(Ed. note: Apologies for the delay. The scoresheet was rescued from a pocket in Tony’s laundry hamper right before it was about to go through the wash! Luckily, he rescued them in time. Here's Tony!)

The day didn’t start out as promising as we’d hoped; only 4 confirmed attending prior to Saturday’s session, and only one goalie. It was decided to extend an invitation out to as many friends as possible, reaching into the depths of our Facebook contacts just to make ends meet for our session. To go along with the profound lack of responses, the weather forecast was not as forgiving as we’d all hoped it could be. It didn’t matter too much, as a few had decided that just taking shots on a goalie could be fun enough, and that the trip out to West Van was worth it. We arrived and had a couple more faces arrive than we thought. Jordan lugged the bag of goalie gear and graciously offered to wear it for the session, so suddenly we had enough for some 3 on 2.

The first game was a decent example of who showed up fully rested; Bernie finished the game with a 75% shooting percentage and Tony had a session-high 14 shots on net. Despite that, Marcus and Andrew stormed back the following game, with Andrew pointing out and netting some big goals when it counted. A tie-breaking game ended up going to the very well-balanced Ollie-Bernie-Tony trio, even with some amazing saves by Dom.

When game 4 started, so did the rain. It was gritty and sloppy, reminiscent of the recent Winter Classic in Pittsburgh. The new teams had a well-built lineup of Andrew-Bernie-Ollie, cleverly passing, deftly deflecting, and solidly shooting throughout the match. Marcus and Tony couldn’t do much to keep up once being down early. However, the fifth game had one of the more evenly divided teams of the day. The back-and-forth between the teams was a nail-biter. Andrew was getting tired, J-Bo was stepping up his game progressively, but the real story of the game was Ollie’s 4-goal delivery. He was practically saying “assists are for wimps”, because goals are all that count. After the game, the rain had been getting harder, and it was decided to pack it in for the day. Great session all around.

Thanks, Tony. A productive second session, even if it got called early by rain. Oliver brought his lunch pail this day, notching 19 points in the five games to take the day by one point over Andrew. For Andrew, having the day end here was huge, as it snapped his 20-pointer streak he had carried with him since the first full session he ever played (seven in a row dating back to June 2009). Also breaking the 15-point barrier was our man Tony in third with an even 8-and-8 on a huge 52 shots in the five games. A very impressive debut from Barlow in goal, notching .826 in his debut session and besting all-time stalwart Dom by 76 points. For Jordan, this puts an end to what had been the second-longest Burton career without having strapped on the goalie pads (260 games; Rob Hajdu is the all-time leader at 267).

Here are the game scores:
Tony Oliver Bernie Jordan def. Marcus Andrew Dom 5-1 4-5 5-3
Oliver Bernie Andrew Jordan def. Tony Marcus Dom 5-2 5-4

Season Stats: Well, we have a fair bit of upheaval after this session with regard to the season leaderboard, helped by the fact that only three of last week’s skaters skated this week. Marcus leads Oliver 36-28 in scoring with everyone bunched up behind them. Marcus still has a healthy lead in goals with 22, with Andrew debuting in second at 11 followed closely by the Koth-Kappi. Jordan going in goal just narrowly helped Oliver to the assist lead, 18-17, followed by Rob and Marcus. Marcus has a commanding lead in shots over second-place Tony, 91-52. Oliver and Andrew are close together for the lead in shooting percentage, hovering around 30% each. Jordan has the season goaltending lead .826-.798 over Dom, but Dom leads in saves with 178 on the year. Jordan, Marcus, Oliver, Bernie, and Dom have played all twelve games this year (all of them in goal for Dom). The star point scorers were completely different from the previous session, leaving Oliver and Marcus tied for the lead in three-stars, and Oliver, Marcus, Dom, and Jordan tied for the lead in total star points. Andrew has the lead in PPG over Tony, 3.60-3.20, and also takes the GPG lead from Marcus. Tony is the only player averaging 10.00 shots per game so far. Oliver’s 19 points today and Andrew 18 rank fourth and fifth-best in sessions so far. Other session ranks: Tony and Bernie’s eight goals rank second with Oliver’s seven ranking fourth and Marcus’ six ranking fifth. Oliver’s twelve assists rank third and Tony’s eight rank fourth. Tony’s 52 shots are second-highest. Jordan and Dom’s 76 and 72 saves rank third and fourth. Jordan’s .826 ranks second; Dom’s .750 ranks fourth, as do their PPS totals of 902 and 822, respectively.

On the All-Time Front: Bernie passes Kyle for sixth in points and is 34 behind Seamus for fifth. Tony becomes the 21st player to pass 400 points and needs six to tie Ben for 20th. Marcus is five points behind Eric for 25th. Andrew becomes the 30th player to score 200 points. Tony is one goal behind Joe Chwachka for 16th in goals (insert obligatory DecaSession reference here). Andrew needs eight goals for 100. Bernie is 14 assists behind Seamus for third. Tony enters the top 20 in assists and needs eight for 200; Marcus passes Robert for 24th. Oliver needs six games for 1,200. Oliver passes Stefan for fourth in three-star points with 705 and is ten behind Kyle for third. He also passes Stefan for sixth in total star points with the same total. Andrew has scored 15 points in every full session he’s ever played (eight in a row), but his 20-pointer streak ends at seven (third-longest ever). Andrew gets his fourth ten-goal session, but his ten-assister streak ends at five (second-longest ever). Jordan gets his first .820 in his first goaltending session; Dom’s .840 streak ends at two. Oliver plays his 24th consecutive session (ninth-longest streak ever); Dominik his 15th. Rob and Sam have their streaks end at six.

SDF/GDF: Major SDF implications went down with this session. Pat leads his 26th straight ranking, but will fall below the session minimum next time out if he doesn’t play. This opens up the door for Andrew to lead the SDF for the first time in his career. Back on Canadian soil after spending most of 2010 in Southeast Asia, he has climbed back up over the minimum session number and has jumped into second place. Marcus drops behind Lee to fourth, but a good performance next week could still put him in the hunt for top spot if Pat’s not there. Absent Stefan drops from seventh to twelfth. Next session will see the final big nose dive for BUSH players as they all fall below the minimum before they slowly fade away from the ranking. Seamus holds fort for one final week on the GDF before his DecaSession performance falls off and takes him below the session minimum. There are so few goalies on the GDF that Jordan debuts in fifth place.

It’s going to be a wet couple of weeks, but your humble statistician is still heading for the coast for the next two weekends to hopefully catch some VRH action up close and personal..Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section.