointers. Seamus passes Stefan for fourth in 15-pointers with 34. Kyle has eight 15-pointers in a row; Troy has six; Seamus has three. Troy has back-to-back 20-point sessions. Lee is two ten-goal sessions behind Lorne for the all-time lead, 44-42. Kyle has five ten-goal sessions in a row; Troy three. Shem moves to seventh in 80-savers with 13 and 90-savers with ten. He also passes Lyle for fourth in 100-savers with nine. Lee plays his 29th consecutive session; Nathan his fifth. Lee becomes the first player to record 600 points, 300 goals and 300 assists in a single season. Kyle becomes the second player to score 400 points in a single year. Lee becomes the second player to play 200 games in a single season and is six games behind Oliver’s record of 212 (also from 2009). Shem needs two games to become the second goalie to goaltend 100 games in a season. Kyle notches the third 200-three-star point season ever recorded; he also now has the third-highest total-star point single-season total ever.

SDF/GDF: Pat’s on top of the SDF for a tenth consecutive time, but may fall from the top position to about seventh or so if he doesn’t play next session. Seamus moves up to fifth from seventh, switching places with Andrew. Terryn plummets from the top ten, and Graeme enters the top twelve. Even if Golden Joe didn’t fall off the GDF this week, Shem would still have moved to number one anyway thanks to his brilliance in the last two sessions. As it stands, Shem goes back to the top of the hill for the third time in his career with Justin and Lyle the only other goalies above .8000.

Hopefully the rain and snow will stay away long enough to give us some more action this year. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours page in the Links section.