It was a cold and overcast day. Watsy and Alan made their 2010 debut, and the hockey gear was in true BUSH league form. The only stick Seamus could find in Nakusp was this diminutive junior that left him with about 3 feet of reach. Alan also donned the gear in the worst state it’s been in all year. The white pads are falling apart, no shoulder protection, and we had to cinch his pads with the old netting we had thrown out earlier that day. Also the goalie stick broke less than 5 minutes in.

Series 1 Lee - Seamus - Alan vs. Kyle - Nathan - Shem
Game 1: 5-2 Team Kyle
While Watsy dealt with wheels issues, we went ahead and played a two-on-two session. It was a quick game as Alan tried to shake off the rust and Kyle capitalised.

Series 2 Lee - Nathan - Watty - Shem vs. Seamus - Kyle - Alan
Game 1: 5-2 Team Lee
Game 2: 5-3 Team Kyle
Game 3: 5-4 Team Kyle
Game 4: 5-3 Team Lee

The teams were decided and we'd play them the rest of the day. The first game team lee took advantage of some turnovers and jumped to a quick lead. In Game 2 Seamus and Kyle employed a sort of trap system on Lee and played no-nonsense defensively responsible hockey; winning the board battles, cycling the puck and launching wave after wave of shots on Shem. Shem was on his game, and with Seamus and Kyle keeping all the shots outside, Alan started closing the door. This strategy prevailed over the next two games. In the third, strategy was reassessed, and with Kyle ringing it off the iron like an obsessive blacksmith, Team Lee sent Watty to shadow Seamus, and with Nathan anchoring the point, gutted out the win with both Lee and Watty pointing out. Two penalty shots were awarded, with goalies stopping both. Of note, during a 15-second span Seamus slashed Lee's hands on a breakaway, got the puck, turned around and fired a slapshot that rose and hit Lee in the face. Play was stopped momentarily to give Lee a moment to forgive Seamus so not to kill him when play was resumed. All in all, another good day of hockey.

Thanks, Lee! Shem, Shem, Shem! What a fantastic way to begin his sophomore campaign in goal. An amazing .897 with 148 saves (nearly 30 per game!) and a 1045 PPS; a career session for the dreadlocked warrior as he throws down a challenge to Dominik and Seamus, the other two exceptional goalies this season. Best of all, it is enough to make him the top-ranked goaltender in Burton history at .834. Alan held fort at .771; Shem more than doubled Alan’s save total. Offensively. It was a tight race between Lee and Kyle. Kyle certainly was omnipresent with 14 goals and an absurd 95 shots on goal, but even-handed Lee edged him out 19-18 in points. Seamus was also in the 3.00 PPG club at 5G-10A on 71 shots, and Andrew wasn’t far behind at 13.

With your humble statistician in transit, the season stats and all-time stats will be summarised tomorrow based on the recommendation of Lee and Seamus who have hockey lined up to go again tomorrow. This does produce a new SDF and GDF, however, so that must be taken care of in this write-up. Pat stays on top, but Lee passes Kyle and takes a big chunk from Pat’s lead. Nathan falls back to tenth from seventh. Not much changes on the GDF; Seamus stays #1 for a sixth straight sessions, while Nathan falls behind Tyler to fourth.