With 2 goalies, decent numbers and a forecast of glorious sunshine for Saturday, the session was confirmed late Thursday night. After a couple more confirmations and a couple surprise shows, by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, the numbers had ballooned to a massive 11 skaters. The only viable option for Ambleside was to do a 3-team tourney with rotating goalies.

Today would see Andrew Smart make his long awaited return from the hippie-hinterlands of Thailand, and he showed that he certainly hadn't lost his scoring touch by potting the first 3 goals of the day. The first tourney however, was won quite handily by Barlow-Ollie-Rhino. For the next tourney, in an effort to even out the teams we decided to have “captains” pick teams. Ironically this method ended up creating the exact same team (Barlow-Ollie-Rhino) once again, so instead sticks were thrown. The second tourney was won by Eric-Andy-Ollie going 2-0, narrowly beating Sam-Shay-Bernie-Barlow by a 5-4 margin in the final game.

With a couple people leaving, we now switched to a 2-team format. Rob-Tony-Downey-Shay-Sam-Alex would take on Ollie-Barlow-Andy-Bernie-Dom. The first game was won fairly easily by O-B-A-B-D, but the losing team wanted redemption, so the teams were kept the same for the next game. Team O-B-A-B-D thought this one would be over quickly but they grossly underestimated the fierceness and determination of team R-D-S-S-A (Tony had left after the last game); they simply would not give up, led by Al in net who was absolutely phenomenal, facing countless breakaways and odd-man rushes. After R-D-S-S-A tied it up at 4-4, the powerful Andy-Ollie-Barlow line came on to try to finish it off; R-D-S-S-A held them off for a good 10 minutes but eventually a nice 3-way passing play led to the winner. This game would last almost an hour, and everyone was absolutely exhausted at its completion.

If anything, today demonstrated precisely why J-Bo is truly one of the pre-eminent players in Burton Hockey today; despite numerous different player combinations, his team won almost every game (the only one lost was by a 5-4 margin). His constant two-way presence gives almost any team a chance to win, and pairing him with another strong player like Ollie makes the team almost unbeatable (assuming Pat isn't playing of course).

Thanks, Bernie. A dominant performance from Jordan Barlow today. Known more for his defensive prowess, his offensive game has really come to the forefront as of late, and today was no exception, as the lanky Castlegar native notched 15G-8A in six games. Not far behind with yet another 20-pointer despite nine months away from the game is Andrew, posting 9G-12A and 57 shots; Andy still has yet to fall below 20 points in any full session he’s ever played. Rounding out the top three is Oliver with 19 points including 14A. In goal, it was another masterful performance from Alex, who has come alive again in the past two weeks. Today, he was .844 through eight games on 157 saves with a shutout (he’s second all-time in shutouts now!); his first career session with a PPS over 1000. Dom was a bit off from last weekend’s supersession numbers at .775 on 117 saves, but the big picture today was more important, as he became Burton Hockey’s all-time save leader, a position he will probably have a clench-lock on for the next decade.

Here are the game scores:
Sam Andrew Bernie Rob Dom def. Tony Eric Shaylin Downey Alex 5-3
Barlow Oliver Ryan Alex def. Sam Andrew Bernie Rob Dom 5-3
Barlow Oliver Ryan Alex def. Tony Eric Shaylin Downey Dom 5-0
Eric Andrew Oliver Alex def. Rob Ryan Tony Alex Downey 5-3
Sam Shaylin Bernie Barlow Alex def. Rob Ryan Tony Downey Dom 5-3
Eric Andrew Oliver Dom def. Sam Shaylin Bernie Barlow Alex 5-4
Oliver Barlow Bernie Andrew Dom def. Rob Tony Downey Shaylin Sam Alex 5-3 5-4 (no Tony in Game 8)

Season Stats: Another 19 points from Oliver today closes that gap between he and Pat for third to 509-493. Barlow trails Seamus for seventh at 369-348, while Sam passes Bernie for ninth, 299-298. Tony becomes the 15th player with 200 points this year. Barlow jumps from tenth to seventh in goals; Tony becomes the 15th player with 100 goals and Ryan the 20th with 50. Oliver joins Lee in the 300-assist club this season, and Barlow trails Stefan for sixth 209-201. Bernie and Rob pass Pat for eighth in assists; Tony becomes the 17th player with 100 assists this year. Ryan falls from third to seventh in shooting percentage. The four-man races for the season games played race gets even tighter: Lee 254, Bernie 248, Oliver 247, Dominik 240. Alex has 14 shutouts this year. Oliver ties Stefan for fifth in three-star points with 165; Barlow ties Justin and Marcus for tenth at 65. Dom ties Pat for fifth in total star points at 250 with Alex right behind at 240. The goalie star points battle is 250-240 for Dom over Alex with Seamus still in it at 215. Andrew finally plays enough this year to become eligible for 2010 per-game records: he debuts third in PPG at 3.25, first in APG at 2.05, and seventh in shots-per-game at 6.75. Alex passes Shem for sixth in saves-per-game at 15.23.

On the All-Time Front: Bernie becomes the seventh player to score 1,300 points. Barlow is 29 points behind Laird for 15th. Sam becomes the 19th player to score 400 points and is one point behind Ben for 18th, who was passed today by Rob for 17th; Ryan needs 13 for 400. Oliver is twelve goals behind Stefan for third. Barlow becomes the 20th player to score 200 goals; Tony needs twelve. Oliver becomes the first player with 1,300 assists; Bernie the fourth with 750. Ryan needs 19 assists for 200. Oliver is just one shot on goal behind Stefan for second all-time. Barlow passes Jason Leung for fourth in shooting percentage. As you read already, Dom has passed Laird and Nathan for the all-time save lead with 4,162. Bernie becomes the second person to play 1,100 games; Tony needs three for 200. In the race to claim the dubious honour of having played the most without having to go in goal, Rob now trails Mitch Detta 249-236, with Barlow at 233, Ryan at 224, and Pat at 223. Dom needs two games in net to become the first goalie to play 300 games; Alex passes Shem and Lyle to jump into ninth in games goaltended. Alex ties Nathan for second in shutouts with 14, he is just two away from Bron’s all-time record of 16. Barlow becomes the 22nd player with 100 three-star points. Dom ties Justin for fourth in goalie star points with 315. Andrew becomes the all-time leader in APG, jumping from fifth to first ahead of Robert Rogers at 1.43. Alex has three straight .840s; Dom’s .800 streak ends at three. Dom sets a new Burton record for most 80-savers with 27 (Alex isn’t far behind at 21, including nine in a row). Dom leads Alex in all-time 90-savers 23-21; Alex needs three more 90-savers in a row to tie his own Burton record of 12. Dom seta a new Burton record with 19 100-savers; Alex has 16 including two in a row. Dom leads Alex in all-time 110-savers 13-11, in 120-savers 12-9, and in 130-savers 11-8. Oliver passes Lorne for second in 15-pointers with 59. Andrew has seven straight 20-pointer, the third-longest streak ever. Sam becomes the twelfth player with ten ten-goal sessions. Andrew records his fifth-straight ten-assister, two short of Kyle Grenier’s record of seven. Bernie plays his 35th consecutive session; Oliver his 17th; Eric and Dom their ninth. Oliver records the third 300-assist season in history. Dom becomes the fourth player to play 240 games in a single year.

SDF/GDF: The reality of Kyle Grenier’s sudden departure from BUSH while in the middle of the greatest offensive season in history hits home this week as he falls below the session minimum and plummets down the rankings; he’ll be gone two editions from now. Far behind perennial leader Pat (19 in a row), with Kyle’s departure from the top end, Marcus moves into second with Seamus and Stefan right behind him. Moving up three sports each to fifth and sixth are Barlow and K.J. Oliver jumps up five spots to eighth, and Kyle isn’t the only top name to fall from the top twelve due to inactivity as Nathan falls from twelfth to 22nd. This is also a rare occasion in that Lee has fallen from the top ten. Over on the GDF, Dom is on top for the 14th time in his career but Alex has really narrowed the gap today with just .0031 between them (.8282-.8251). Former mainstay #1 Seamus falls out of the top five due to inactivity in net with only his supersession appearance last weekend on the charts, leaving Golden Joe and Joern as the only other qualifying goalies on the list.

VRH is on a hot streak this autumn with action coming every weekend, a contrast to the absolute purgatory limbo of BUSH at the moment. I hope you caught all of the great Fuller Cup footage from Bron, including 15 minutes of video here. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section.