The day prior, with only 7 players confirmed and the session in serious jeopardy, who would have ever thought that this would turn out to be the most significant session in the history of Burton Hockey? This would be a day that would not only see one or two session records broken, but one that would see every major offensive session record demolished. This would be a session for the ages, a new benchmark of excellence and perseverance in the annals of Burton Hockey.

With a core few of us being extremely motivated to play hockey this weekend, both due to the incredibly nice weather and the enthusiasm generated by the Olympic hockey atmosphere, we decided to give the green light to the session regardless of numbers. In the end, as is customary in VRH, a couple extra players ended up coming out, giving us enough for 3-on-3 with a sub on one team.

The session began much like any other with some very slow grinding games and some absolutely brilliant goaltending, especially from Alex who stoned his big brother on numerous breakaway attempts. Initially, it seemed like the younger Elischer would steal the show in this session. In the end, it would be the senior Elischer who would be the star of this day.

Teams were generally manufactured (or trades made) to try to keep them as even as possible. Though there were a few blowouts for the most part, we managed to find a balance resulting in some very close-fought contests. Near the midway point of the session goals became a little easier to come by and the pace of games picked up, and before we knew it we had a solid 11 games under our belts. At this point both Rob and Ryno had to leave, but with the remaining players still having a little left in the tank, the debate whether to play more got underway. Always curious about his statistics Andrew Smart tallied his assists at 25, which some of us thought might be a record; the instant reaction of, 'if Andrew has 25 assists, how many points does Pat have?' resulted in a quick count. Once we realized that Pat was sitting on the precipice of breaking the points in a session record (42), the debate whether to play more was all but extinguished. This also resulted in a phone call to our goodly stats keeper to let him know that history was about to be made.

Playing 2-on-2 (Pat's team, with Ollie and Bernie, had a sub) it was difficult to slow Pat down, and he not only broke the points but also the goals in a session record in the next game, scoring all 5 goals for an easy victory (it's scary to think what kind of numbers Pat could put up in an entire session of 2 on 2 play). At this point we realised that the only way to make the teams fair was to play 3-on-2 against Pat's team (Bernie was moved to the other team). The relative evenness slowed the games down again and at this point the exhaustion felt by all players was immeasurable, as we'd played for almost 6 hours by this point. Nevertheless, being so close to the games in session record, we decided to gut it out for 2 more games, bringing the total on the day to 14. It should also be noted that Ollie, despite a bad back and being doubtful at the start, managed to play the entire 14 games.

There is only one word to describe a session like this, a session so filled with magnificence, excellence, dedication and perseverance: LEGENDARY!

Thanks, Bernie. Wow. It’s just foolish to try and even come up with anything to say. All I can do is reprint this quote from my player profile of Pat: ‘It's hard to find the proper superlatives for Pat. It's scary to think of the future record book destruction that awaits us in the future, but we welcome it with great anticipation. Pat Elischer is one of the best players ever in Burton Hockey.’ 38 goals and 54 points in one session are far beyond the scope of anything dreamed possible. When a scoring record is broken, it’s usually by a couple of points. This is twelve points beyond. Just silly. Headshaking. Awe-inspiring. Let’s not forget that Andrew Smart also went over that record with 44 points, including a mindnumbing stat that also seems impossible: 29 assists. ‘Way down’ at 32 points in third is Stefan with 20 goals and 32 points. The goalies took the brunt of the onslaught, although the volume faced gives them some pretty high save totals: Dom at .769 on 180 saves bested Alex at 140/.745, a career-worst for the promising young goalie and early rookie-of-the-year favourite. Each goalie did post a shutout today.

Here are the game scores:
Bernie Rob Pat Ryan Dom def. Alex Stefan Andrew Oliver 5-4 5-3 0-5 5-4
Oliver Bernie Ryan Pat Alex def. Andrew Stefan Rob Dom 5-2 5-2
Pat Andrew Robert Alex def. Bernie Oliver Ryan Stefan Dom 5-3 5-1
Bernie Pat Andrew Oliver Dom def. Stefan Rob Ryan Alex 5-1 3-5 5-0
Pat Oliver Bernie Alex def. Stefan Andrew Dom 5-2
Stefan Bernie Andrew Dom def. Pat Oliver Alex 5-4 5-3

Note: This summary accounts for the standings AFTER Sunday’s BUSH session, as this boxscore was sent in late due to the Olympics.

Season Stats: Pat passes Seamus to move into third in points at 157, 23 behind Lee. Stefan moves to fifth at 99; Oliver to sixth; Bernie to tenth. Pat passes Lee in goals and sits second at 104, 16 behind Kyle. Stefan goes around Seamus to fourth with Oliver close behind in sixth. Oliver ties Nathan for fourth in assists at 55; Pat sits at 53. Pat passes Seamus for third in shots on goal. Alex and Dom see their save percentages plummet, bringing Nathan into the top five for the first time this season. Dom retakes the lead in saves from Shem with Alex passing both Alan and Seamus to go to third. Dom and Oliver have played all 51 VRH games (Dom is actually tied with Seamus with 53 from pulling double duty in two extra tournament games last session). Alex leapfrogs into second in games goaltended; Alex and Dom are tied for the shutout lead at three. Dom ties Shem for the lead in goalie star points at 55. Pat passes Shem for fourth in total star points and is five points behind Seamus with 75. Andrew debuts fourth in PPG and first in APG. Interestingly, Pat actually falls in APG to eighth behind Kyle and Troy. Pat also falls to third in shots-per-game behind Seamus. Alex falls out of the top five in saves-per-game, bringing Nathan in. Obviously, Pat and Andrew lead the chart for session scoring this season, but Stefan’s 32 points are also ranked highly (fourth-highest this season). Pat now has the three highest session goal totals this season. Stefan’s 20 goals tie for fourth-best this year. Andrew’s 29 assists far and away exceed any total this year (or ever). Pat’s 16 tie for third; Oliver’s 15 rank fifth. Pat’s 116 shots on goal break the Grenier hold on first. Dom’s 180 saves are also tops this year of individual sessions.

On the All-Time Front: Stefan becomes the fifth player to pas 1,200 points; he lies 30 behind Seamus for third. Pat passes Mitch Detta for 13th and lies 18 behind Laird for 12th. Ryan needs two points for 300. Rob enters the top 25. Oliver is 18 goals from 700; Stefan is just twelve goals behind him in fourth. Bernie passes Justin for eighth. Pat passes Mitch for twelfth. Bernie takes back third in assists from Seamus. Pat enters the top 15 in assists; Ryan passes Robert Rogers for 19th. Rob needs three for 100. Stefan is 52 shots on goal behind Lorne for third on goals. Pat passes Laird for 14th in shots and needs 19 for 1,000. Dom is 80 saves behind Lorne for tenth. Bernie joins brother Oliver in the 900-game club. Rob is the 31st player in triple-digit games played. Dom passes Seamus for tenth in games goaltended; Alex enters the top 20. Dom ties K.J. for tenth in goalie star points. Pat passes Robert and ties Ben for fourth in shots-per-game. Pat enters the top ten in 15-pointers with 15; all in a row, of course (i.e., every full session he’s ever played). He is three away from Kyle’s still-active record streak of 18. Andrew also has 15-pointers in every session he’s ever played; that’s six in a row for him. In fact, he’s had 20-pointers every full session he’s ever played, which even Pat can’t boast. Pat ties K.J. for seventh in 20-pointers with 13, all in a row. Pat and Andrew’s streaks are the two longest 20-pointer streaks ever. Pat becomes the fourth player to records ten 25-pointers. Stefan is fifth at eight. Oliver records just his second; Andrew, his first. Pat breaks Robert Rogers’ technically-still-active record streak of ten-goal sessions with his 13th in a row. Stefan becomes the third player in history with 30 ten-goal sessions. Pat ties K.J. for third in 15-goal sessions with nine. Stefan joins Pat, Kyle and Joe Chwachka as players with three 20-goal sessions. Stefan passes Lorne and Seamus for third in ten-assisters with 17. Pat moves to eighth with nine. Andrew has four in a row, one away from Kyle’s records of five straight. Bernie has two in a row for the first time. Dom has five 80-savers in a row. Alex has three 100-savers in a row. Dom ties Lyle for seventh in 100-savers with eight, and Shem for fifth in 110-savers with six. Alex has two 110-savers. Both have back-to-back 140 savers (for Dom, back-to-back 150-savers). Dom site fourth in 120-savers with six. Finally, Dom is the leader in 130-plus save sessions with six, passing Chris, Bron and Nathan. Oliver plays consecutive session number 47. Dom’s streak goes to 14, Jordan Barlow’s streak ends at seven. As aforementioned, Pat’s 54 points utterly annihilates the previous session record of 42 set by Kyle Grenier at last August’s BUSH SuperSession. Andrew’s 44 points, somewhat lost in the shuffle, also breaks the old record. Equally unfathomable are Pat’s 38 goals, breaking the ten-year old record of 30 set by the great Dustin Blair (of course, Dustin did in eight games to Pat’s 14). A year ago, 20 assists in a session hadn’t been touched; today, Andrew had an astonishing 29. Pat did fall just short of the shots on goal record; his 116 shots today are four behind Ben de Wit’s SuperSession total from August. Dom’s 180 saves rank fifth-highest all-time.

SDF/GDF: Well, the volume may be way larger, but the proportion is the same: adding this session to Sunday’s BUSH session to make the final ranking results in a near wash since the story is the same: Pat killing everyone. It does changes the GDF, as Dom and Alex take hits and fall behind Alan and Nathan.

Well, that was an interesting weekend. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section.