As soon as we returned home from yesterday’s session, a check of the weather forecast indicated a break in the rain that would last long enough to get yet another session of Burton Hockey in. Sure enough, we awoke to a break in the clouds that let the sun through and sucked most of the standing water off of the Archives Arena at McCormack. Lee and Nathan manned phones and once again organised a session in minutes. As usual, some slight tardiness from the MacDonald house crew put us a bit behind, but we still had plenty more time than yesterday. Justin manned up in net again to face the latest selection from the revolving door of goaltenders. Today, the gentle giant of Spains Road, Tyler Halldorson, would make his Burton debut.

Continuing with the arrangements from the last game yesterday, Justin, Seamus and Nathan battled Lee and Graeme, now with Tyler. Game 1 saw Tyler get off to a shaky start in his maiden voyage in goal, as he battled through rebounds and puckhandling en route to a 6-for-11 performance. Seamus pointed out, and Team Government won 5-2. As soon as Game 2 began, however, Tyler rose to the occasion and would continue to do so for most of the session. The two sides battled back and forth. Seamus was hoping his long shots from the opposing blue line would fool Tyler (they didn’t) while the Orrs were consistently denied by El Gordo. After a hard-fought 25 minutes, Team Orr came through with a 5-4 win to send the series to Game 3, where Tyler carried the team on his back against an equal-to-the-task Justin. Tyler stopped 24 of 26 shots for .923 as the Orrs took the game easily 5-2.

Graeme was tired of facing Justin, and this prompted his teaming with Justin and Seamus against Lee, Graeme and Tyler. At first, this seemed like a mismatch, as Tyler once again went 6-for-11, Justin was nearly impenetrable except for a Lee goal that barely trickled over the line (that Justin argued over for two minutes in order to protect his shutout before relenting) and Seamus and Graeme won easily 5-1. Lee and Nathan, though, refused to go down lightly, and with Tyler back on his feet and ready to serve, the fasted-paced game of the day went down to the wire as both sides battled hard before Graeme sunk home a Seamus pass the end the day. All in all, good hockey with great skating and goaltending on both sides. It was nice to have some reasonably balanced goaltending (once Tyler learns butterfly, he’ll be utterly deadly), and the guys battled hard all day.

Navigating through the shooting gallery, Justin was on his game all day, especially when it came to the brothers Orr. In just five games, he stopped a huge 114 shots and posted a fantastic .875 with eight assists. At the opposing end, Tyler quickly got past his rocky first game to post a solid debut of .779 with 74 saves, good enough for third star in his debut. Offensively, Graeme and Seamus traded the lead all day. Graeme eventually emerged on top with 9G-10A-19P-53 shots. Seamus was right behind with 13G-5A-18P-62 shots. Lee was close behind in third with 10G-6A-16P on a huge shot total of 78.

Here are the game scores:
Lee Graeme Tyler def. Justin Seamus Nathan 2-5 5-4 5-2
Graeme Justin Seamus def. Lee Nathan Tyler 5-1 5-4

Season Stats: Lee may still have another milestone left in him yet this season: he’s only 19 points away from 700 on the year. Seamus passes Ryno for eleventh and needs twelve points for 200. Graeme moves past Terryn and Rob into the top 15. Nathan passes Brad and Joern for 21st. Seamus moves to eleventh in goals and needs five for 100. Graeme passes Rob for 14th. Seamus is one assist behind Bernie for 12th; he needs seven for 100. Graeme enters the top 15 in assists; Nathan enters the top 20. Seamus passes K.J. and Troy to move to seventh in shots on goal; Graeme jumps to 13th. Justin jumps from sixth to third in save percentage, knocking Nathan from the top five. He also passes Joern, Lorne and Dom to move to fourth in saves. Nathan enters the top 15 in games played. Justin passes Lyle for fourth in goalie star points. Lee and K.J. are now virtually tied for fourth in PPG. Justin takes the lead in saves-per-game from Terryn.

On the All-Time Front: Lee’s lead over Oliver in the all-time scoring race increases to 21. Seamus is now just four points behind Stefan for fourth. Nathan is three points behind Tony for 22nd. Lee needs one goal to become the first player to score 900. Seamus is 35 goals behind Stefan for fourth. Graeme is ten behind Joern for tenth. Seamus is 21 assists behind Lorne for fourth. Graeme becomes the tenth player to score 300 assists. Graeme is five shots away from entering the top ten and tying Joern at 1,500. Lee is seven games played behind Lorne for third and nine away from 600. Seamus and Justin continue to close in on 500 games. Seamus ties Stefan for third in three-star points. Seamus becomes the first player in history with five 80-goal seasons. Lee has five 15-pointers in a row. Lee ties Lorne for most ten-goal sessions ever with 44. Seamus is one behind Stefan for third at 26. Justin makes Burton history by becoming the first goalie to notch seven .800 sessions in a row. He ties Nathan for most .810 sessions with 20. He is one .820 session behind Laird for the all-time with 15, and has back-to-back .840 sessions. He is one .850 session behind Bron for first with eight. He ties Nathan for the lead in .860 sessions with seven, and ties K.J. and Bron for the lead in .870 sessions with five. Lee has played 33 consecutive sessions, one away from the second-longest streak ever. Nathan has played nine in a row, tied for the longest streak of his career. Seamus has played five in a row. Justin’s .831 overall save percentage this year is the sixth-best mark ever in a single season; his 90 goalie star points this year rank fourth-most ever.

SDF/GDF: It’s the least active SDF for a while, with the only movement coming from Lee moving up two spots to third and Graeme passing Joe for seventh as Troy stays on top. Meanwhile, over on the GDF, Justin is being rewarded for his amazing run of late by passing Shem to move into top spot on the ranking for the 24th time in his career. Nathan’s switch to skates sees him dropping out of the top five.

They’re talking about yet another session of BUSH later this week. Let’s hope! 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.