Phantom Lauko returns to haunt Planet Ice

Bison 2 Peterborough Phantoms 5

27/12/11

Some bizarre decisions left the Bison crowd wondering whether Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Louis Braille could have done a worse job than the three officials. However, let not the outrageous and indeed malevolent incidents which I am about to relate mask the fact that Bison lost a game in which they looked lack lustre in contrast to their opponents who looked very much up for the game. Why? Was it too much Christmas pud, lack of preparation, too long a break since their last game or all of those three. Or was it something much more serious and deep rooted to do with the morale of the team and the will to win? Only Mo and those in his dressing room can answer that one.

During the course of the game two unsavoury incidents of the most unseemly type flared up. The result? Two Bison players, Chris Wiggins and Jacob Heron, were thrown out of the game. The first occurred in the 15^th minute when Wiggins crashed into an opponent sending him to the ice like a sack of King Edwards. One of his team mates tried to exact revenge on Wiggins but was restrained. Wiggins received a 5 + game. The Phantoms vigilante? Nothing at all. In the 31^st minute Bison’s Liam Chong was robustly boarded by Maris Ziedins. As he crumpled to the ice, Jacob Heron charged in and there developed an ignominious conflict with Ziedins as the former expressed his views concerning the latter’s conduct. Heron was given a 2 + game and Ziedins only a 2 boarding and nothing for roughing. The howling man on the end of Row E voiced his disapproval of both decisions in the most vociferous manner as did most of the crowd, albeit not as loudly. Perhaps the incidents looked different depending on where you were sitting, but from the seats above the red line, they looked more or less like a carbon copy of each other. How strange, therefore, that Bison ended up with two players thrown out of the game and the Phantoms merely a 2 minute boarding penalty to one player.

On 11 minutes the Phantoms opened the scoring. With Kurt Reynolds serving a 2 + 10 for “checking from behind” the visitors and made the extra skater count as Jeff Glowa centred to Maris Ziedens lurking at the back door. Bison netman, Stephen Wall, got a piece of the puck but couldn’t prevent Ziedens’s shot from crossing the line.

Bison’s best goal chance of the period occurred during the power play when Liam Chong nicked the puck as stealthily as one of Fagin’s pickpockets and burst clear. He bore down menacingly on goaltender King, but failed to bamboozle the Phantom’s netman with his deking and his shot was saved.

Bison found themselves 2 goals to the bad within 5 minutes of the restart. Maris Ziedens’s shot was saved by Wall, but the puck fell into the crease and was bundled in by Robbie Brown. A scrappy goal, but they all count. As Mr. Punch says, “That’s the way to do it”. Get someone in front of the net to scuff in those rebounds – something which Bison seem to do all too infrequently.

The mood of the Bison crowd became dark – like Dunkirk without the spirit. However, within a minute a ray of hope appeared from behind the black cloud of defeatism as Slovak cannon Marcel Petran chalked up an unassisted goal. He pounced on a slack clearance out of defense to rifle home a top shelf slap shot which deflected off the bar and in with that characteristic “PING!” sound. Surely this would signal a Bison revival. A goal was all they needed to raise their spirits and power on to level the scores and even go on to win, was it not? Alas such optimism proved to be folly of the greatest magnitude. It took only another couple of minutes for the air to be squeezed from the Bison balloon. An overhit and woefully inaccurate pass out of defense struck Viktor Kubenko’s skate and deflected straight to James Ferrara. It was a late Christmas present and the Phantoms forward was doubtless thinking “Thank you Santa” as he hammered home. 1-3 it was.

Worse (indeed far worse) was to come shortly afterwards. Returning as a Phantom, Bison old boy Ondrej Lauko, who most Bison fans were disappointed not to see back at Planet Ice this year, drove a dagger into the hearts of the Bison faithful. On 31 minutes, set up by the brothers Ferrara, he rifled in an unstoppable slap shot. You could tell by his exuberant celebration how sweet the moment was for him. It left us wondering whether there was more than met the eye about his departure from Basingstoke.

There was no more scoring until the 8^th minute of the final period. This time it was bouncing Czech, Daniel Volrab, with an unassisted goal to reduce the deficit to 2-4 and breathe some hope into the Bison cause. From an acute angle he found the gap between goaltender and near post. Once again, however, the Bison revival was short lived, as 3 minutes later Luke Ferrara joined his brother James on the score sheet. (Does this piece of paper actually exist?) Lauko’s centring pass found Luke at the back door to smash the rubber disc into Wall’s net – a very similar goal to their first of the game. Now at 2-5 behind and looking utterly deflated, Bison’s prospects of a revival looked as likely as Robbie Coltrane flying to the moon on the back of a pigeon. Neither occurred.

With the clock ticking down Ondrej Lauko broke clear of a statuesque Bison back line. It was touch and go as to whether he could get his shot away before the buzzer went. The man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt and many others I am sure didn’t know whether to look at the play or the clock. Would Lauko try one feint too many and be beaten by the buzzer? Would he shoot from long range and score before the buzzer went? As it turned out Lauko’s shot thudded against StephenWall just as the buzzer sounded and it was all over. Another depressing evening for the Bison crowd.

X-rated violence tarnishes Steeldogs win

Bison 4 Sheffield Steeldogs 5

10/12/11

We were expecting a physical game and that’s what we got. André Payette and the Steeldogs rode into town for an ill tempered match, which contained almost as much violence as the gunfight at the OK Coral. Tempers would flare, fists would fly and the crowd would bay for blood.

Player/coach Payette clearly had a game plan. Target Chris Wiggins, Viktor Kubenko and Joe Miller and get them off the ice. Before the game had even started he began his provocation by mouthing off to the Bison bench. On the ice waiting for the first face off he was clearly seen tapping Joe Miller with his stick, but Joe did not rise to the obvious bait. Payette was looking for an opportunity to make Chris Wiggins explode and got it in the 5^th minute. He slashed the Bison enforcer and, when Wiggins confronted him, in steamed Steve Duncombe (so obviously pre-arranged by Payette) to slug it out with Wiggie. They each received a 2 + 2 roughing and a further 10 misconduct (with Wiggins another 2 cross checking), while the cynical Payette escaped with a 2 minute slashing penalty. A clever ploy. No 1 objective achieved with Wiggie off the ice. Worse for Bison was that Wiggins injured his shoulder in the malodourous fracas and took very little part in the remainder of the game.

Next Kubenko. Driven to the brink of tolerance that even Job would have had trouble coping with (O-level RE), King Kubo finally squared up to Ashley Calvert after a cynical cross check. 2 + 2 + 2 for each was the referee’s verdict.

Play eventually restarted and within a minute yet another unsavoury embroilment was witnessed. The crowd were shocked to see the normally placid Ollie Bronnimann dropping the gloves, removing his helmet and getting stuck into Lloyd Gibson. The affray was not preceded by an infraction and so the provocation must have been solely of a verbal variety. 2 + 2 + a 10 misconduct for each.

Payette must have been astonished at how well his master plan was coming together. The penalty boxes were filling up, especially that of the Steeldogs where there was standing room only. The genial Brummie in the 33 Kieras shirt in Block C began to worry that they would soon run out of players and that volunteers from the crowd would be invited down onto the ice to play, but fortunately this was not required.

Having outshot the Steeldogs by 16-7 in the first, Bison took a deserved lead in the 24^th minute. Miller fed Sam Oakford, whose shot was blocked by Bowns. Canadian colossus, Steve Moria, swept in the rebound. A minute later it was 2-0. Chinn to Moria to Kubenko. The savvy Slovak’s shot sneaked under Bowns’s pad and dribbled across the line. On came the red light and all looked rosy in the Bison garden. However, the Steeldogs powered back with 3 unanswered goals to take a 3-2 lead by the end of the period. First Stuart Brittle (one of the four brothers Brittle) scored from Calvert and Morgan. Then Brittle scored again with a slap shot assisted again by Morgan. Next it was Calvert’s turn assisted by Brittle and Morgan. Brittle’s shot was blocked by Colclough, who seemed not to know where the puck was as he made no attempt to freeze it inside the crease. Calvert was on hand to sweep it past him into the net. All credit to D-man Ben Morgan. He had notched up assists for all 3 goals and this was after looking very pasty in the first interval. Maybe he’d eaten too many Pukka pies. Payette’s shouted instruction to him in front of Block B was “Make yourself throw up. You’ll feel much better”. And so it proved. Fortunately the crowd was spared the unsavoury spectacle.

Things went from bad to worse for Bison in the third. Within 7 minutes the Steeldogs had opened up a 5-2 lead. First Payette and Wood set up Latvian Edgars Bebris to squeeze a shot under Colclough. Then Bebris broke clear and bore down on the Bison goal. Colclough came out to narrow the angle, but alas when the Latvian delivered a cross goal pass instead of shooting, there was bogey man Payette with an open goal, as wide as the mouth of a wide mouthed frog (go on Youtube it), to shoot into.

The Steeldogs looked out of sight, but with 6 minutes remaining Bison pulled one back on the power play with Pavel Gomeniuk in the box for hooking. Bouncing Czech, Daniel Volrab, passed to Slovak cannon, Marcel Petran in the slot. Marcel killed the puck and then raised his stick high. Bowns knew what was coming, but stopping it was another matter entirely. With the puck screaming towards him at a speed of 90 m.p.h. plus, he had no chance of reacting - he just had to make himself as large as possible. He stood as stationary as Lot’s wife after she had turned to a pillar of salt (O-level RE again), as the puck left the ice and rocketed over his left shoulder and into the net.

The Steeldogs once again turned up the physical side of their game. The referee failed to call a number of obvious infractions. When he ignored Petran being thrown to the ice with what looked like a judo throw, the frustration of the man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt in Block C finally bubbled over. “Are you blind, ref?” he enquired. Those around him initially thought that he had a genuine concern for the referee’s state of optical health. However, his follow up comment of “Bring on Ray Charles. He could do a better job” left them in no doubt that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Not only was the aforementioned Mr Charles not in the building, but he is not even in the land of the living thus precluding the possibility of him taking the ice to replace Mr. Thompson.

With only 50 seconds remaining Bison made it a one goal game. Petran’s slap shot was blocked and Joe Miller bundled in the loose puck. Could Bison bag another in the dying seconds? Well they were going to die trying. To the bench went Matt Colclough faster than Usain Bolt on speed to enable a 6 on 5, but the Steeldogs held out and the final buzzer sounded as Petran hammered a desperate and wayward slap shot from long range.

Highway Robbery!

Bison 5 Telford Tigers 6 (shoot out)

3/12/11

Did you catch the name of the referee? Was it Dick Turpin? No. At least the real Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask so his profession of thief was obvious to all. Tonight’s referee, Mr. Poplar left Planet Ice as Mr. Unpopular having denied Bison an overtime winning goal, leaving the crowd believing that Stevie Wonder could not have done a worse job. What happened? Liam Chong and Joe Miller broke away in a 2 on 1. Chong centred for Miller to shoot from an acute angle. The puck went under the bar, bulged the top of the net (everybody in blocks A & B and most in block C saw that), hit the top of the stanchion on the other side and came out. Despite the fact that the red goal light came on, the referee made his own decision. “No goal” he said and so it was “the goal that never was”. So instead of an overtime win, Bison had to suffer the ignominy of a shoot out loss to the bottom team in a game which they should never have let slip.

Telford’s last four visits to Basingstoke had yielded a staggering 44 goals. The goalfest continued here tonight, Bison leading the way with 2 goals in the first 6 minutes. Liam Chong, who won the man of the match award for his all action display, stole the puck centre ice, picking the pocket of the defenseman as easily as the Artful Dodger would have. He bombed forward and sent in a centring pass for Jacob Heron to arrow in for 1-0.

The second was a short handed goal. You should never concede a short handed goal. It’s  almost as bad as conceding an even handed goal to a team of one armed men. With Reynolds in the box for boarding, Bison executed a sweet end to end move started by Dean Skinns with an accurate pass to Nicky Chinn on the blue line. He moved forward and then delivered a slide rule pass, of which Albert Einstein would have been proud, to Viktor Kubenko. The savvy Slovak hammered forward faster than a City banker rushing to collect his bonus, bamboozled netminder Ryan and scored. He handles a stick better than cute little Shirley Temple handled a lollipop (go on Youtube her).

In contrast the Tigers’ next power play bore fruit. Josh Bruce hammered in a vicious slap shot to bring it back to a one goal game. Soar and Bowley assisted. 4 minutes from the first buzzer Henry crossed from the left for McKenzie to net over Skinns’s shoulder. 2-2.

Bison well and truly ran away with the 2^nd period, outplaying the Tigers and rattling in 3 goals without reply to power into a 5-2 lead. The first of those came in a 4 on 4 with Reynolds and Brittle in the box for roughing. Didn’t look very rough to me – just a bit of pushing which failed to escalate into an ugly affray much to the chagrin of the crowd. Canadian colossus, Steve Moria, set up Marcel Petran, lurking in the slot. The puck bounced awkwardly in front of the Slovak cannon and was actually standing up on its edge when the stick came down. Declan Ryan knew what was coming, but couldn’t block his goal as effectively as Fatty Foulke (Google him if you like) would have done. The puck flew as straight as a bolt fired from William Tell’s crossbow past the young netman’s head and under the bar. Quite amazingly, Marcel initially forgot to raise the jazz hands in celebration. Then he remembered and up they went.

Moments later Petran received a nasty puck to the knee to add to his hideous finger injury sustained in the first period and had to vacate the ice in obvious pain. An ice pack was applied to the damaged joint and things were looking bad. However, Marcel was back on the ice very soon after, despite crocked knee and finger, proving that hockey players are made of stern stuff. Take note Mr. Harabin (see last week’s report)!

The 4^th Bison goal in the 38^th minutes was simplicity defined. Joe Miller’s centring pass was slammed in at the back door by Kubenko. It was King Kubo’s second of the night. Dan Harris picked up the second assist.

Only 2 minutes later the scoreboard clicked on to “Home 5”. Daniel Volrab steamed in from the left wing and shot. Ryan saved, but gave up a rebound. A veritable scramble ensued with goaltender and forwards grabbing, stabbing, jabbing, poking and slashing at the loose puck. Moria eventually managed to dig it out, diverting it back to Volrab who scored. Ollie Bronnimann was credited with the second assist.

The spirits of the Bison crowd were well and truly buoyed. Back to winning ways surely. In the interval between the 2^nd and 3^rd, the genial Brummie in the 33 Kieras shirt in Block C donned his rose tinted spectacles and predicted a Bison goal avalanche in the 3^rd. And so it should have been. However things don’t always go according to plan, as milkman Ernie found out at his high noon showdown with Two Ton Ted from Teddington (anyone under 40 will have to Google that one). Bison lost their way and allowed the Tigers back into a game which should have been a country mile beyond them.

On 41 minutes Luke Brittle (youngest of the 4 brothers Brittle) popped in a rebound from Bruce’s shot. 3-5. On 46 minutes defenseman Daniel Croft scored with a slap shot which appeared to deflect off a Bison skate to put them 4-5 and within touching distance of Bison. And then 5 minutes from the buzzer Volrab had his pocket picked in mid ice by the admirable Scott McKenzie. The compatriot of Tosh Redmond skated clear and didn’t mess about. He elected for power from distance as he hammered an unstoppable slap shot past a despairing Dean Skinns for the equaliser and his 2^nd goal of the game.

There was no further scoring in overtime – well there was (see the beginning of this report), but alas the referee must have dropped his white stick and been looking for it on the ice because he missed both the goal and the beacon like red light behind the goal. And so we moved on to the drama of a shoot out. For Bison Miller netted, but Kubenko and Moria failed to score, making McKenzie’s miss irrelevant as the Tigers’ Slovak pair of Senko and Hornak both skinned Skinns to score.

Congratulations to a young Telford team who showed spirit and determination to score an unexpected road win. And for us, the Bison faithful, one final word……BAH!