With the momentum gathered from Sunday’s first BUSH session of the year, it was right back on the horse; talks were in place Monday for a Wednesday afternoon session. The charge was led by one Mitch Detta, and rumour had it that he was lining up an outstanding crop of young talent for the Burton roster. Not only did Mitch deliver, he brought it in spades with the biggest rookie crop seen in a single session, all of whom were experienced hockey player fresh off their 2010-11 seasons. In fact, only Mitch, Lee Orr and Brad Gibson would be returning from Sunday, joined by an excitng young crew who look to radically change the look of the league.

Back in the fold for a third season in 2011 is the dynamic Terryn Stenseth, sporting a rather large Mohawk these days as he gears up for his last summer before university. In his sophomore session was Jesse Cann, looking to improve on the .702 save percentage he posted in his previous BUSH outing last year. The scariest/awesomest thing about this session is that he was the third-oldest player on the rink just two years out of high school. And then there was the rookie crop; guys with midget rep and provincial championship background eager to test out their wheels for the first time on the McCormack Park court. Ryan Bateman, Dylan Hascarl, Jordan Trenholm, Brandon Olson – all coming with high expectations and lots of hype surrounding their arrival. We knew their ice hockey skills were excellent; how would they do today on wheels?

It would be a revolving door of goaltending all day. Jesse and Brandon suited up first backing Ryan-Jordan-Terryn and Mitch-Dylan-Brad-Lee, respectively. The rain opened up midway through Game 1, and was wet snow (snow!) by Game 2, drenching the players to the bone, weighing down the goalie equipment, and sending your humble statistician to the safety of the car (conveniently parked right next to the cage for just such an occasion; it had already snowed in the area that morning and we knew this could happen). Terryn was one fire in Game 1, scoring the first four goals and assisting Ryan on the fifth to win 5-2. Equally outstanding in Game 1 was the goaltending of Jesse, as he stopped 27 of 29 shots and quickly erased any memory of 2010. Team Brandon fired right back in Game with a 5-2 win of their own; the points spread out a little more but Brad perhaps standing out a little more. As snow turned to sleet and then driving rain in Game 3, a fast-paced war on water ensued with Team Brandon prevailing in a 5-4 win to take the series. Jesse finished with an outstanding .852.

As all of the crew had brought their wheels, and Jesse was getting bogged down pretty quickly in the gear, he left the net. His replacement would determined by the loser of a shootout against Brandon. Fairly quickly, it was whittled down to Dylan and Ryan, who failed three shots each on Brandon before Dylan finally sent it home. With that, Ryan threw on Jesse’s stick-in-rink Canucks sweater and proceeded to pull a Sam Lam and score a six-shot shutout in his first-ever goaltending appearance. The Lee-Brad-Terryn-Jordan vs. Dylan-Mitch-Jesse arrangement proved too lopsided for the gang’s liking, and new teams were made up.

The rain began to let up in Game 5 a little (it was already too late as the puddles were massive and everyone was drenched) as Ryan teamed with Brad, Dylan and Terryn against the sub team of Jesse, Lee, Jordan, Mitch and Brandon. After a shaky start, Brandon picked up his game quite nicely during this series and would eventually soar over 100 saves on the day. Terryn remained a house afire in this series, pulling away in scoring from teammate Brad as the frame went on. A long 5-4 game was won by Team Brandon as Lee, Jesse and Mitch lit up the board. Their momentum was stopped dead in Game 6 as Ryan once again proved impenetrable; this time with 15 saves to record his second shutout in three games. Game 7 was the best game of the day as Ryan stood on his head to complete his amazing rookie sojourn, finishing the day with the best goaltending performance of the year in either league at .871. Not bad for a guy who only went in net because he lost a shootout!

Jesse and Terryn were itching to get back to Nakusp for men’s league basketball, but were persuaded to stick around for one more series. Maybe we pushed it too far, but it was worth it. Brandon got to swap out of goal in exchange for Dylan, but the other goaltender was once again determined by the loser of a shootout. Only Jordan and Terryn were left after the first round, and amazingly the session scoring leader could not beat Dylan. Thus, Terryn, the #3 all-time-ranked goaltender and one of two goalies (Taylor Reitmeier is the other) who have never been below .800 in a session, made his 2011 debut in net. Terryn got Mitch, Brandon and Jesse; Dylan backed Jordan, Lee, Brad, and Ryan. Terryn got off to a shaky start with four goals scored on him in the first 14 shots. His team did a good job of peppering Dylan, however, which kept him in the game long enough to recover. Jordan pulled off his first two-goal game of the day in Game 8, and the Lee-Brad-Ryan combo was making a lot of tic-tac-toe plays when on the rink in this series. That plus Dylan’s solid play would be the key to victory as the rain intensified again and their crew won 5-3, 5-4 to end the day with everyone completely maxed out.

Burton Hockey on the east side of the Monashee is in good hands. An incredibly fun day with a new crew of stars to lead us into the future. Hopefully everyone can recover (and the goalie gear can dry out) to do this again in a few days.

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So many stories, it’ll be hard to summarise (there’s so much to remember I’ve probably forgotten half of it already). Terryn was easily the offensive star of the day. Despite playing the last two games in goal, leading the day in scoring was never really a question in his triumphant return to Burton, putting up 13G-14A on 58 shots in just seven games. Brad was Terryn’s offensive partner for the two middle series; he finished with 10G-14A on a career-high 61 shots (no small achievement for a player thought of as a defensive defenceman). Just one point behind was Lee (14G-9A-74 shots). Mitch had 11G of his own in fourth. Those three players had an advantage in skating all nine games, of course. But even so, the players who split duties also racked up huge points – there were seven 15-pointers today! In just five and seven games out, Ryan and Dylan tied the rookie record for assists in a session with eleven each. Jesse wasn’t far behind with nine. Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the excellent revolving door of goaltending – for only the third time in history (and first outside of interleague play), three goalies finished above .830. Leading the way was Ryan, whose .871 with two shutouts is the best anyone’s done all year in either league (and the fifth-highest rookie mark ever). Jesse showed huge dual threat potential with 15 points in scoring and .852 in goaltending. Dylan surprised even himself with his stellar .833. Brandon shook off a rough first series to finish with 101 saves and an .820-plus performance in the third series. And Terryn fell just short of his high standards at .796.

Here are the game scores:
Mitch Dylan Brad Lee Brandon def. Ryan Jordan Terryn Jesse 2-5 5-2 5-4
Lee Brad Terryn Jordan Ryan def. Dylan Mitch Jesse Brandon 5-0
Brad Dylan Terryn Ryan def. Jesse Lee Jordan Mitch Brandon 4-5 5-0 5-3
Jordan Lee Brad Ryan Dylan def. Mitch Brandon Jesse Terryn 5-3 5-4

Faceoff Statistics:
Jesse Cann 5/6 (83.33%)
Jordan Trenholm 4/6 (66.67%)
Mitchell Detta 7/11 (63.64%)
Dylan Hascarl 8/15 (53.33%)
Brad Gibson 4/8 (50.00%)
Brandon Olson 2/4 (50.00%)
Terryn Stenseth 11/27 (40.74%)
Lee Orr 7/18 (38.89%)
Ryan Bateman 0/1 (0.00%)

Season Stats: with so many new players today, the overall season stats aren’t affected that much. Despite just two BUSH sessions compared to nine VRH sessions this year, Lee and Brad are on the brink of the top ten at 54 and 52 points, respectively. With only one session each, the five different goalies today don’t quick make the 150-shots-against minimum to qualify for goalie stats like save percentage and saves-per-game, but if they keep up this level of play in the future they will make a rather big dent in the goalie rankings. One goalie stat that is very notable: Ryan takes over the lead in shutouts as the only play in either league with multiple donuts this year. He also ties Sam Lam for third in goalie star points with 15; Jesse is tied for fifth with 10. Terryn scored so much today that he actually managed to narrowly qualify for the lead in PPG with 3.57 and GPG with 1.86. Lee falls out of the top five in APG behind Stefan. Lee jumps from fourth to first in shots-per-game. Terryn’s 27 points today rank fifth-highest in a session this year. Lee’s 14 goals tie for fifth. Lee’s 74 shots on goal tie for the season high, while Brad’s 61 rank fifth. Ryan’s .871 in goal is the top session of the season so far, with Jesse’s .852 ranking fourth.

All-Time Records, Awards and Honours
All-Time Session Scoring Milestones & Streaks
All-Time Session Goaltending Milestones & Streaks

On the All-Time Front: Lee becomes the first player to score 2,500 points in Burton Hockey. Terryn passes Simon Hilton for 29th in all-time points. Mitch passes Joern for 12th in goals and enters the top 20 in assists. Brad needs eleven assists for 100. Brad has five 15-pointers in a row. Jesse, Dylan and Ryan all grab 15-pointers in their first skating sessions. Brad has three straight 20-pointers; Lee two. Mitch moves to tenth in ten-goal sessions with twelve. Brad has three ten-goal sessions in a row, and also has five ten-assisters in a row (two short of the all-time record set by Kyle Grenier last season). Dylan and Ryan notch ten-assisters in their first session. Ryan, Jesse and Dylan all break .800 (hell, .830) for the first time today. Terryn posts his first ever sub-.800 session in goal, snapping his streak at six; his .820 streak ends at two. Brandon breaks the 100-save barrier in his first session out. Terryn’s 90-save streak ends at four. Lee plays his 32nd consecutive session, the fifth-longest streak ever. Ryan and Dylan both tie the record for assists in a rookie session with eleven apiece. Ryan’s .871 is the fifth-best rookie goaltending session in history.

SDF/GDF: Andrew leads the SDF again while some big changes take place behind him as three BUSH players finally put the minimum number of session back on the chart required for full point value. As a result, Brad shoots up to fourth from 15th and Lee moves to fifth from eighth. Mitch beaks back into the top twelve. The top debut on the chart goes to Terryn in 14th. Alex leads the GDF for a 15th time overall. Not much changes since all of the goalies today are brand-new to the ranking, and there wasn’t a VRH session dropping off the ranking this week.

A huge day in Burton today with major positive implications for the future. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section.