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.