Every so often, Burton Hockey is treated to a special occasion where long-separated friends from across the province get together to celebrate the game and play an epic tournament in the process. We call these occasions supersessions, and we call the tournament the Fuller Cup.

When members of BUSH announced that they were coming into Vancouver for a couple of concerts this week (namely Deltron 3030 on Monday followed by Nine Inch Nails/Explosions in the Sky on Thursday, both of which were amazing), there would be no doubt what would have to be done. A tournament for the Fuller Cup was in order. Normally, this tournament is played as BUSH vs. VRH with league bragging rights on the line. With the huge response from VRH this weekend, however, it wouldn’t quite be fair to do that this time around, especially on the 3-on-3-sized Ambleside Park rink. Instead, we decided to mix things up and have a three-team tournament, allowing VRHers and BUSHers the rare opportunity to play alongside each other as teammates (in other words, we combined the Fuller Cup and Burton Open into one this year to condense all of the awesomeness into one day).

It was a cold but sunny day today, with temperatures hovering just above freezing. The three full-time BUSH players in the session (Lee Orr, Seamus O’Connor, and Graeme Orr) were designated captains for the event. It would be up to them to choose from the talented pool of VRHers in front of them. They’d have to get used to VRH rules and play designed for the smaller Ambleside rink again as well (wider but shorter nets; opposing possession rather than faceoffs after every goal; fewer slapshots, shorter fences). On hand to watch today were the injured Andrew Smart (still sore after a rather intense squash tournament earlier this week unfortunately put him out of commission) and old VRH faves Tony Sivilay and Vincent Garcia. Drawing numbers, Lee Orr grabbed first pick and used it to select his old friend Jordan Barlow, with whom he would finally get the opportunity to play with after all these years. With both Dom Voser and Bron Mach on hand, there would be no point in trying to wrangle a third goalie. Instead, Dom and Bron would be assigned to the three teams as needed. When all was said and done, the teams looked like so:

TEAM GRAEME: Stefan Klopp, Graeme Orr (C), Darrel Voser
TEAM LEE: Jordan Barlow, Ryan Disterheft, Bernie Koth-Kappus, Lee Orr (C)
TEAM SEAMUS: Rob Hajdu, Oliver Koth-Kappus, Seamus O'Connor (C)

GOALTENDERS: Bron Mach, Dominik Voser

Before we began, however, there had to be a monkey wrench. In this case, it was the second pair of goalie pads not being brought. The pads were still at the Voser house, so Rob and Darrel took off to retrieve them. In the meantime, a pre-tournament game would be played featuring Bron, playing goal with no padding below the knees, teaming up with Seamus, Lee, Graeme, and Oliver against Stefan, Jordan, Ryan, Bernie, and Dom. Almost immediately, the intensity of supersessions past emerged, with players grinding hard and goals scarce to come by. Even in the time it took Rob and Darrel to drive across West Vancouver, retrieve the pads, and get back, only five goals were scored as Seamus had powered his team to a 3-1 lead before Dom shut the door for good. Just before the pads showed up, the score was 3-2. Perhaps playing without goalie pads made Bron’s team work harder subconsciously, because once the pads came on, it was all Team Dom, who completed a gruelling 5-3 comeback in a game that took around 45 minutes to play.

The Fuller Cup came next. Team Seamus would battle Team Graeme first in the round-robin format, and Bron would play for Seamus against Dom for Team Graeme. Dom was on fire even more so in this game, stopping 40 shots, but it wasn’t enough as Seamus powered his crew to a 5-1 victory in a game that took 50 minutes. This was a most intriguing battle. The wide wingspans of the lanky Graeme/Darrel/Stefan trio made it hard for their grinder opponents to cope, but they ultimately did. Already, everyone was sore, and the crisp single-digit temperatures made waiting around a disadvantage instead of an advantage, as Team Lee found out when they took on Team Seamus (now with Dom). It was a back-and-forth tilt but Seamus and Oliver were a potent combo, and they eked out a 5-4 win to vanquish both of Team Seamus' opponents and claim the 2013 Fuller Cup. The final round-robin game would determine second place while Team Seamus got a much-deserved rest. Frozen to the core after their hard-earned sweat turned on them in the cold Ambleside air, Team Lee got off to a slow start but their captain pulled through when needed for a 5-4 win.

With the cup decided, it was decided to merge the three teams into two. Andy Smart and your humble statistician sat down and drew up teams for the Burton Open. With five skaters on each team, each side would have two subs, basically making for line changes every three minutes. Graeme, Seamus, Darrel, Oliver, Ryan, and Bron were selected to do battle with Lee, Stefan, Jordan, Rob, Bernie, and Dom. If the first four games belonged to Dom and Seamus, the final series belonged to Ryan and Bron, although it didn’t seem like it after a 5-1 whitewash by Team Dom in the first game powered by Stefan, Rob, and Bernie. A decision was made by Team Bron to stick with the teams and fight for redemption rather go to sticks-in-the-middle, and it paid off. Ryno suddenly came alive in the series with nine points in the final two games, seemingly faster in the fourth hour than he was in the first. Darrel and Graeme each pitched in on three goals in the second game, and just like that, Team Bron had responded with a 5-1 win of their own. You can imagine what then ensued in Game 5: another 50-minute slugfest where the hockey was the most intense of the day. With both goalies now on fire and seemingly everyone on the rink fired up, it seemed like the game would never end. When it did as the sun began to fall behind the mountains off in the distance, Seamus had put home the winner to give Team Bron a 5-4 victory and the series.

Exhausted, destroyed, cold, and oh-so-happy and satisfied. That’s how the players ended this year’s supersession; another triumph of high-quality hockey and friendship. And, in case you were wondering, yeah, they forgot to bring the actual cup to the rink again this year. FFS.

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Today’s session was a showcase for Dominik, who was incredibly impressive all day long, stopping a massive 160 shots and posting a brilliant .870. Bron had a slow start by his standards but cranked it up during the last series, rising to .828 on 140 saves. All told, it was easily the highest-volume VRH session of the year. Scoring-wise, Seamus lit up the Fuller Cup, figuring in on every single one of him team’s goal. After a rough patch to start the second series, he responded in the final game with three points to take back first star from Stefan and edge the Kloppster by a point, 9G-6A to 10G-4A. The darkhorse all day was Lee, whose output was consistent all day; he finished third at 6G-7A alongside Oliver (4G-9A). The final series with its frequent line changes ensured that per-game stats were kept low.

Game Scores:
Pre-tournament: Jordan Ryan Bernie Stefan Dom def. Bron Lee Seamus Oliver Graeme 5-3
Fuller Cup: Team Seamus def. Team Graeme 5-4
Team Seamus def. Team Lee 5-1
Team Lee def. Team Graeme 5-4
Post-tournament: Graeme Seamus Darrel Oliver Ryan Bron def. Lee Stefan Jordan Rob Bernie Dom 1-5 5-1 5-4

Faceoff Stats (unofficial):
Lee Orr 3/4 (75.00%)
Stefan Klopp 2/3 (66.67%)
Rob Hajdu 1/2 (50.00%)
Seamus O’Connor 1/5 (20.00%)

Weekend All-Star Team
Stefan Klopp, Team Graeme
Seamus O'Connor, Team Seamus
Lee Orr, Team Lee
Darrel Voser, Team Graeme
Dominik Voser (goaltender)
Most Sportsmanlike Player Jordan Barlow, Team Lee; Rob Hajdu, Team Seamus
Most Outstanding Player Dominik Voser (goaltender)
Most Valuable Player Dominik Voser (goaltender)

Elo Ratings
Seamus O’Connor 2088 (+44)
Lee Orr 2029 (+21)
Stefan Klopp 2026 (+40)
Graeme Orr 1954 (+2)
Ryan Disterheft 1926 (+9)
Oliver Koth-Kappus 1924 (+9)
Rob Hajdu 1909 (-62)
Jordan Barlow 1905 (-42)
Darrel Voser 1859 (-12)
Bernie Koth-Kappus 1526 (-11)

Season Stats: With time running out on 2013, it looks as though 195-176 is as close as Rob will get to Andrew barring something extraordinary. It would be Andrew’s third straight scoring championship, something no one has accomplished in 13 previous seasons of Burton Hockey… Seamus jumps into sixth in points with 88, just two behind Stefan for fifth…Oliver becomes the fourth player with 50 goals this year, with Stefan and Seamus close behind at 49 and 46… Oliver passes Rob for second in assists, 92-91… Jordan and Semaus move past Bernie into fifth and sixth in assists, respectively… Seamus passes Oliver for fourth in shots on goal, 261-260… Stefan jumps into third in shooting percentage at 21.78%... Bron falls behind Justin to second in goaltending, .851-.847… Dom becomes the only goalie to reach the 1,000-save plateau this year, while Bron passes Sam for second, 480-408… Thanks to an extra game in the round-robin plus Rob missing Game 1, Dom takes the lead in games played, 77-76… Oliver passes Andrew for fourth in games played, 58-53, with Ryan one game behind Andrew… Bron passes Stuart Hall for third in games goaltended, 23-21, and is one game behind Sam for second… Seamus passes Rob for second in three-star points, 75-70, while Stefan ties Ryan and Oliver for fourth at 45… Dom passes 100 goalie star points while Bron moves to second at 50… Graeme moves up to fifth in PPG at 2.48… Ryan falls behind Tony Hajdu to fifth in GPG with 1.35… Oliver passes Seamus for second in APG, 1.59-1.56… Graeme falls behind Sam to second in shots-per-game… Dom’s .870 is the fifth-best goaltending session of the season by percentage… Dom’s 160 saves today rank second-highest on the year, while Bron’s 140 rank third… Dom’s 1030 PPS is tops on the year, while Bron’s 997 ranks fifth.

SDF/GDF: Marking his third consecutive and tenth overall ranking atop of the SDF, Seamus pulls away from Kellan and Andrew thanks to a winning performance in a majorly high-quality session… Lee closes in on second and third, while Stefan jumps up five spots to fifth… Ryan moves up one to sixth, dropping Jordan down to seventh… The biggest hit goes to Rob, who drops four spots to tenth… Sadly, Lee’s brief moment of glory atop the GDF is over, as things return to normalcy this week. Bron reclaims the top spot, but Dom makes a big gain and is close behind in second.

All-Time Session Milestones & Streaks

On the All-Time Front: Oliver’s all-time scoring lead over Lee shrinks slightly to 2,864-2,809... Stefan is 38 points away from becoming the third player with 2,000 points... Bernie leads Seamus for fourth, 1,717-1,662... Rob needs three points for 1,100... Darrel needs 19 points for 300... Seamus needs 21 goals for 800... Graeme and Rob are tied for 11th in goals with 505 each... Jordan is ten goals behind Mitch Detta for 16th... Darrel needs four goals for 150... Lee needs eight assists for 1,300... Bernie needs seven assists to become the third player with 1,000... Seamus needs 17 assists for 900... Rob is five assists behind Lorne for seventh and needs eight for 800; today, he passed Andrew Smart for eighth... Graeme needs four assists for 500; Jordan eight... Ryan needs four assists for 400... Seamus becomes the fifth player with 4,000 shots on goal... Bron is just 20 saves behind Alex Elischer for second all-time and needs just 44 for 5,000... Oliver becomes the first player in Burton history to play 1,500 games; Bernie is still 25 games away from joining him... Dom needs eight games for 700... Rob jumps into 14th in games played... Lee needs five three-star points for 1,500... Stefan ties Kyle Grenier for third in three-star points with 850... Seamus is ten points behind Lorne for fifth, 755-745... Bron is five goalie star points behind Alex for second, 460-455... Rob is now just ten points behind Bernie for third in all-time VRH scoring, 1,086-1,076... Graeme’s 15-pointer streak ends at four... With 11 straight .800s, Bron is one away from tying the record shared by Alex Elischer and Dom. He also ties Nathan Robson for third in total .800s with 31... Dom has three straight .800s... Dom passes Seamus for the all-time lead in .860s with 11 and takes the all-time .870 lead with seven... Bron’s 80-saver streak goes to seven... Dom becomes the first goalie to record 30 110-savers and 20 130-savers... Rob’s increasingly epic consecutive session streak rises to 23... Oliver and Dom increase their streaks to 15 and 14, respectively, while Bernie rises to seven and Seamus rises to six.