Phoenix Triumph on Night of Pukka Pie Sell Out

Bison 0 Manchester Phoenix 5

14/1/12

A slick moving Phoenix side registered their third Planet Ice road win of the season to consolidate their position in the table and extend their winning streak to 7. At the same time Bison’s run of 5 straight victories ended in the most depressing fashion for the Bison fans. No goals or fights to cheer and worst of all no Pukka Pies. The man in Charlestown Chiefs shirt and the bespectacled youth were horrified to find out at the second interval that the food bar had run out and they were forced to make alternative culinary arrangements – more about that later.

Apart from the 5 goals what were the differences between the two sides? Well not a great deal really. However, whereas the Phoenix played some lovely tic-tac-toe hockey, Bison played tic-tac but without the toe. Phoenix finished well and took their chances, Bison did not. Throw into the equation a splendid night of netminding from Steve Fone (BT to the Phoenix fans), who achieved a rare shut out. He would have been a very worthy winner of the Man of the Match award for his champagne performance, but it was Bison old boy, long Ciaron Long, scorer of a brace of goals, who surprisingly skated off with the beer.

It would be fair to say that the first period belonged to Bison. They ended the period having outshot the Phoenix by a considerable 15-5 margin. However, statistics sometimes fail to give the whole picture and, whereas Bison failed to find the net with any of their attempts, Phoenix scored with their first effort and went in at the first buzzer enjoying a 1-0 lead. That goal came in the 5^th minute. Ciaran Long took the puck around the back of the goal, emerged wide and flicked a shot into the far corner of the net over Bison goaltender Stephen Wall’s shoulder. Assists went to Ryan Johnson and Ben Wood.

After bagging 3 power play goals in their last home ice game, Bison might have hoped for further reward from 5 on 4s. On two occasions Luke Boothroyd found himself behind bars for hooking Canadian colossus, Steve Moria. Did he think that Mo was a fish and he was J.R. Hartley? Phoenix proved much more adept at the power play kill than the Bees had been the previous week and Bison could take no advantage. Typical of Bison’s failure to score in the first period were two great chances fluffed by Liam Chong, both from Craig Tribe passes, and another well connected Chong effort saved by Fone.

It was not all doom and gloom for Bison. After all they were moving and passing well and only one goal in arrears. Those wearing rose tinted specs saw every chance of a come from behind win. Phoenix had other ideas, however, and the specs were well and truly torn from the faces of the optimistic and mercilessly ground into the ice. The M-men hammered home their superiority in the 2nd period, firing in 4 unanswered goals to effectively win the game. Any Bison fan who thought the team could come back from that were living in a dream world. They would have needed the wizzarding services of Harry Potter to achieve that and alas Harry was not on the Bison bench.

The goal glut started on 3 minutes into the period. Slava Koulikov skated behind the goal and fired a pass to James Neil on the point. Neil’s wrist shot flew with the accuracy of a sniper’s bullet over Wall’s shoulder, blocker side, for 2-0. Juraj Faith picked up the second assist. Shortly afterwards Sam Oakford was sent to the slammer for interference and Phoenix took their 5 on 4 chance with James Archer flicking Stephen Wallace’s shot past Wall’s shoulder for 3-0. A feature of the power play, however, were the heroics of  Bison’s Man of the Match, Joe Miller, who broke his stick, but was too far away from the bench to collect a replacement and had to continue defending without. He presented a very effective barrier for a while and even managed to block a pass with his skate.

On 30 minutes the scoreboard clicked on to “Visitors 4”. A delayed penalty was called on bouncing Czech, Daniel Volrab, but there was no need for Phoenix to pull their goaltender to bring on an extra skater, as within seconds Tom Duggan (assisted by Archer) had scored. Bison immediately called a time out, but Phoenix must have used their short tactical conference to greater effect as only a minute later they scored again. This time it was long Ciaron Long with his second. Set up by Josh Ward and “Oscar” Harabin (see previous Bison v Phoenix report), Long had all the time in the world to hammer in a slap shot from the slot. All 5 goals had been scored high over Wall’s shoulders – bit of a pattern there. Mo kept faith with Wall and his vote of confidence proved not to be misplaced as Wally achieved a 3^rd period shut out.

The final period was not without incident, but the game went a little flat as Phoenix continued to look solid and Bison ineffective. D-man Harabin almost made it 6-0 on 43 minutes when he skated forward over the Bison blue line and hammered a slap shot against the Bison bar. All the Bison crowd wanted was a goal and they got one with only 4 minutes remaining. However, the score was chalked off as Liam Chong was correctly adjudged to have hand passed the puck to set up the opportunity. The period ended with a frustrated Kurt Reynolds in the box for roughing.

An encouraging feature of the game must have been the performances of Phoenix’s Brits, who bagged all the goals and most of the assists. The import forwards of Faith, Cingel, Kubenko, Moria and Volrab were all shut out, Faith the only one to score a point with his assist for the second goal. At a time when Elite League hockey is struggling financially, weighed down with hefty import player wage bills, it was good to see that indeed “Britain’s got talent”.

Finally a word about the Pukka Pie drought. The aforementioned Charlestown Chiefs man and the bespectacled youth, had to purchase lukewarm cheese and onion “Cornish pasties” in substitution. The Scottish lady in the Redmond shirt in Row E asked of the Chiefs man “what is that?” and it would be true to say that the question was very difficult to answer. The oblong pastry was not crescent shaped, had no crimped crust and looked as if it had been run over by a steam roller. Cornish tin miners invented the pasty - no need to wash hands before lunch as they would eat the pasty holding it by the crust and then chuck the crust away. Doubtless there are many deceased Cornishmen who rotate in their graves at the very thought of this Planet Ice delicacy being described as a “Cornish pasty”.