Steeldogs bite but not hard enough

 Bison 3 Sheffield Steeldogs 2

1/10/11

A Sheffield team, much improved from last season, came to Planet Ice last night as table toppers and on the back of a perfect league record (OK it was only 2 wins out of 2). They left with their tails between their legs and their bark silenced. Strongarm tactics were the order of the day, although there were surprisingly few penalties thanks to the poor eyesight of the referee. Nevertheless the inevitable happened in the third period with Andre Payette and Chris Wiggins squaring up to each other. More about that unseemly altercation later.

It was Payette who opened the scoring in the 7^th minute. Taking a pass from Janis Ozolins he cut in from the right wing and slotted the puck past Bison netminder, Dean Skinns, after some clever stick handling, which proved that Payette is more than merely a knuckle dragging goon.

Despite outshooting the Steeldogs 18-10 in the first, Bison were unable to breach the Berlin wall known as Ben Bowns, who many regard as the best netman in the EPL. He would later be awarded the Steeldogs’ man of the match award with 45 saves and blocks from 48 shots fired at him.

The northern icemen kept Bison out for a further 14 minutes of the second period until Canadian colossus, Steve Moria, finally moved the Bison scoreboard onto “1”. A pass from Nicky Chinn found Moria in front of goal and he drove a net bulging shot past a startled Bowns. A further assist went to Ollie Bronnimann, the baby faced assassin. The point he received was his hundredth for Bison – well done Ollie a great achievement.

One got the impression that once Bison had got off the mark more goals would follow and indeed this was the case with goal scoring blue liner, Marcel Petran, putting Bison into a 2-1 lead within 3 minutes of the Moria goal. Petran, who had already tested Bowns with a number of slapshots finally got one through. Set up by Daniel Volrab, the left handed Slovak fired in a low shot from the point. The puck hammered against Bowns’s leg pad with a distinctive “thud” sound. Alas for the hapless goalie, the puck squeezed in through the 5 hole and over the line. Petran exhibited his pleasure by performing a sort of disco dance centre ice, which proved almost as entertaining as the goal itself. Perhaps Marcel’s next goal will be followed by a tribute to his namesake Marcel Marceau. On second thoughts I don’t think a mime with a flower sticking out of the top of his helmet would be appropriate.

Bison held the lead for less than a minute. Ozolins hammered home at the back post assisted by Payette and Wood. 2-2 it was. Credit must be given to Sheffield for leaving the ice at the end of the second on level terms after being outshot by 36 to 20 in the first two periods.

A nasty incident occurred only a couple of minutes into the third. Bison’s Marek Dubec went down on the ice after being slashed on the wrist. A similar incident last season resulted in a broken wrist for flame haired Jock, Tony Redmond, and the Bison crowd feared the worst. However, after a few minutes Dubec was able to return to the ice much to the relief of the Bison faithful. The partially sighted referee gave no penalty for the slash. Strange that.

Chris Wiggins was posing some questions of the Steeldogs’ defense with some impressive forays, one of which culminated in an ugly incident of push and shove behind the Sheffield net – perhaps a prelude to the  fisticuffs with Payette slightly later.

Bison finally took the lead for the first time in the match with 6 minutes of the third gone. Welsh Wizard, Joe Miller, who has already made a big impression with 3 goals in his first 2 games for Bison, showed what a good skater and stick handler he is by bamboozling the Steeldogs’ defense and goaltender and squeezing the puck home for 3-2. Volrab picked up his second assist of the night.

It was amazing that the game had reached as late the 53^rd minute mark before it all kicked off. It would be incorrect to call the Steeldogs’ Canadian enforcer, Andy Payette, just a goon, but it cannot be denied that the man has a reputation. He has been involved in numerous fights throughout his career (just take in a few on Youtube) and been involved in other unsavoury incidents in his time in British hockey. Outside of Sheffield, he is just about as popular as Colonel Gadhafi. During his time in Britain he has run up a tally of over 1,500 minutes in penalties (do you know there are less than that number of minutes in ONE DAY!). His opponent was giant Bison enforcer, Chris Wiggins, also way too good a player to be labelled “just a goon”. Wiggie, however, does not like being messed with and Payette should have known better. He didn’t. He “roughed” the Bison man. Suddenly the blood lust of the Bison rose as they jumped up from their seats and exhorted Wiggie to inflict serious injury on the Canadian bogey man. The two enforcers preferred to hammer away at each other, rather than politely exchange views on each other’s conduct. Wiggins then went down on one knee to the ice and was prevented from getting up by Payette as the officials stepped in. Wiggins tried desperately to continue the fight, even with the referee in between (do they get danger money?), but it looked like Payette had had enough. Off went the miscreants to the box where it looked afterwards that they were indeed “politely exchanging views on each other’s conduct”, but of course we couldn’t hear the ensuing conversation from the other side of the rink. One suspects that further trouble is in the pipeline when the two teams meet again.