With three of our mainstay regulars (Klopp, Ollie & Barlow) out of town, it was no surprise that this would be the most difficult session to get going in ages. With spotty showers around the Lower Mainland Sunday morning, an e-mail was sent to see what the conditions looked like on the North Shore and to make sure everyone was still in (as we had only the bare minimum number of people confirmed). After a very limited response (initially only Dom and Marcus), it seemed like the session was in serious jeopardy. Around 11:30am I was just about ready to pull the plug on the session when almost simultaneously Eric confirmed that he was still game, Marcus revealed that he’d now got his cousin Gavin on board, and we found out that poor Alex was already at the rink waiting. This gave us just enough people for a full session and it was game on!

By the time everyone congregated it was almost 1pm, but most importantly the ground was still dry and the clouds, though threatening, were holding off on their forecast precipitation. While waiting for Tom to arrive a quick game of 3 on 2 was played. Despite a valiant effort by Marcus & Gavin, the extra man was just too large of an advantage and Tony-Eric-Bernie breezed to an easy 5-0 victory.

With the arrival of Tom, sticks were thrown to create what appeared to be quite lopsided teams of Marcus-Tony-Tom versus Eric-Bernie-Gavin. Despite putting up a strong effort and managing to score a number of goals, Team E-B-G were eventually overcome by the offensive powerhouse of M-T-T (5-3, 5-2). Despite the low numbers (i.e. no subs), this series, and the whole session in fact, was one of the most intense in recent memory.

The next series saw Marcus-Eric-Bernie take on Tom-Gavin-Tony, which was an extremely even, hard fought contest. It should be noted that Alex played extremely well for T-G-T in this series; in the first game, there was a 15-20 minute stretch where team M-E-B was getting high quality chance after high quality chance with Alex stopping every single one. Eventually T-G-T was able to get a few by Alex, and Dom turned it up a notch as well, allowing them to make it a good contest of it; nevertheless, T-G-T ended up winning in sudden death OT. Game 2 was much the same, a back and forth battle, with T-G-T again taking it in sudden death OT. By this time rain drops began to fall in earnest, and with everyone pretty exhausted anyways, the session was called.

The fact that a session still happened on this day, despite so many regulars being out of action and some last minute cancellations, is a true testament to the fortitude of VRH in this new era.

Thanks, Bern. The 2010 VRH season would be hard to imagine without the contributions of our three top rookies; Alex, Marcus and Tom. Sure enough, they’re back on top of things again this week. In a very tight session-long scoring battle, Marcus took first star by one point at 6G-9A over Tony (7G-7A). Scoring his first star points in his second career session is another promising rookie in field hockey veteran Gavin, who led the session in goals with eight and chipped in five assists. Eric (twelve) and Bernie & Tom (ten apiece) were right behind them, and Tom could have easily figured in for star points were it not for the first game. In goal, it was a decent day for Alex, notching .809 with a shutout to Dom’s .765. Notably, Alex becomes the first goaltender to post ten shutouts in a season; he could easily be the all-time shutout leader by the end of the year. Dom sets an even bigger record, however, by passing Bron’s 2009 save mark to set a new single-season save record of 1,909.

Here are the game scores:
Tony Eric Bernie Alex def. Marcus Gavin Dom 5-0
Marcus Tony Tom Dom def. Eric Gavin Bernie Alex 5-3 5-2
Tony Tom Gavin Alex def. Marcus Eric Bernie Dom 5-4 5-4

Going to Sun Peaks on Canada Day weekend? Burton Hockey is coming your way for a special session in Kamloops at Heffley Creek. Bring your skates! As well, it’s just three weeks until your humble statistician is back in Vancouver for a long-overdue visit to VRH.

Season Stats: Not a whole lot of movement today. Bernie ties Graeme for tenth in points; Tony and Marcus pass Noel for 15th and 16th, respectively. Marcus becomes the 15th player to hit 50 goals this year. Alex joins Dom in the 1,500 save club. Marcus vaults to eighth in three-star points.

On the All-Time Front: Bernie needs 24 points for 1,200; Tony jumps from 24th to 21st and needs 19 for 300. Eric needs two points for 100. Bernie becomes the ninth player to score 500 goals. Dom passes Shem for eighth in saves and is seven behind Seamus for seventh. Alex becomes the twelfth goalie to make 1,500 saves. Bernie needs three games to become the second player to play 1,000. Dom becomes the sixth goaltender to goaltend 200 games. Alex becomes the sixth goalie to record ten shutouts, and sets a new single-season Burton Hockey record with ten. Alex passes K.J. for eleventh in goalie star points. Marcus pots his fourth career 15-pointer. Alex has three straight .800s, but his .820 streak ends at two. He also fails to break 80 saves for the first time in his career, ending his streak at twelve (the third-longest streak ever). His 90-saver streak ends at a record twelve. Bernie plays his 19th consecutive session, Dom his twelfth, Alex and Marcus their eighth. Oliver’s streak ends at twelve and Stefan’s ends at six. As mentioned above, Dom’s 1,909 saves this season is a new yearly record; he needs to goaltend four more games to set a single-season games goaltended record. Alex’s 125 goalie star points this season are tied for the fifth-highest mark ever.

SDF/GDF: Kyle leads the SDF for the seventh straight ranking. Lee and Tony trade fourth and fifth, and Marcus continues his ascent in seventh, pushing Stefan and Tom down. The next ranking should see major upheaval as Day One of the DecaSession falls off. Seamus takes back the GDF lead from Laird, and thus moves into fourth on the all-time rankings-led list with 20.

VRH kept it going this weekend while BUSH seems almost moribund by comparison. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section.