After the anti-climax of Sunday, Nathan Robson refused to go out quietly for 2009. He organised yet another last-minute session for Monday; the fourth in eight days for BUSH. One last shot at epicness. It was a stripped-down session featuring four of Burton’s best skaters and two of its best goalies. Shem in particular was anxious to get at it after his most recent run of impressive outings; one last showstopper could possibly cinch up 2009’s Most Outstanding Goaltender for the dreadlocked one.

It was another cold day. Just across the lake, Mount Ingersoll was getting covered in a massive snowstorm, just to drive home the fact that this was most likely it for the season. Sticks in the middle put Kyle and Graeme together with Nathan against the Glenbank duo of Lee and Seamus backed by Shem. Having taken Sunday off, Graeme returned to BUSH fresh as a daisy and blazed out of the gates, grinding and dangling all day, battling in the corners and digging out pucks. Put him together with Kyle’s speed and high-powered shots, and it’s a wonder Shem was standing. Lee and Seamus put up a battle in Game 1, taking it to 5-4, but Kyle and Graeme blew them out in Game 2 5-1. Kyle had nine points and 30 shots, and Graeme outscored big bro 7-2.

Shem and Nate were solid in the first series at .813 and .818 respectively, but they took it to an entirely different level in the second series. Putting the Orr brothers together with Shem against Kyle, Seamus and Nathan resulted in one of the greatest series of the year. Each game went 5-4. Lee and Graeme made tons of sweet passes but had a hard time finishing, especially Leeroy. One of the running storylines throughout the series was Lee’s utter inability to score on Nathan. In fact, Nathan stopped Lee on 37 consecutive shots. Graeme, however, was still dangling. One of his nicer goals came in Game 3. Taking the ball in the corner behind Nathan, Graeme appeared to move behind the net, which fooled an attacking Seamus into retreating. It was a fake, and Graeme quickly rushed out to thread the needle backhand shortside. Team Orr won Game 3 5-4. Kyle and Seamus dominated play in Game 4, but Shem was on fire with glove saves, toe saves, and blockers out of nowhere. Nathan, however, was a pokechecking son-of-a-bitch, and did what he had to do. Lee’s seemingly snakebitten hands could not put one past Nathan. Kyle and Seamus’ passing plays and high shot volumes got them the 5-4 win, tying the series and forcing the crew to a fifth game with daylight running low. Sure enough, the game went right into the darkness. 46 minutes of back-and-forth non-stop action, including fifteen minutes at 3-3 with no goals. Graeme even levelled Seamus with a bodycheck (earlier in the day, Lee was sandwiched and cracked his head off the pavement. Ouch.). Lee was at the point of breaking down completely; every cockblock from Nathan resulting in a stream of expletives. Shem’s glove was on fire; even in the dark, he was robbing Seam and Kyle (and then often asking how he did that or where the ball was). Finally, after fifteen minutes (and personally, over 40), Lee sunk one past Nathan for 4-3 and erupted in a celebration that almost resulted in him breaking his stick in half on the boards. It took ten more minutes to end the game. Kyle put one past Shem, and then the golden goal was put home by Graeme, resulting in a spontaneous outburst of hugs and high-fives from the victorious team. There were 75 shots between the two teams in the final game. An absolute war to end a classic high-volume session.

From the first game to the last, the shot volumes were crazy thanks to the acrobatic heroics of two legendary Burton goalkeepers. Shem stopped a massive 145 shots in just five games (that’s 29 saves per game!) to just narrowly beat Nathan .868-.865. Nathan had 122 saves today; both goalies also racked up six assists apiece. It’s rare that a 4.00+ PPG effort can get overshadowed like it did today. Kyle paced the crew today with 14G-7A on an insane 86 shots. Graeme was right behind with perhaps the best session of his career; he scored 12G and added 6A with 64 shots. Seamus’ shot tally was almost as high as Kyle’s (84); he went 8G-9A to finish third. Lee’s final cracking of Nathan in Game 5 ensured that everyone would be over 3.00 PPG today; he scored seven times and added 9A on 73 shots. If indeed this is how BUSH goes out for 2009, what a way to do it!

I’ll remind you here that the new scoring and goaltending milestones and streaks pages can be accessed from the Awards and Honours page in the links section.

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

Season Stats: 648 should be what Lee finishes at (324 goals, 324 assists). Seamus ties Tony for 13th. Graeme passes Andrew Smart and ties Shem for 18th. Seamus passes Bernie and ties Rob for 13th in goals. Graeme becomes the 18th player with 50 goals this year and passes Andrew for 17th. Kyle is four assists behind Ben for second. Shem passes Bernie and becomes the eleventh player this year with 100 assists. Seamus moves to 13th in assists; Graeme to 17th. Seamus moves into the top ten in shots and over 500 on the year. Nathan passes Justin for fifth in save percentage. Nathan passes Golden Joe for eighth in saves. Shem becomes the second goalie to goaltend 100 games this year. Seamus enters the top ten in three-star points. Nathan moves into a four-way tie for fifth in goalie star points. Shem passes Ben for third in total star points. Seamus passes Ben for sixth in PPG. Kyle and Seamus record the fifth- and sixth-highest session shot totals of the season. Shem’s PPS of 1013 is the fourth-highest total this year.

On the All-Time Front: Amazingly, Lee is just eleven points away now from what seemed to be an untouchable achievement- tying Oliver’s all-time scoring record. Seamus is 33 points behind Stefan for fourth. Kyle becomes the tenth player to score 600 points. Graeme is three goals behind Mitch for eleventh. Lee now has a 1,000+ shot margin over second-place Lorne. Seamus becomes the fifth player to take 2,500 shots. Graeme passes Mitch for eleventh in shots. Nathan is now 75 saves away from tying Laird’s all-time record of 3,716; Shem passes Lorne for eighth. Nathan needs two more games for 300. Shem is one game behind Simon for 17th. Nathan passes Bron for fourth in games goaltended; Shem becomes the ninth player to goaltended 100 games. Seamus ties Oliver for fourth in three-star points; Kyle becomes the eighth skater with 300 three-star points; Graeme ties Pat for 13th. Shem ties Chris Jackins for fifth in goalie star points. Lee passes Joe Chwachka for sixth in PPG. Kyle takes back the all-time shots-per-game lead from Dallas. Kyle records his 20th ten-goal session; Graeme his second. Graeme has his tenth 15-pointer. Kyle has his tenth 15-pointer in a row, tying Pat for the third-longest streak ever. Seamus has five in a row. Kyle achieves the extremely rare accomplishment of 20-pointers on back-to-back days. Shem ties Chris for fifth in .800 sessions with 14; he has five in a row and is one away from tying the Burton record. Nathan has two in a row. Shem also has five .810, .820 and .830 sessions in a row. Nathan is one session away from tying Laird for the lead in .820 sessions with 14. He does tie Justin for the lead in .830 sessions with 12; Shem has ten. Nathan also ties Justin for the lead in .840 sessions with ten; Shem has three in a row. Shem ties Justin and K.J’s record for most consecutive .850 sessions with three. Nathan sets a new record for .860 sessions with seven. Nathan is one behind Laird for the lead in 80-savers with 23 and passes Bron for the lead in 90-savers with 19 and 110-savers with 12. Shem passes Laird for third in 100-savers. Shem goes 120-plus for the second time ever. Lee plays his 31st consecutive session, the third-longest streak ever. Nathan has played seven in a row.

SDF/GDF: Man, Kyle just cannot catch a break. The last bad Lorne session drops off and he gains just enough to put him ahead of Kyle, even though Kyle gained a fair amount today (ultimately, the lack of players today hurt him in that regard). Next ranking, though, barring a catastrophe, Kyle will indeed finally take over the top spot. Seamus and Lee swap positions; Graeme has a rocket strapped to him and he jumps four spots to eighth. The lack of VRH sessions in recent weeks is beginning to show; Andrew, Tony, Ben, Barlow, Stefan and Joern drop and Lorne will drop next time unless his skates AND does well. On the GDF, Shem’s on top again for the third straight time as his rankings continues to improve; Nathan takes a huge leap up to second. Terryn loses a session and drops to the bottom.

A brilliant day indeed. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours page in the Links section, replete with new links to scoring streak and goaltending streak statistics.