Bison Triumph in High Noon Showdown

Bison 5 Guildford Flames 2

31/12/11

Continuing on from their imperious performance last Tuesday at Swindon where they recorded a 6-1 road win, Bison, dressed in black from head to foot Wyatt Earp style, shot down their local rivals, the gun slinging Guildford Flames, who rode into town for a High Noon showdown on the back of 13 straight victories.

It was, however, the Flames who opened the scoring in the 5^th minute through Matt Towe. Bison old boy, Andy Hemmings, slid a pass from behind the goal line for his team-mate to convert. Stuart Potts picked up the second assist. Those Bison fans with glasses half empty must have thought “Here we go again.” However, within 2 minutes Bison were level when a Volrab shot rebounded to Joe Miller, who stabbed the puck over the goal line. It was Millertime once again.

Bison claimed the lead in the 12^th minute with a wonderfully taken power play goal scored by the bouncing Czech, Daniel Volrab. With the slashing Branislav Kvetan, in the box, a defense splitting pass from Joe Miller found Volrab on the boards and powering forward like Stephenson’s Rocket. He cut in diagonally from the right wing and let fly with a left handed wrist shot. The puck flew high over Lee’s shoulder and into the net with the accuracy of Phil “The Power” Taylor throwing for a treble 20. Kurt Reynolds picked up the second assist.

And so the period ended with Bison enjoying a 2-1 advantage. The second period was bound to be a big test with the Flames pulling out all the stops. The glass half empty Bison fans must have had a bad feeling, knowing what the Flames were capable of. Their pessimism proved misplace as it was Bison who power into a 4-1 lead inside the first 4 minutes of the period, hammering two unanswered goals within 24 seconds of each other. First of the brace was created by Jacob Heron. He cleverly delayed his shot as a defenseman slid in front of him. The way to goal then opened up in front of him like the parting of the Red Sea. His powerful wrist shot seemed to be going just wide until it deflected off Craig Tribe and flew past a hapless Mark Lee into the net. A fortuitous goal, but they all count. Bison skipper Nicky Chinn then bagged a goal. Tosh Redmond passed to savvy Slovak Viktor Kubenko, whose behind the goal line pass found Chinn in front of the net. It wasn’t the cleanest of strikes, but in it went to leave the Flames reeling like drunken men. A time out was called to steady the Guildford ship.

Things were starting to look a bit fruity out there and many, including the Block C Gooner in the 87 Crosby shirt, thought there was every likelihood of a fight. Maybe there would have been had Chris Wiggins not been serving a suspension. The nearest we got was an ugly confrontation between Curtis Huppe (rhymes with yuppie, not soup or sup) and Viktor Kubenko. The shaven headed Canadian (OK I couldn’t actually see that from Row F and anyway he was wearing a helmet) and the hirsute Slovak came together and exchanged the contrary views which each held. Perhaps they were discussing hair restoration processes. There then followed a bit of push and shove, which was broken up and not considered violent enough to qualify as “roughing” by the referee. There being no offense called “handbags”, the would be combatants were spared a spell in the box.

By the end of the period the Flames had reduced the deficit with a short handed goal from dangerous Canadian, Nathan Rempel. With only seconds of Adam Savage’s penalty for interference remaining, goal-a-game man Rempel proved he is as deadly a marksman as Wild Bill Hickok (Google him if you like) and with more notches on his stick than Bill had on the handle of his Colt 45. David Longstaff used his long staff to fire the puck into the path of Rempel, who bore down on goal and fired a top shelf wrist shot past Matt Colclough. The glass half empty Bison fans slumped back in their seats and groaned. Even the glass half full fans held back from predicting a Bison win and the genial Brummie in the 33 Kieras shirt refused to don his rose coloured specs, not wishing to tempt fate.

Nevertheless, it was still looking good for the men in black. A Flames onslaught in the 3^rd was to be expected. So good at coming from behind and against a team so good at throwing away leads, Guildford were certain to be throwing the kitchen sink at the Bison goal. Bison needed a fifth goal to ease the pressure and looked perfectly capable of bagging one as long as they continued to take the game to the Flames. And that is exactly what happened. Just under 4 minutes into the period the Margate marauder, Ollie Bronnimann, was put in by Volrab. Ollie broke away without a defenseman to trouble him. He skated forward as fast as Rocket Ron Haslam powering down the home straight at Donnington (OK I might be exaggerating a bit here), foxed Lee as to his intentions and bulged the net before the goaltender could react. It was vintage Ollie.

The fifth goal took away the pressure, but it was far from over with both sides creating many a chance as the game continued to ebb and flow. At 3 goals behind the Flames, declined to pull their goaltender as the clock ticked down, realising that it was a hopeless cause. With a couple of seconds remaining a speculative long range shot came in. Matt Colclough shot out his catcher and nonchalantly plucked the puck out of the air like a frog with a long sticky tongue catching a fly. The clock stopped at 0.5 seconds. Not even the glass half empty fans thought that the Flames could score 3 goals in the last half second. And so it proved. The final buzzer was greeted with a standing ovation. 

Flames man of the match was Jez Lundin and the Bison award went to Kurt Reynolds. This bemused many of the Bison crowd who thought that Matt Colclough would have been a worthy recipient of the beer box. In the absence of Stephen Wall he had a top game with a series of saves, blocks, deflections and catches and was in no small way instrumental in the Flames failing to get within touching distance of Bison.