There was a real sense of anticipation surrounding today’s session. The impeding war between BUSH and VRH has the blood of the players flowing, and today’s session was planned days in advance (a rarity in a league where games are often organised minutes in advance). However, everyone was surprised when we arrived at the rink to find nearly the entire Bilinski family (Russ, Kathy, Laird and girlfriend Diane) – with new nets in tow. Now, Kyle Grenier has busy assembling new nets that would help the difference between the two leagues’ cages, but these nets from Laird were full-on NHL regulation. In an instant, BUSH went from having tiny, dilapidated, embarrassing nets to full-size ones that are even larger those at Ambleside. Suddenly, it was VRH with the ‘tiny, small nets’. And, yes, the anti-VRH venom was fully deployed by the BUSH crew today. Trash talk is normal between the two leagues, but as the DecaSession closes in, tensions are beginning to mount, and fast. The volume of words directed toward the VRH crew tonight, which encompassed all subjects, was not even so much trash talk as much as it was libel. Angry, hurtful, personal. It’s fairly evident that each league is beginning to feel slighted by the remarks of the other, and it’s going from mere joking to somewhat malicious. Cruel on one hand; cathartic on the other. Humour replaced by hurt. And there are still two more months of this to look forward to.

With the new nets, it was now expected that goaltending stats would plummet to the other end of the spectrum into Queen Elizabeth/Fauquier-level depths, let alone anything at Ambleside. McCormack is now another large-net, (somewhat) large-size rink. The goalies, Laird and Shem, were excited about the new nets but nervous about what it would do their stats. Excitement easily won out, however; we are all so incredibly grateful not to have to work with those falling-apart nets. Kyle’s new nets, by the way, should be ready sometime next week, which will keep us with quality nets for sessions where Laird isn’t around; the new nets will be much closer to Ambleside size than Laird’s (slightly shorter). Kyle also brought new goalie sticks to ensure our supply is sufficient. And there are more changes to come to the rink in the week ahead of the DecaSession.

It was time for Laird to begin his eleventh season of Burton Hockey. Russ actually shattered a ball in half during the warm-up (!!!), Diane manned the 12-megapixel Bilinski camera, and Laird teamed up with Lee, Kyle and Nathan against Shem Hanna and his crew of Noel, Justin, Andrew and Seamus. Today would bring yet another new rule to BUSH: faceoffs after every goal. Yeah, like ‘real’ hockey! The days of puck-possession starts for the scored-against team are over; a progression that had been looming ever since the banning of shots off the opening possession behind centre, which basically allowed the opposition to skate to centre and take a free shot unchallenged from up close since no one could challenge their possession. This also necessitated statistics for faceoff wins and losses for the first time (another thing for your humble statistician to track). From the outset, Kyle dictated the shot volume, overwhelming Shem at times with shots. Lee was his partner in crime, and Nathan is turning into a rock on the point (the metamorphosis in his game even just over the past month is astounding). When Team Shem got the puck, though, they made it count. Noel opened up scoring, Justin potted a hat trick, and they kept it close despite being more than doubled in shots. Kyle and Lee were just too much, though, and they took the game 5-4. Kyle pointed out and Lee was right behind him with four. Game 2, though, would not be so close, and not nearly as fun for Shem. Laird’s treacherous trio ensured he had almost no work to do as they ended the game quickly 5-0; Kyle pointing out yet again and Laird posting a shutout on just two shots.

For the second series, Kyle was put on the sub team with Noel, Andrew, Seamus and Laird against Lee, Justin, Nathan and Shem. At this point, the wind and the waves were on Grenier’s side. He was on the rink for four of the five goals, and his crew backed him with crushing defence as they won 5-1; Laird facing just five shots. At this point, Laird was adjusting just fine to the new nets (.823) while Shem wasn’t (.712). Sick of losing, Justin helped Lee mount an initial outburst for Team Shem, breaking out to a 2-0 lead. That lead was promptly blown as Seamus began to tear it up and helped his team take the series with a 5-3 W.

Watson’s back was done at this point right as Diane headed back to Camp Bilinski, so he grabbed a camera and shot some play sequences for Game 5 before heading off for the day. Nathan would be added to the tandem of Kyle and Seamus with Shem in goal against Laird’s crew of Lee, Justin and Noel. These games were much closer as the goalies began to finally get used to the new net dimensions and the skaters began to slow down. Kyle pointed out and Seamus would have nine points in this series as they carried a close one 5-3, 5-4. Shem had begun to recover and Kyle, Noel and Nathan took Laird’s save percentage down significantly. Nathan scored four goals in the set. In Game 6, Kyle and Noel battled in the corner for the ball; Kyle snapped his blade against the board and switched to one of Laird’s sticks.

For the final series, Diane came back for more camera work as her man Laird backed Lee, Nathan and Seamus against Kyle, Noel and Justin with Shem. Justin was blown up after the third series coming off of a two-month absence, and he was gassed for this one. With Nathan and Lee running Kyle, their crew ran away to a 5-1 victory. Game 8 saw Kyle break another stick; this time it snapped in half along the shaft on a slapshot. The goalies owned this match, as each one stopped 25 shots. Team Laird got out to a quick lead before Kyle, Noel and Justin ground it back down to 4-3. Amazingly, they failed on a 3-on-0, and soon afterward, Seamus iced it. Laird almost pulled it back up to .800 on this game alone after being in the .740s after Game 6.

The amount of odd goals and fluke goals certainly increased today with the new nets, as one would expect. They did go down progressively as the session progressed, but it really wasn’t a goalie’s session at all, with only Game 8 standing out for amazing goaltending. Especially in the second half, however, some amazing saves were being pulled out as the goalies slowly got used to the new dimensions. This is an intense, hyped-up group of players right now; to hear them talk, one would think the DecaSession was tomorrow and everyone in VRH had slapped their mothers. Warranted or not, a real sense of animosity is brewing.

A big thanks again to Diane Kalis, Kathy Bilinski and Andrew Watson for their pictures. Watsy’s are already up and the pics from the Bilinski-Cam should be up sometime this week.

For the first six games of this session, Kyle owned it, scoring on 27 of 30 goals. He’d end the day with 15G-16A-31P. Seamus really came on after the first series and was an assist machine all day, finishing with 10G-18A-28P. Both players had 65 shots on goal. In third place with 15G-11A was Lee. Nathan had a career session with 8A-9A; he and Shaylin Trotman would appear to be the co-leaders in the Most Improved category so far this season, and they are rounding into solid Burton Hockey skaters. In goal, Shem had the most shots by far and notched 120 saves, but lost the percentage battle .796-.769 to Laird; better than was predicted with the large nets we weren’t expecting.

Here are the game scores:
Lee Kyle Nathan Laird def. Shem Justin Seamus Noel Andrew 5-4 5-0
Nathan Kyle Laird Seamus Andrew def. Lee Noel Justin Shem 5-1 5-3
Kyle Shem Nathan Seamus def. Lee Justin Noel Laird 5-3 5-4
Laird Nathan Lee Seamus def. Kyle Noel Justin Shem 5-1 5-3

And those faceoff stats? Well, they are indeed quite revealing:
Andrew Watson 3/4 (75.00%)
Kyle Grenier 19/24 (71.43%)
Noel Ballard 6/9 (66.67%)
Justin Gordon 11/20 (55.00%)
Seamus O’Connor 5/17 (29.41%)
Lee Orr 6/21 (28.57%)
Nathan Robson 1/5 (20.00%)
It will be interesting to track this throughout the season and see if this disparity continues. Kyle often won faceoffs by punching the ball up past his opponent toward the opposing goalie, getting an immediate shot on goal without even drawing the ball back.

Season Stats: Kyle’s lead increases to 30 over Lee, 158-128. Pat goes into triple digits at 103. Seamus leaps into fourth at 80 ahead of Oliver at 71, and Barlow and Stefan at 67. Bernie and Lorne enter the top ten. Kyle goes over 100 goals on the year; no one is close. Lee closes in on Pat for second. Seamus moves up to sixth. Seamus leaps into third in assists; Barlow ties Oliver for fourth. Kyle is already over 500 shots on goal; no one else has 300. Seamus passes Stefan for fourth. Nathan takes over the lead in shooting percentage, followed by Pat, Barlow, Troy and Lee. Shem falls to second in save percentage behind Seamus. Alex moves into fifth place in save percentage, barely behind Bron and barely ahead of Dom. Dom has a fair-sized lead in saves over second-place Shem, with Alex moving to fourth. Kyle, Seamus and Nathan lead in games played at 42. Dom is in an odd position of having played two more games that the actual VRH season total thanks to the tournament format this morning. Thus, even though Oliver has not missed a game, he’s two games behind Dom, 39-37. Dominik is the only player to goaltend every game this season. Shem is tied for third in games goaltended at 19, one ahead of Alex. Alex and Dom are the first goalies to post multiple shutouts this season. Kyle lead in three-star points with 90; Pat passes Lee for second at 60; Seamus enters the top five. Dom takes the lead in goalie star points from Seamus at 45; Alex is tied for third at 25 with Alan; Shem enters the top five. Kyle lead in total star points at 90; Seamus and Pat are second with 60 each followed by Lee and Dom. Kyle takes the lead in PPG and GPG from Pat. Lee moves to third in GPG. Seamus takes the lead in APG from Lee; Pat and Kyle move up to fifth and sixth. Lee falls to seventh in shots-per-game behind Sam and Graeme. Shem relinquishes the lead in saves-per-game to Bron; Dom moves up to fifth and Alex to sixth. Kyle’s 31 points today tie for the second-highest scoring session this year. Seamus’ 18 assists and Kyle’s 16 are the top two session marks this season. Alex’s 167 saves are tops this year; Dom’s 151 are fourth. Alex’s 974 PPS and Dom’s 967 PPS are the fourth-and-fifth-highest marks this year.

On the All-Time Front: Lee’s all-time scoring lead passes the 100-point mark over Oliver for the first time. Seamus needs two point for 1,200; Stefan needs 25. Joern needs five points for 700. Pat becomes the 14th player with 400 points. Lee needs ten goals for 1,000. Kyle passes Bernie for seventh in goals. Joern becomes the eleventh player with 300 goals. Bernie becomes the third player to score 600 assists; Seamus needs 12 for 600. Joern needs five assists for 400. Kyle passes 300 assists and is twelve behind Graeme for tenth. Nathan and Pat are closing in on 14th place Mitchell. Lee needs 72 shots for 5,000; no one else even has 3,500. Seamus becomes the fifth player with 3,000 shots. Kyle is 14 shots behind Bernie for sixth. Barlow goes back over 30.00% shooting; Pat falls to fourth behind Joe Chwachka. Shem falls to fifth in save percentage. Shem passes Lyle for seventh in saves. Justin needs one game to become the eighth player with 500. Shem becomes the 17th player to play 200; Dom, the 30th to play 100. Dom also becomes the eleventh goaltender with 100 games goaltended. Laird is third in career shutouts with 12. Alex and Dom both record their second career shutouts. Shem passes Seamus for fifth in goalie star points. Kyle makes Burton history with his 17th consecutive 15-pointer. He moves into sixth all-time with his 31st overall. Pat has 14 in a row. Nathan records his second-career 15-pointer. Oliver’s streak ends at three. Pat ties Justin for eighth in 20-pointers with 12, all in a row. His 25-pointer streak ends at three, as does his 30-pointer streak. Seamus ties Stefan for sixth in 25-pointers with seven. Kyle becomes the second player ever with four 30-pointers. Pat ties Robert Rogers for the longest ten-goal streak ever at twelve; Kyle ties Lorne’s 2005-07 streak of eight consecutive sessions, the third-longest streak ever. Pat’s 15-goal streak ends at three and his 20-goal streak at two. Lorne ties Stefan for third in ten-assisters with 16, one ahead of Seamus. Lee has four in a row, one away from tying Kyle’s record streak from last season. Oliver’s streak ends at three. Alex records his first .800 session. Laird ties Nathan for most 80-savers with 25; Shem ties Justin for sixth with 16; Dom has ten (including four in a row). Shem moves into fifth in 90-savers with 13. Alex has back-to-back 100-savers to start his career. Dom becomes the fifth goalie with five 120-savers, and ties Bron, Chris and Nathan for the lead in 130-savers with five. Oliver plays his 46th consecutive session, Nathan his 20th, Seamus his 16th, Dom his 13th, Barlow his seventh, Kyle his seventh, and Lee his sixth. Seamus’ 18 assists today rank sixth-best for a single session all-time. Alex’s 167 saves rank second-best all-time in VRH and fifth-best overall. Laird makes it seven players who have played in all eleven seasons of Burton Hockey.

SDF/GDF: Pat’s getting into territory not seen in years on the SDF as he spends his 30th session overall on top. Lorne shoots up to fourth, and Tony enters the top ten. On the GDF, Justin stays on top while Shem falls behind Seamus to second and Alexander starts climbing.

What an amazing day for Burton Hockey on both sides of the mountains.. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section.