For the first time in nearly two months, John McCormack Park was graced with something it rarely sees these days: actual 3-on-3 hockey. It was an evenly-balanced line-up on paper, and that’s exactly what it turned out being this Friday afternoon.The only real unfortunate part of the days was Shem making it all the way past Bayview before remembering to grab his goalie stick from his house. Yes, Shem would finally get to debut his new pads tonight against Joe Leonard in the other net. It would also mark Noel’s first session since the ol’ snippety-snip down below; he made sure to protect himself just in case with an external cup tuck-taped around his waist (the world’s tiniest sumo diaper).

After sticks in the middle, Lee and K.J. would team with Joe against Seamus and Noel with Shem. Justin and Graeme began on the sideline trying to repair their skates; both would join in the game at 1-1. Game 1 was dominated by the tandem of Noel and Seamus. Noel was already warning people that his recent procedure had left some amount of psychological scarring and that’d he be off his game today. Instead, he played what was probably the best session of his skating career. He was quite the two-way presence all day today, and he and Seamus both pointed out Game 1 to win 5-3. Shem was very good here with .864 while Joe would rather forget his 7-for-12 performance. Fortunately, Joe would redeem himself in Game 2, as he was the difference in a tightly-fought 5-4 Game 2 that went by quickly but was very fun to play and watch. K.J. was now on fire here and brought his ‘A’ game for the rest of the series. With himself and Lee making quite the team in Game 3, they’d take the series with a 5-2 win.

Series 2 saw Lee and K.J. stay together, pairing up with Noel and Shem against Seamus, Justin, Graeme and Joe. Game 4 went by in a ten-minute flash as the goalie were hung out to dry by fast-paced 2-on-0 breaks and sick dangles. Any turnover was immediately cashed by Team Joe. Seamus stayed even-handed, Graeme was blasting snipes into the net, and Justin was an assist machine. Looking for redemption, Shem stood on his head in Game 5, stopping 25 shots and carrying his team to a 5-2 win; once again, K.J. and Lee made quite the pair. In this game, Lee became the first player to record two 700-point seasons. Shem started out Game 6 hot as well, getting himself finally back over .800 for the session at one point. Team Shem was up 3-0 at one point, the third goal coming on a fluke: the ball having left the cage, Lee retrieved it and shot it in the air from the cage door across to Noel, who dumped it toward an inattentive Joe across the length of the rink. The ball trickled in off Joe’s right leg. Seamus then anchored a comeback for his crew, pointing out again for five unanswered goals. All of the skaters were spread between 21 and 15 points at this juncture, a reflection of the even-natured play of the first two series.

Graeme and Noel were tired at this point and headed home, leaving the remaining skaters to play a couple of 2-on-2 games. Going against good judgment, Seamus and Lee were placed on a team together backed by Joe against K.J., Justin and Shem. Twelve minutes later, Seamus had pointed out again, Shem was choked, and Joe had barely missed a shutout. Switching Lee for K.J. regained the session’s balance immediately, and a terrific Game 8 was played where every player, skater and goaltender, had shining moments in a game with relentless pace. The brothers O’Connor would eke out a 5-4 win to end a fun day in Burton as the gang gears up for the epic Thanksgiving Fuller Cup rematch in the Lower Mainland three weeks from now.

The scorers were all within six points of one another after Game 6 as things were quite even all day. Seamus, however, ran away from the pack in the 2-on-2 games, pointing out both en route to a career-best 16G-15A. Can you believe that’s his first-ever 30-pointer? Lee was the other big scorer in 2-on-2, and that helped him to second place on 16G-9A. K.J. just edged out Justin with the final goal, beating him 22-21 in points to take third despite Justin’s 17A. Noel was impressive with 13A in just six games, and everyone hit 15 points today. The goalies were wildly erratic with short periods of brilliance abruptly ended by sequences of quick goals from skaters who were on fire all day. Shem’s excellent first and fifth games were the difference, giving him the day .748-.716 over Joe. Shem did break the 100-save mark today, however, and was very happy about his standing-on-head Game 5 performance.

Here are the game scores:
Lee K.J. Justin Joe def. Seamus Noel Shem Graeme 3-5 5-4 5-2
Seamus Joe Justin Graeme def. Lee K.J. Noel Shem 5-1 2-5 5-3
Lee Seamus Joe def. Justin K.J. Shem 5-1
K.J. Seamus Joe def. Justin Lee Shem 5-4

Here are the faceoff stats:
Graeme Orr 3/4 (75.00%)
Lee Orr 17/30 (56.67%)
Seamus O’Connor 20/36 (55.56%)
Justin Gordon 7/16 (43.75%)
K.J. O’Connor 9/25 (36.00%)
Noel Ballard 1/3 (33.33%)

Season Stats: Lee looks poised to take the season scoring lead from the absent Kyle as he has closed to within 22 (735-713). Lee’s last two seasons alone would place him fifth on the all-time scoring list. Seamus is 34 points behind Nathan for sixth. Justin is 16 behind Bernie for eleventh. K.J. passes Graeme and Justin for eighth in goals; Seamus passes 100 on the year and moves from 14th to 11th.Seamus passes Nathan for fourth in assists, 229-228. Noel becomes the 13th player with 100 assists this season. K.J. jumps from fifth to third in shooting percentage. Shem falls to seventh in save percentage behind Alex and Nathan; Joe drops from sixth to tenth behind Lee and Alan. Seamus needs six games played for 200. Joe moves to fifth in games goaltended ahead of Justin and Lyle. Seamus passes Sam for seventh in three-star points. Seamus almost catches brother K.J. for fifth in PPG. Seamus passes Lee for second in APG. Shem falls to fifth in saves-per-game behind Kyle.

On the All-Time Front: Lee becomes the first player in history to score 2,400 points. Seamus is 43 points behind Lorne for fourth. Justin needs eight points for 1,100. Noel enters the top 30 in scoring. Lee needs one goal for 1,300; Seamus needs 13 for 700; K.J. passes 600. Justin ties Kyle for seventh in assists; K.J. passes Joern for ninth with Graeme just eight behind Joern. Noel enters the top 25 in assists. Shem falls marginally behind Kyle to sixth in save percentage and needs 67 saves for 3,000. Seamus needs four games for 700; Shem becomes the 14th player to play 300 games and is three games goaltended behind Lyle for ninth in that category. Joe enters the top ten in points scored from goal. Seamus needs 15 star points to reach 1,000 total between skating and goaltending. Seamus passes Stefan for fifth in 15-pointers. Graeme has five 15-pointers in a row. Seamus also passes Oliver for fifth in 20-pointers with 23, and ties Stefan and Robert Rogers for fifth in 25-pointers with eight. Amazingly, it’s his first career 30-pointer. Graeme’s streak of ten-goal sessions ends at five. Joe’s .810 streak ends at three. Shem ties Chris for sixth in 80-savers with 21; he has three in a row. He also ties Alex and Laird for sixth in 90-savers with 17 (three in a row) and is two behind Nathan for the lead in 100-savers with 16 (three in a row). Lee now has the seventh-longest consecutive session streak ever at 27, dating back to March. Lee becomes the first person in history to record two 700-point seasons (he’s 15 away from his career best of 728 and 22 from Kyle’s all-time mark of 735). Lee’s is twelve away from tying his all-time single-season assist mark of 355. Seamus’ 229 assists this year is the fifth-highest mark ever. Lee ties his own all-time record for most games in a single year with 235.

SDF/GDF: As we’re expecting a VRH session this weekend, the rankings aren’t considered to be final until then; regardless, Pat spends a 15th straight session on top. Provisionally, the big gainers are the O’Connors as they rise back over the session minimum up into fifth and sixth in the middle of a tightly-packed group from third to seventh. Marcus’ inactivity sees him plummet further. Seamus holds the GDF for a ninth-straight session, one away from tying the record streak there. Joe rises over the session minimum from tenth to fifth.

Three weeks until VRH and BUSH meet again! You can bet the'll be plenty of tune-up action in the meantime. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section