With many people out of town for the long weekend (aside from Rob who was once again “fixing his fence”) this would be the smallest session in ages. A late departure by the Barlow caravan left the poor goalies sitting alone at the rink for well over half-an-hour wondering what happened to all the players.

Still awaiting the arrival of Marcus and Tom we began with a 3-on-2 game featuring Klopp and Barlow with Alex versus Bernie-Oliver-Jordo-Dom. Surprisingly K-B managed to gain a 4-1 lead. At this point, however, Marcus arrived and filled in for Jordo who had just suffered a medically insignificant injury; Marcus provided the offensive spark scoring 3 goals to lead the comeback 5-4. It should be noted that part of Team K-B's success can be attributed to Klopp playing like an absolute beast, hacking and lifting sticks at every opportunity and not relenting one inch of body position (which led to few collisions and many more near collisions)

Next Barlow-Klopp-Jordo-Alex took on Bernie-Ollie-Marcus-Dom. Some great chemistry and nice passing plays lead to a relatively easy victory for Team B-O-M-D in the first game. B-K-J-A wanted redemption however, and redemption they would have, storming back to win the next game 5-3.

At this point, with Barlow's ankle acting up and Tom never showing up, we were forced to go back to a 3-on-2 format. This time, Ollie and Klopp would take on the rest. With Team M-B-J-A taking their extra man for granted and floating quite a bit, O-S-D got an early lead. Eventually M-B-J-A buckled down a bit and managed to take the game to sudden death overtime, until Ollie put away the game winner.

It should be noted that despite a slightly more open/offensive session today, the goaltending on both ends was absolutely stellar.

Thanks, Bern (with some admonishment for taking two whole days to get a four-game boxscore in, ha ha.)! A small session like this is rare these days in VRH, and the guys helped themselves to some points. Leading the charge with two point-outs and a Grenier-like 55 shots in four games (including 19 in Game 3) was Stefan with 8G-7A-55 shots. Tying him for first star with his first led session of the season and two point-outs of his own is Oliver (6G-9A-36 shots). Also over the 3.00 PPG mark today and tying for third star were Marcus (7G-5A) and Bernie (4G-8A). For the Bernman, it’s his first star points in two seasons! The goalies were indeed solid today, with Alex just edging Dom .825-.815.

Here are the game scores:
Bernie Oliver Downey Marcus Dom def. Barlow Stefan Alex 5-4
Bernie Oliver Marcus Dom vs. Barlow Stefan Downey Alex 5-2 3-5
Oliver Stefan Dom def. Marcus Bernie Downey Alex 5-4

We’ve got a BUSH session scheduled for Monday afternoon (in fact, just moments after I type this sentence), so join us this afternoon for the detailed stats synopses for both sessions this long weekend