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!