In August 2005, seven Arrow Lakes ex-pats, all veterans of Burton United Socialist Hockey, inaugurated a new league of Burton Hockey. Initially, the new league struggled to avoid short, half-court sessions, but much like the little engine that could, it grew slowly and steadily, adding dozens of Lower Mainland natives to an increasingly formidable roster. Back home, the original Burton league was growing as well, adding new generations of skaters and goalies to its sizeable roster. Together, the two leagues grew until each had established its own distinctive brand of roller hockey, becoming new cultural institutions that tied both friendships and communities together. As 2009 progressed, it became obvious that, at their peak, the players from both leagues would have to come together and challenge each other for the mantle of ultimate Burton Hockey supremacy. After months of haggling, the talk and hype ended this weekend. In honour of ten years of Burton Hockey (the first-ever session was 27 April 2000), twelve past, present and future stars of Vancouver Roller Hockey came to the Arrow Lakes to challenge the stars of Burton United Socialist Hockey in a two-day hockey marathon known as the DecaSession.

Twenty-five players. One humble rink in a small, lakeside hamlet in the mountains of British Columbia. The prize? Bragging rights, naturally, and a lovely piece of hardware called the Roxanne Fuller Cup. The Fuller Cup, named after its fashioner, is a pretty decent replica of Lord Stanley’s mug, forged together of metal, wood and foil. It can be engraved with the names of the champions and can have rings added to it just like the Stanley Cup. It would be a best-of-eleven contest to take home the tankard. No worrying about individual statistics today; players were here representing their leagues with pride. Both teams came dressed to the nines in brand new sweaters from Big Stick Hockey. The rink was given a fresh coat of paint and new signage courtesy of Diane Kalis and Laird Bilinski. The field beside the rink was full of cars and trucks watching the proceedings; there was nary a parking spot to be had. The concession stand came back to life with barbecue for all. The excitement hung in the air like a billowing cloud enveloping the proceedings. The constant threat of rain for the entire weekend deterred absolutely no one. At 11:30 am Friday, Stefan Klopp and Lee Orr took the ceremonial faceoff to kick off the greatest weekend in the history of Burton Hockey. While some stars were sorely missed today (Pat Elischer, Ben de Wit, Troy Waldron, Jordan Barlow, Ryan Disterheft and Terryn Stenseth, among others), the lineups this day were incredibly solid.

Burton United Socialist Hockey:
1. Laird Bilinski (goal),
2. Joe Chwachka (wearing Kyle Kusch’s sweater)
2. Andy Kieran
3. Colby Olsen
4. Lee Orr (C)
6. Graeme Orr
7. Nathan Robson
9. Seamus O’Connor (A),
11. Justin Gordon (A)
13. Shem Hanna
24. Andrew Watson
71. K.J. O’Connor
88. Kyle Grenier (wearing an ‘OchoOcho’ nameplate on his back)

The big story for BUSH was the return, after seven seasons away, of Joe Chwachka, the most legendarily intense defender in Burton history, who outfitted himself with brand-new equipment just for the DecaSession. Colby Olsen would come down from Revelstoke to make his 2010 debut, and Shem Hanna returned from Kelowna. BUSH would be the only squad to field a 2010 rookie (Andy Kieran) today. BUSH also fielded the oldest player in the game, 34-year-old Shem Hanna.

Vancouver Roller Hockey:
00. Bron Mach (goal)
08. Jordan Downey
2. Tony Sivilay
3. Tony Hajdu
6. Rob Hajdu
8. Oliver Koth-Kappus
10. Stefan Klopp (C)
14. Lorne Bilinski (A)
17. Joern Hornhardt
21. Bernie Koth-Kappus
39. Dominik Voser (goal)
96. Sam Lam

VRH had their own big returnee with the reintroduction of VRH co-founder Tony Sivilay after three seasons. There was an equal split between Arrow Lakes ex-pats and Lower Mainland natives (five North Shore natives and one from Aldergrove, Langley Township). Unlike BUSH, VRH rotated between two goaltenders. VRH had the youngest player in the game with Sam Lam, who is not quite finished Grade 12.

Game 1 demonstrated just how differently this session would be played compared to any Burton session in history. It looked, well, like a league hockey game. With multiple lines on either side, there was a constant influx of fresh bodies and on-the-fly changes. This meant that the energy of game was far higher, and the pace was utterly relentless. In fact, the first half of the session was an edgy, chippy affair that saw tempers lost, epithets yelled, and complaints about contact and stickwork from either side. But was it ever good hockey! Superlative, in fact. It was the visitors from VRH who came out fast and hard, quickly going up 11-5 in the shot count. BUSH, however, would record the historic first goal of the DecaSession, as Shem cashed in a tic-tac-toe from Andy and Justin to give BUSH the first lead. The first VRH goal would be scored by Sam on a pass from Tony Hajdu. The goaltending was fantastic all weekend, and never more so than Game 1, which proceeded to drag on for 95 minutes. Laird stopped 41 of 43 shots (.957) and Dom stopped 45 of 50 (.900). BUSH won 5-2, but the play was even. The BUSH bench, in fact, was taken quite aback by how well VRH matched them.

Despite the loss, VRH knew that they could give BUSH a strong run in this tournament, and came out firing on all cylinders for Game 2, potting three of their first four shots past Laird. VRH had a 4-1 lead before BUSH ground their way back thanks to the high intensity of OchoOcho and the cannon of Joe Chwachka, nudging out the 5-4 win to go up 2-0.

As was prearranged, VRH switched out Dom for Bron. Having come so close to a win, VRH were out for blood. BUSH were too, as they wanted to put this series away. The result was another titanic 50-minute battle that went back and forth as both Laird and Bron stood on their heads, the Czech goaltender in particular leaving the crowd in awe. One of the funnier sights of the entire weekend was the state of the benches on the VRH side of the court; these McCormack Park benches were so rickety that they were basically wooden La-Z-Boys. The relative lack of comfort did nothing to dampen their play, as VRH rode their two Tonys to a 5-4 Game 3 victory that stunned the BUSH bench into silence.

If Game 3 finally stunned BUSH, Game 4 left them catatonic. Looking lost, they had nothing for a VRH squadron that demanded respect after years of feeling slighted by their comrades in the senior circuit. Despite being outshot 28-21 by BUSH, Bron stood on his head again, letting in just one goal and going .964 as VRH erupted for a 5-1 whitewashing of Burton. In fact, on aggregate, they were winning! Stefan had the only penalty shot of day in Game 4, but was thwarted by Laird. The two Tonys, at seven points each, were leading the day in scoring at this point.

Dom went back in for the fifth game, as each VRH goalie would alternate from here on in. From the highest of highs, VRH were suddenly stunned into the lowest of lows. The wheels fell off from here on in. The physical play was beginning to throw VRH off, and BUSH began mixing up their lines to match the VRH formations. Game 5 was the shortest of the day, ending in twelve minutes as Laird picked up an eight-save DecaSession shutout (shots were 17-8 for BUSH).

From that point onward, it was just a matter of playing out the games. Joe left in Game 6, but that did nothing to stem the BUSH tide. VRH looked tired, and despite the outstanding efforts of their fantastic pairing of netminders, they had already left everything they had on the court. BUSH would outshoot VRH 56-35 in the last three games, including 20-6 in Game 8. There was a scary moment in Game 8 when Sam appeared to pull his groin on a bad fall, but like a warrior, he shook it off and returned for his next scheduled shift. When Seamus O’Connor put home the winning goal in Game 8 past Bron Mach, the benches cleared and a massive celebration erupted at centre court. The Fuller Cup was presented to BUSH captain Lee Orr, and hugs and handshakes went all-around.

It looked quite scary for them in the middle of the session, as VRH gave their all, but BUSH prevailed this time around, six games to two. VRH have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, as they proved in the first half that they could match BUSH blow-for-blow. They have truly won the respect of their comrades across the Monashees, and the next match-up for the Fuller Cup (which will be in Metro Vancouver) should be an epic. The goaltending in this series was flabbergasting at times. A wonderful day for hockey and for friends.

Of course, there was still plenty of daylight left, so it was time for some fun matches. Each split their crew in half. The Hajdu brothers had left, along with Laird, Tony Siv, Watson and Joern; Colby left during Game 9, and Laird after Game 10. This resulted in Lorne, Stefan and the Orrs being plugged into the end of Game 9 (this explains that extra game you see for them on the scoresheet). Shem thus took up the goaltending mantle against Bron. A notable story here was the debut of Dom on skates after 155 career games spent in goal. Shem never faced many shots but was stellar in his last hurrah in goal, picking up a shutout in Game 12 and only letting five shots in three games. The scariest moment in sometime happened in Game 9, when Seamus accidentally caught teammate/brother K.J. with a stick in the right eye, narrowly missing disaster. K.J. went down like a rock. Fortunately, paramedic-supreme Jordan Downey leapt from his bench to attend to K.J., and after a few minutes on the ground, he was patched up. It would be the end of the weekend for K.J., unfortunately.

With seven-and-a-half fours of hockey, Day One of the DecaSession shall live on forever in the mind of everyone who was there; a fantastic accomplishment all around. And while BUSH may possess the Fuller Cup for now, VRH will surely be up for the task of taking it back to Vancouver soon enough. Best of all, it was only Day One, as Saturday promised even more excitement.

Of course, we had to have a shootout at some point this weekend, and so after the session, the remaining skaters battled Shem and Bron in a single elimination contest to determine a winning shooter. Kyle Grenier winning is not a surprise. Dom Voser finishing second, though, was pure awesomeness!
Kyle Grenier √√x√
Dominik Voser √√xx
Andy Kieran √x
Nathan Robson √x
Oliver Koth-Kappus √x
Jordan Downey x
Sam Lam x
Lee Orr x
Lorne Bilinski x
Bernie Koth-Kappus x
Stefan Klopp x

Do you have photos or video of this weekend’s events? Did you find some excellent DecaSession footage on Facebook or Flickr? Is your camera full of hockey hi-jinks and after-party lunacy? We’d love to put them up on BurtonHockey.com. There were thousands of photos taken this weekend, and we’d love to get them all in one place. Send absolutely everything you can find to kylekusch [at] yahoo.ca and we’ll try and get them up this week. You can view the collection here.

Obviously, the sheer numbers of people meant that per-game stats would be poor by conventional standards this day, not that anyone remotely cared about stats on a day when team pride came first. Still, Kyle Grenier amazingly pulled another 20-pointer out of the day, finishing at 12G-9A-21P and leading the shot count by a fair margin with 53. Lee Orr was second (5G-12A) and Seamus O’Connor came third (5G-11A). The top scorers for VRH were Lorne and Stefan with 13P each, although if Tony Hajdu had been around for the games at the end, he may had done so with his 10P in eight games. The story, of course, was in goal, where all four goalies today were over .820. Laird made 165 saves in nine game en route to a huge .868. That’s a 1032 PPS! Also taking on much volume was Bron, with .831 on 148 saves in seven games. Dom finished with .821 on 92 saves, and Shem’s short time in net at the end of the day was productive with a final posting of .839. There were 510 shots taken on goal today.

Here are the game scores:
BUSH def. VRH 5-2 5-4 4-5 1-5 5-0 5-1 5-2 5-1
BUSH wins Fuller Cup 6 games to 2
VRH 1 (Bron Stefan Bernie Oliver Jordan Lorne) def. BUSH 1 (Justin Seamus Graeme Colby Shem Lee) 5-3
BUSH 2 (Lee Kyle Andy Graeme Laird) def. VRH 2 (Jordan Stefan Sam Lorne Bron Tony S. Dom) 5-2
BUSH (Andy Nathan Kyle Lee Shem Justin Seamus Graeme) def. VRH (Bernie Lorne Sam Stefan Dom Bron Jordan) 5-2 5-0

Here are the faceoff stats:
Andy Kieran 2/2 (100.00%)
Oliver Koth-Kappus 1/1 (100.00%)
K.J. O’Connor 5/7 (71.43%)
Graeme Orr 6/9 (66.67%)
Seamus O’Connor 4/6 (66.67%)
Colby Olsen 2/3 (66.67%)
Sam Lam 11/18 (61.11%)
Lee Orr 6/12 (50.00%)
Justin Gordon 4/8 (50.00%)
Kyle Grenier 3/6 (50.00%)
Shem Hanna 1/2 (50.00%)
Stefan Klopp 5/12 (41.67%)
Lorne Bilinski 2/5 (40.00%)
Tony Sivilay 5/15 (33.33%)
Joern Hornhardt 1/6 (16.67%)
Rob Hajdu 0/1 (0.00%)
Bernie Koth-Kappus 0/1 (0.00%)
Andrew Watson 0/3 (0.00%)
BUSH 56.90%; VRH 43.10%

There’s just so much hockey this weekend that we’re saving the season/all-time stats analysis for tomorrow’s write-up. You’ll also notice that this is the first session not to be classified as ‘BUSH’ or ‘VRH’ but ‘Interleague’, another historic first.

SDF/GDF: With a record-tying 41 skaters on the ranking, the absent Pat remains on top, but Kyle scores a record 167 ranking points today and takes more than six points out of his lead. Big gainers include Stefan (eighth to fifth), Justin (19th to seventh), Tony Hajdu (16th to ninth) and Lorne (33rd to 17th). Players dropping include K.J. (fifth to tenth), Andy (sixth to 13th) and Sam (tenth to 14th). On the GDF, Laird’s superlative performance rockets him to the top of the charts for the 21st time in his career. This knocks Taylor and Seamus down to second and third. Bron jumps from tenth to fifth with his great session; Justin’s concentration on skating drops him down to ninth from fifth.