Another BUSH session organised, cancelled, and reclaimed at the last minute. With K.J. and Nathan back in town this weekend, and a last-minute confirmation from Golden Joe, another short-but-sweet two-on-two session was to be had this afternoon. It was a race to see how much hockey could be crammed into two hours before K.J. had to leave. Shem arrived first and strapped on his brand-new goalie gear which he hadn’t even got to use yet. 15 minutes later, the rest of the gang arrived. Sure enough, Joe and Justin came under the impression that they, too were both goaltending. Once again, Shem would be forced to skate and hand over his new gear to another goalie (Justin).

It was surprisingly warm out; there was a fair amount of cloud around but none of it ever managed to cover the rink. Everyone got exhausted quite quickly, and breaks between games lasted almost half as long as the games themselves. Lee and Nathan were teamed with Joe against Shem, K.J. and Justin in the first series. The goalies got off to terrible starts, and the game ended quickly 5-2 for Team Joe. Justin was a mere .600 in Game 1, but came roaring back in Game 2 to .909 as K.J. and Shem reversed the score and tied the series. The highlight of the rubber match was Lee’s faceoff from K.J. that led to an immediately breakaway and goal so quickly that K.J. never even left the faceoff circle before the ball went in. Lee pointed out again and overcame a recovering Justin to lead he and Shem to another 5-2 win.

Lee and Nathan switched for the second series. During the break, a thoroughly confused elderly German man in an RV pulled up to the rink and asked us where the nearest petrol station was. The disappointment on his face when we told him it was 35 km away was rather obvious. Nevertheless, he bid us a friendly farewell and we were off to Game 4. Lee remained the dominant skater, but met his match in Golden Joe Leonard. Joe had been having a horrid day so far, with just .653 on 17 saves through the first three games. He then pulled a reverse Lyle and roared into action, stopping 20 of Lee’s 22 shots on goal and 26 total in the game. On top of that, he sprung K.J. a couple times for goals as his crew took a 5-2 win despite being outshot by double. There was some chippy play indeed beginning in this game between K.J. and Shem, including some rare crosschecking. In Game 5, K.J. would accidentally trip Shem and send him flying; thankfully Shem also had new skating gear including shin pads. As 4:45 was coming up quickly, the pace of the game intensified. Joe was still golden, but Lee and Shem were finally able to at least get some balls past him. K.J., however, would sink a lazy shot past Justin to win the game 5-4 and the series 2-0. It was fun to be back out there; BUSH has to grab ever opportunity it can get, and did so today in fine fashion. And Shem is dead-set on a Kelowna league for 2011.

Lee dominated most of the play all day but was stymied in Series 2 by Joe. This enabled the speedy K.J. to catch him and tie him with the last goal at 17 points apiece (14G for K.J. versus 11G for Lee). Lee took a massive 67 shots in five games; K.J., 52. Nathan also used the final two games to pull away from Shem to finish in third with 14 points. Joe overcame a horrendous start (.653 in Series 1) to recover all the way to a solid .813 (.857 in Series 2). While not as involved in the play as, say, Seamus in goal, Joe did try three shots: the second hit Justin the chest while the other two flew out out play into the playground (Joe switched to a regular hockey stick during Game 2). Justin peaked in games 2 and 3 and then stayed level all day afterward; he was disappointed with .773, calling it a continuation of an off-year after a 2009 campaign where he was never below .800 the entire season. Both goalies helped themselves to plenty of assists.

Here are the game scores:
Joe Lee Nathan def. K.J. Shem Justin 5-2 2-5 5-2
K.J. Nathan Joe def Lee Shem Justin 5-2 5-4

Here are the faceoff stats:
Lee Orr 16/24 (75.00%)
Nathan Robson 8/14 (57.14%)
Shem Hanna 6/14 (42.86%)
K.J. O’Connor 6/20 (30.00%)

As this session was held concurrently with a VRH session in West Vancouver, we must wait for that boxscore to come in before we can get to the stat analysis, records & honours page and rankings. Come back hopefully within the next day and those stats should be in!