http://www.burtonhockey.com Get the latest news and stats from Burton Hockey. Kyle Kusch Stefan Klopp Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch The juggernaut that is roller hockey is truly an awesome beast. You cannot overwhelm it; you can only hope to contain it. Tonight it would be contained within the confines of the Nakusp & District Sports Complex as a record 25 hockey warriors suited up and took to the glazed concrete to wage battle on the rink. With Brodie and Laird back in net again, the gang was primed for more epic challenges in goal. In the eternal battle of Blue versus White, two colours would enter, but only one would leave victorious at the end of tonight’s Nakusp Arena League action. Blue Team: 1. Dylan Hascarl 1. Laird Bilinski (goal, 1-3) 2. Lee Orr (2-5) 3. Kyle Grenier 4. Dugan McInnes 6. James Hewlitt 8. Andrew Likness 9. Lance Beingessner (1-4) 10. Luke Krbyla 11. Jesse Cann 19. Jacob LaPlante 24. Levi Cordingley 35. Brodie Yano (goal, 4-5) White Team: 1. Laird Bilinski (goal, 4-5) 1. Ryan MacDonald 2. Ryan Bateman 3. Zac Wethal 4. Kalum Stevens (3-5) 6. Kellan Nishida 7. Ben Gardner 8. Terryn Stenseth 10. Tyson Cann 11. Andy Kieran (2-5) 11. Nathyn McInnes 15. K.J. O’Connor 29. Brett Zeleznik 35. Brodie Yano (goal, 1-3) As the group filed into the rink to draw sticks in the middle, Lee Orr was noticeably absent, missing his first game of the season as he and cousin Andy Kieran were en route from the Okanagan; they’d be back in time for Game 2 (the other Faint family cousin, James Hewlitt, was there, however). This would leave Drew Likness and Kyle Grenier as the only two players to play every game this year in the Arena. From the opening faceoff of Game 1, it was an onslaught of Blue shots against the bulwark that is Brodie Yano. They would require 2 shots for every White shot to keep the game close. While Blue scoring was spread around evenly (including two points each for Jesse, Kyle, Jacob, and Lance), White’s offensive power was concentrated in Zac, K.J., and Bates (four points for Zac and K.J.; three for Bates). Despite being outshot 30-13, White would take the first set 5-4. Game 2 was similar in style as goals were traded back and forth between the two squads, and Blue continued to fire off bombs at Brodie. Dylan in particular was unleashing massive slapshots, but little was getting through. The biggest bomb of all was a major volley from the point by Levi that absolutely blew by Brodie. Decked out in a jersey missing the entire right sleeve with a handwritten ‘Daniels’ nameplate, he was a key figure in helping Blue get even in the series with a 5-4 win of their own led by a Jesse Cann hat trick. Zac, K.J., and Andrew still had plenty of points in the loss, however. The fourth goal of the game for White was a rather nice one. Andy Kieran had just stepped onto the rink for his first shift of the game. Stripping the puck from Blue off the faceoff, he sent it right up the rink to K.J. for a terrific breakaway snipe on Laird. Game 3 saw Kalum Stevens join the action to put the day’s numbers at an even two dozen, and just like Andy he made a huge impact in his first shift with a booming slapshot to beat Brodie. Zac and K.J. would each have another three points, and Nate and Kalum would have two as well as White took another closely fought 5-4 victory. The first three games saw lots of frustration For Game 4, the goalies were switched, completely changing the complexion of the series. From this point onward, it would largely be the Jesse and Dylan show, but not before the Blue tandem of Levi and Jacob kicked the game off with two lovely tic-tac goals to push Blue toward their eventual 5-0 shutout victory. Thanks to a Jesse hat trick, the game ended in just nine minutes. White would recover for Game 5 as Laird finally found his groove, Nathyn kept sniping, and K.J. turned into an assist machine. Going the other way, Jesse and Jacob continued to hold hot sticks and Dylan remained an offensive threat with two goals as Blue would win at protracted Game 5 5-3. Ending at 9:10 pm, this would be the longest Arena session yet. Lots of great performances tonight. There was much more defence tonight, which resulted in defencemen picking up a lot of points, particularly Luke Krbyla. We should also not the debut of Ben Gardner, who we believe becomes the first player to be born after the founding of Burton Hockey. The weekend is shaping up to be rather interesting with Brouse natives and VRH cornerstones Bernie and Oliver Koth-Kappus coming in from Vancouver to join in on the May long weekend BUSH session down in Burton; an all-too-rare interleague visit. Oliver in fact, will be sticking around past the weekend, leaving him poised to make his debut in the Arena League next week. And, of course, one wonders how will VRH fare without them for the first time in 2012. It should be good! Follow Burton Hockey on Twitter @burtonhockey Visit Burton Hockey on Facebook http://www.burtonhockey.com/boxscores.php?action=view_session&id=379&view=all Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 PST Bernie Koth-Kappus VRH – Ambleside – Sunday May 13, 2012 VRH WRITEUP SIMULATOR SCALE Glorious sunshine scale: 10/10 Temperature scale: 4/10 (too hot) Perfect number of players scale: 9/10 (one sub on each team) New players scale: 5/10 (debut of Ian Fraser) Return of long absent regulars scale: 0/10 Evenness of teams/series scale: 4/10 Session intensity scale: 7/10 Session openness / offensiveness scale: 6/10 Redemptions achieved scale: 5/10 (one major comeback/redemption) Exceptional goaltending performance scale: 6/10 (Stu was money) Domination by one player scale: 3/10 Length of session scale: 3/10 Fun of session scale: 2/10 (complete personal bias on this one) Chance of future sessions in coming weeks scale: 6/10 http://www.burtonhockey.com/boxscores.php?action=view_session&id=378&view=all Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch Tuesday night at the Nakusp Arena would be rather interesting, for it would be the first Arena session without founder Zac Wethal, away for the day on business. With five different sessions scoring leaders after three sessions, who would emerge as a dominant scoring force tonight? One thing was certain heading in: in goal, Brodie Yano was on a hot streak, backing up his .852 Thursday night in the Arena with a massive 144 saves in Sunday’s first BUSH session of the year. Would his run of excellence continue? Also transitioning from Sunday in Burton would be Laird Bilinski, making his debut performance at the Arena. How would he fare on the big rink with big nets? It was time for the sixth session of roller hockey in eight days (3 Arena, 2 VRH, 1 BUSH), and as the bodies piled into the increasingly fetid dressing room, it was apparent that it was going to be huge. Joining the fray tonight would be Terryn Stenseth in his Arena debut, Luke Krbyla, making his first roller hockey appearance in three years, first-timers and Falcons vets Jacob Laplante and Brett Zeleznik, and Andy Kieran in his first time on skates since the 2010 DecaSession. James Hewlitt would make his return from an ankle injury last week, and K.J. O’Connor would be back on skates after resting his back in goal on Sunday. And, of course, how could we not mention Ryan Struck on skates in a session for the first time since June 2000? (To put that in perspective, Dugan McInnes would have been, well, we won’t answer that). Once the late arrivals made it in for Game 2, an astounding 24 players would be in action tonight; the most ever for a regular session and second only to the 25 players on the first day of the DecaSession. Blue Team: 0. Dylan Hascarl 1. Andy Kieran 2. K.J. O’Connor 3. Kyle Grenier 4. Lee Orr 4. Kris James (goal) 6. Jacob Laplante 8. Terryn Stenseth 10. Luke Krbyla 11. Ryan Struck 16. Kalum Stevens (games 2,3) White Team: 1. Laird Bilinski (goal, 2,3) 1. Levi Cordingley 2. Ryan Bateman 3. Nathyn McInnes 6. Brett Zeleznik 7. Kellan Nishida 7. Tristin Sinclair (2) 8. Ryan MacDonald 10. Andrew Likness 11. James Hewlitt 15. Dugan McInnes 29. Laine Weighill 35. Brodie Yano (goal, 1) Laird would be late getting in from Burton, arriving at the 1-1 point Game 1, so it would be Kris James donning the pads for Team Blue against Brodie for Team White. And Laird would be left waiting for some time, as the first game dragged on for an intense 47 minutes. Any questions as to how Kris would fare in net were answered quickly as he proved to be up to the task. As for Brodie, he found a level even beyond last Thursday as despite a 2-to-1 shooting ratio in favour of Blue, the score remained even all game. It was the K.J.-Kyle-Struck combo that eventually did him in, the 41-20 shot total in Game 1 was simply too much to overcome as Blue would take a hardfought 5-4 win. Brodie, however, was quite content with his .878 in a first-star performance. Laird swapped in, and Brodie enjoyed the rest of the evening relaxing on the bench. Ryan MacDonald had score the last two goals of Game 1 for White and would kick off Game 2 in similar fashion on a James assist. While Game 2 wasn’t quite as long as Game 1, though not by much, the intensity was ratcheted up another level as Andrew came alive on the scoresheet for White. On the Blue side, Terryn was getting plenty of scoring chances but couldn’t find his way through the burly Ukrainian from the south side of Burton in net. K.J. and Kyle continued their scoring ways here as K.J. would have four points in this game and Kyle would have three. Picking up his first two career points was Jacob with a goal and an assist, and Brett would also pick up his first two points for White in this game. Again, it would come down to a golden goal before Blue took home another 5-4 victory. Shots were a bit more even in this game, 35-29 in favour of Blue with both Laird and Kris feasting on rebounds. 95 minutes into the session, we were only at the start of Game 3. Highlights from this game included an attempted Andy shot on Laird in which he wound up missing the puck due to exhaustion at the end of a shift, leaving it wide open for Ryan MacDonald to swipe it and take it all the way in for a picture-perfect breakaway goal on Kris. The next goal saw Terryn finally get one past Laird as he tipped home a booming Kalum slapshot from the point. At 4-3 Blue, a disallowed goal for White led to the final play of the day – a five-shot sequence that saw Andy, K.J., and Kyle each get shots in on Laird before Ryan Struck was there to cash in the final rebound. With the huge number of players, three fabulous goaltenders, and a heightened level of intensity, this was certainly the best Arena League session yet, and the next one cannot come soon enough. Follow Burton Hockey on Twitter @burtonhockey Visit Burton Hockey on Facebook http://www.burtonhockey.com/boxscores.php?action=view_session&id=377&view=all Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 PST Bernie Koth-Kappus (write-up); Oliver Koth-Kappus (statistics) VRH would again hit the rink at Ambleside on perhaps the warmest day of the year so far. The heat of the blazing sun was kept at bay by the more moderate ocean-side temperatures and cool breeze off the water. What at first seemed like a smaller session wound up being one with solid numbers once again, with a total of 9 skaters. Play was hard-fought, but the game style was a little more offensive, with more odd-man rushes than last session. This fact makes the goaltending performances today all the more impressive. Dom was rock solid as always, and Stu had stretches where he seemed almost unbeatable; whether a shot would hit his blocker, helmet or the post, somehow a seemingly open net could not be found for the shooters, on multiple consecutive attempts. A number of different series were played today, some more even than others. For complete team configurations and game scores see the Game Analysis section. It’s great to see VRH with consecutive weekend sessions, despite the absence of regular goalies such as Sam & Bron. The addition of the Voser crew in recent weeks has been a huge boost for VRH, not only bolstering numbers but also providing two willing goalkeepers. Also, props to J-Bo for providing the secondary goalie gear, without which it would have been tough to get these sessions off the ground. With the weather turning downright summery these days, look for VRH to keep a pace of weekly sessions to come. Follow Burton Hockey on Twitter @burtonhockey Visit Burton Hockey on Facebook http://www.burtonhockey.com/boxscores.php?action=view_session&id=376&view=all Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch After successfully establishing itself in the Nakusp Arena, it was time for Burton Hockey to return to its ancestral home. Burton United Socialist Hockey would kick off its thirteenth season this afternoon, a number we’re sure no one thought was possible back in April 2000. There were numerous questions heading into the long-awaited first BUSH session of the year, the latest to the outdoor season at McCormack since 2002. What condition would we find the rink and nets in after a half-year of neglect? Even just a week of neglect sees boards regularly pulled away from the wall and used by kids for impromptu skateboard ramps; what hot mess would we find today? How many people from the Arena League would make the crossover to BUSH? The confirmed line-up heading down to the rink was seven; all were BUSH veterans. How would Lee Orr, the all-time leading scorer in Burton history who has struggled to some degree in the Arena League, perform back at his home base? Or for that matter, Kyle Grenier, who came out flying in the first Arena session but has had a rough go of it the last two sessions? And what of Seamus O’Connor, the BUSH legend who would be making his first appearance anywhere in 2012? The first question to be answered was, of course, the condition of the rink. Thanks to the annual Burton community spring clean-up and five hours of powerwashing from mythical Burton figure Karl Detta, the rink was absolutely pristine. (The park bathrooms, not so much. There were literally spiderwebs covering the urinals, and the toilets, well, let’s just say no one will be using them for a while). The rink was outfitted in brand-new ‘Use At Your Own Risk’ signs, as were the concession stand (whatever) and the bathrooms (yeah, no doubt). The water was turned on behind the concession, and that was all that mattered on this blazing hot first Sunday in May. As it turned out, seven souls would make the journey down to Burton: Seamus, Lee, Kyle, Mitch Detta, K.J. O’Connor, Terryn Stenseth (making his 2012 debut after coming off the best season of his young career last season, but also showing up feeling the effects of Saturday night and with equipment in ill repair) and Brodie Yano, fresh off of a dominant .852 at the Arena on Thursday and making his first BUSH start in five long years. It looked as though the gang would have to go 3-on-2 today, but a surprise visit from the long-lost Laird Bilinski gave us the eighth player of the day. First, though, Laird would have to drive back to his house and find all of his gear before he could join the select group of people (Stefan, Bernie, Oliver, Lee) who have played in every single Burton Hockey season, so we would indeed play the first series 2-on-2 with one team having a sub. Sticks in the middle produced Terryn, Mitch and Seamus on the sub team with Brodie in goal against K.J.’s tandem of Lee and Kyle. The shots came fast and furious like they usually do in 2-on-2, but not the goals: it would take 31 shots for the first goal to go in. It was a Lee-Kyle play that scored the first goal on Brodie, and that would be a hallmark of the series, as the duo would come together on the first 13 goals their team scored in this series. That said, the sub team put up a great fight in Game 1. Every combination of player would score for the sub team during Game 1. Brodie would make 32 saves to K.J.’s 27, but would take the loss 5-4. Game 2 was not nearly as close. As long as Game 1 went, Game 2 went as short. In just five minutes, Lee and Kyle ambushed Brodie, going up 4-0 and winning 5-1. The longest break of this game was to stop for one of Terryn’s wheels flying off of his skate. With still no sign of Laird, the teams were kept the same for Game 3. Lee, Kyle, and K.J. got up 3-2, before Laird was finally ready to go for his first time on skates since 2006, and naturally he scored on the first shot after the faceoff on a pass from Lee. Thirty seconds later, he’d give it to Kyle for the series-winning goal. The second series saw Seamus, Terryn, Lee, and K.J. face Kyle, Laird, Mitch, and Brodie. Thankfully, the softball team practicing in the field below was not successful in luring Terryn into its non-contact, underhand-throwing clutches. Brodie took another loss in Game 4 despite his best efforts here as the Seamus-Lee combo proved potent and K.J. stood on his head most of the game. Quickly seeking out revenge, Team Brodie stormed back in Game 5 to a 5-1 romp which evened the series thanks to another point-out by Grenier. The deciding Game 6 saw Brodie peppered for 48 shots compared to 28 against K.J., and while he would succumb to the barrage by a score of 5-1, there was certainly nothing to be ashamed of. One last game was played today with Lee, Seamus, Laird, and K.J. against Kyle, Terryn, Brodie, and Mitch. Seamus was the difference here, pointing out the game to lead his team to a 5-3 victory. As Lee put it, Laird made an excellent shithawk in front of the net today. Overall, K.J. and Lee won six of seven games while Mitch and Brodie were on the other end of the stick. A fun afternoon to kick off the 2012 season in Burton with plenty of points to be had, even with two great performances in goal. Follow Burton Hockey on Twitter @burtonhockey Visit Burton Hockey on Facebook http://www.burtonhockey.com/boxscores.php?action=view_session&id=375&view=all Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch For years, we have speculated about where a new league of roller hockey could possibly be located. Today, the speculation is over, as we officially announce the start of a new league at the Nakusp & District Sports Complex starting Tuesday, 24 April. Burton Hockey will never be the same... http://www.burtonhockey.com/news.php?action=show_article&article=169 Wed, 18 April 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch We know who the leading scorers are at McCormack and Ambleside parks (just look at the league stats), but have you ever wondered who the leading scorer in the history of the Fauquier rink is? How about Queen Elizabeth Park? Here is a look at the top five scorers at every alternate rink Burton Hockey has ever played. http://www.burtonhockey.com/news.php?action=show_article&article=168 Thu, 08 March 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch The masses have spoken, and it is time to reveal who YOU chose as the top players of 2011. http://www.burtonhockey.com/news.php?action=show_article&article=167 Fri, 06 January 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch A complete list of Burton Hockey award winners from 2000 through 2011. http://www.burtonhockey.com/news.php?action=show_article&article=166 Thu, 05 January 2012 00:00:00 PST Kyle Kusch As Christmas is just around the corner, talk has once again turned to putting together a Christmas session - or two - for the holidays. To get visions of wintertime hockey dancing in your heads, here's a history of Christmas sessions throughout the years. http://www.burtonhockey.com/news.php?action=show_article&article=165 Tue, 20 December 2011 00:00:00 PST