Leave it to Nathan to push BUSH farther into November outdoors than any other season. As soon as Lee got back from Hawaii, Nathan sent out the call and in just a matter of minutes a session was organised. The revolving door of goaltenders continued; this time Justin would face off against the shocking return of Noel, five years after his last outing in goal. By the time the crew got to Arrow Park, it was already drizzling. For once, the weather turned on BUSH. And it only got worse in one of the more meteorologically-challenging sessions ever.

With only a 115-minute window before dark and an increasing level of rain that would soon lead to standing water, time was of the essence. There was little dallying today. With Nathan on skates and Noel in net, the balance remained in check. Lee and Nathan teamed up with Justin against Seamus, Graeme and Kay Whitmore-Ballard. At first, it was a whitewash. Nathan and Lee were both maximising scoring chances and got up to a quick 4-0 lead. Meanwhile, despite nearly having three times as many shots on goal at one point, Seamus and Graeme could not get past the Government. It would take a heroic dose of effort to come back, but they nearly did it as they combined for three goals in a row before Nathan ended it with his third goal of the game. His crew won despite being outshot 35-16. Despite the loss, Seamus and Graeme were fired up from their comeback and proceeded to score the first three goals of Game 2. Midway through the game, the first patches of standing water began to appear as the rain and wind intensified. Lee and Nathan pulled it back close in what turned into a 5-4 slugfest finally won by Seamus and Graeme.

Now the rain was coming down in buckets. Of course, the gang was not about to leave a series even. The conversation about playing a third game was pretty short. So was Game 3 itself. Justin was simply unstoppable here, posting a 15-shot shutout as the team of Lee and Nathan took over. Not helping was Graeme refusing to battle for any balls in the corners where the standing water was at its highest levels for fear of getting doused. This game saw more than a few attempted shots the only resulted in a giant spray or wave of water with very little ball movement. We didn’t think about it at the time, but that last goal tied the most storied record in Burton Hockey history.

The gang deliberated for a few minutes but decided that since they were already completely soaked, and since there was only 35-40 minutes of daylight left, they may as well play another game and finish off the session with a bang. The Orr brothers got together with Noel to battle Seamus, Nathan and Justin. It was a very even game, and despite the standing water rimming much of the rink, play was never really stopped dead at any point. Noel was finding his groove here, and started stoning Seamus. The brothers shone together (despite two bad Graeme turnovers that resulted in immediate Seamus goals). Graeme scored all five goals for the Orrs, and Lee assisted on all five goals as they won 5-3 to end the day. The regular post-session circle had just broken up and the gang were heading for their vehicles to get out of the rain when the usual post-session stats questioning began. When Seamus asked Lee and myself what this session brought Lee’s scoring total to for the year, he quickly followed up with a simple ‘And Oliver?’. It was then that we realised that the assists on Graeme’s first goal of Game 4 had made Lee Burton Hockey’s all-time leading scorer, deposing the great Oliver Koth-Kappus. High-fives and hugs soon followed as everyone poured out of their cars to congratulate Lee on a tremendous accomplishment on a wet, but fun, day in Burton.

Through the wind and rain, Lee was on fire all afternoon no matter the goalie. He had 17 points in just four games (9G-8A) on just 33 shots. Coming in second with a career session was Nathan who notched 6G-7A on just 17 shots for his first ever three-star points. He was quite the accurate sniper today. Seamus (7G-4A) was third on 41 shots; Graeme had eight goals but just two assists, also on 41 shots. Justin was stellar all day, stopping 69 of 82 shots for .841. Noel hung around .620-.630 all day until the final game where he pushed it up to .660.

Here are the game scores:
Lee Nathan Justin def. Noel Seamus Graeme 5-3 4-5 5-0
Lee Graeme Noel def. Seamus Nathan Justin 5-3

Season Stats: Lee’s season scoring lead is an astounding 207 points. Seamus passes Bernie for twelfth in season scoring and is just two points behind Ryan for eleventh. Graeme passes Shem for 17th and is just two points behind Terryn for 16th. Nathan moves from 26th to 23rd. Seamus passes Rob for 13th in goals; Graeme jumps to 15th; Nathan to 27th. Lee’s assists lead is 103. Nathan needs one assist for 50. Justin records his third shutout of 2009. Justin passes Nathan, Dom and Lorne for fourth in goalie star points. Lee passes Troy for the lead in APG.

On the All-Time Front: Lee Orr has reached the top of the mountain. In a season where the seemingly impossible has happened, the most improbable record of all has been broken. Lee has deposed Oliver as Burton Hockey’s all-time leading scorer with 1,636 points, a record Oliver has held since the first session of 2001 (literally eight-and-a-half years). Seamus is just 22 points behind Stefan for fourth all-time. Nathan jumps from 27th to 23rd in all-time scoring. Lee needs nine goals for 900. Graeme passes Mitchell for eleventh in goals. Graeme needs nine assists to become the tenth player with 300. Nathan passes Pat and Ryno for 17th in assists. Lee is twelve games behind Lorne for third in games played. Justin passes Stefan for seventh in games played. Nathan becomes the 12th player to play 300 games. Justin ties Laird and Joern for third in shutouts with eleven. Seamus passes Oliver for fourth in three-star points; he is ten behind Stefan for third (525-515). Nathan records his first-ever three-star points. Seamus’ streak of 15-pointers ends at five. Lee has four in a row. Justin becomes the second goalie to post 20 .800 sessions; he now has a record-tying six in a row. He is one .810 session behind Nathan for the all-time lead, 20-19, and two behind Laird for the lead in .820 sessions, 16-14. He passes Nathan for the lead in .830 sessions with 13 and .840 sessions with 11. Lee plays his 32nd consecutive session, the third-longest streak ever. He is two sessions away from tying Oliver’s 2000-02 of 34. Nathan plays his eighth in a row.

SDF/GDF: After one session away, Troy returns to the top and looks poised to stay there for a while. Kyle remains second, Lorne falls to third. Lee moves ahead of Seamus, and Brad moves up four spots to a career-high seventh. Ben takes his big fall and will be gone soon. Pretty much nothing changes at all on the GDF. Shem stays on top for the fourth consecutive ranking.

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.