Payette’s Gunslingers Shoot Down Bison

Bison 2 Sheffield Steeldogs 6

24/3/12

Into the sleepy town of Basingstoke rode the gunslinging hardmen of Sheffield to rob the bank of Bison, firing their Colt 45s from the saddle and led by the notorious hockey outlaw André “Pieface” Payette. At the end of 60 minutes of hard hitting hockey it was the Dogs who deservedly galloped back to their mountain hideout (well Sheffield really) with the points. This was not a game for the shrinking violet.

Payette is the ultimate Marmite hockey player. Everyone in Sheffield loves him, whereas everyone outside of Sheffield hates him, although there are no doubt many who secretly admire him. Why? Well he is a man of limited skill and talent as a player. He wears the number 7, as did the great talent who was Eric Cantona, but the only thing these two could do in common would be Kung Fu kicking. Payette’s success has been in transforming the Dogs on a limited budget from a soft, no hope, bottom 3 EPL team into a tough hitting outfit who, if remaining results go their way, could finish 2^nd in the league this year. I wish I could have spent the whole of Payette’s 20 or so minutes of ice time watching the man himself and not the play, as his antics were pantomime villain personified. The expression agent provocateur could have been invented for him. He jostled, nudged, poked, pushed, slashed and sledged any player who came near him, picking on those who he knew had a short fuse. His cheap shots out of the officials’ view were legion. It was very clear what he was trying to doing. However, he didn’t have it all his own way and for long periods Bison gave as good as they got, especially in the form of Kurt Reynolds, who hit hard and then some including a massive hit on Payette himself after 90 seconds, which saw the French Canadian enforcer slump to the ice like a sack of potatoes, much to the delight of the crowd.

Things started well for Bison with Steve Moria giving his team a 1-0 lead in the 3^rd minute. The Canadian Colossus, such a light year ahead of Payette in terms of hockey skill, robbed his opposite number close to the blue line and would have been in on goal had Payette not hooked him. The referee, exercising the type of myopic sight typical of Mr Magoo, let it go. Mo kept his feet and possession of the puck, passed to Liam Chong on the boards, received the return pass and 5-holed Ben Bowns in the Dogs’ net.

On 7 minutes Nicky Chinn was invited to spend time at Her Majesty’s pleasure for a hook and the resultant power play saw the Dogs draw level with a goal from Ukrainian D-man, Pavel Gomeniuk. Set up by Payette and Steve Duncombe, he drifted in unchallenged and 5-holed Stephen Wall. A minute later it was 1-2 with Janis Ozolins planting a top shelf wrist shot past Wall from a pass by Stuart Brittle. Then only a minute after that Joe Miller was banged up for interference and during the power play which followed Slovak Cannon, Marcel Petran, was called for cross checking. He didn’t like it and let his view be known to the referee, continuing his angry monolog, even after he had left the ice, by hauling himself up to appear Kilroy like over the top of the glass. His protests were echoed by the Howling Man at the end of Row E, who expressed his contrary views in his usual arm waving, vocal style. This was considered beyond the pale by Mr. Boniface (Marcel’s actions, not the Howling Man’s that is) and he slapped a 10 minute misconduct on the hapless Slovak. On hearing this the Bespectacled Youth gave vent to his feelings on the matter in a manner so loud as to vex the Howling Man’s wife, would you believe?

Bison survived the 5 on 3 power play, but after Miller had returned to the ice to reduce the disadvantage to 5 on 4, the Dogs got their reward with their 3^rd goal – a back handed effort form Ben Morgan, assisted by Greg Wood and Edgars Bebris.

The 2^nd period belonged to Bison with Steve Moria claiming his 2^nd to make it 2-3 on 34 minutes, firing home from in front of the net and then striking a Ussain Bolt pose (yes he really did that), obviously having felt the need to challenge the Nicky Chinn moonwalk, to which we were treated a couple of weeks ago. Craig Tribe and Joe Miller assisted.

Late in the period there occurred an unsavoury incident of the greatest opprobrium. Coach Payette (yes him again) managed to dig the puck out from under Wall’s hand after he had frozen it. This was done on the blindside of the referee, who, had he seen it, may indeed have allowed the move, such was his optically challenged performance on the night, not to mention his selective calling. It made the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A, a close and wholly reliable eye witness to the misdemeanour, fly into an apoplectic rage with the force of the Krakatoa eruption of 1883, although still less animated than one of the Howling Man’s outbursts. The Rabble Rouser even went as far as to suggest “Bonniface and Payette are shortly to engage in a civil partnership given some of their warm and tender exchanges this less than fine evening”. Surely an outrageous and indeed preposterous suggestion?  Perhaps the Rabble Rouser has inside information. The incident ended with the usual push and shove scrum, but nothing more. Most would agree that Payette deserved a severe punishment or, better still, to be laid out cold, for such a disgraceful and cynical attempt at cheating.

So ended the 2^nd with the Bison crowd well satisfied with their team’s performance after an iffy 1^st. They had ridden the storm of the Steeldogs’ physicality, given as good as they had got, cheap shots apart (well maybe there were one or two but only in retaliation) and, at only one goal in arrears, there was every chance of a come from behind win. However, things didn’t go according to this plan at all. Throughout the 3^rd Bison played like the Tin Man from the Wizzard of Oz i.e. with no heart. A capitulation saw them slip from 2-3 to 2-6. The Steeldogs’ 4^th goal came in the 45^th minute – an unassisted score from Ashley Calvert through Wall’s 5-hole. Worse was to come. Only a minute later Brittle had his collar felt and into the slammer he went for hooking. Bison desperately needed to make the power play count, but it was the Steeldogs who took advantage of some slack defending as Ozolins raced clear of a statuesque Bison blueline, fooled Wall with a clever deke and backhanded the puck over the line for 2-5 and game over. Ben Morgan and Ashley Calvert picked up the assists.

There then occurred a bizarre incident which cast further grave doubts in the minds of many concerning Mr. Boniface’s fitness to officiate. Kurt Reynolds was hit and collapsed in a heap to the ice. The aforementioned official, standing within a couple of feet of the clearly injured Bison D-man, allowed play to continue for some considerable time, before finally blowing the whistle. Why?

On 49 minutes Ozolins, looking for his hat-trick sent in a shot which cracked against Wall’s mask without causing injury to the netman. “Thank God for Jacques Plante” he must have thought. Jacques who? The first goaltender to wear a mask of course. However, Ozolins was not to be denied. With 5 minutes remaining he finished a slick move from Gibson to Brittle, beating Wall with a rocket wrist shot. It was goal number 53 of a fantastic season for the EPL’s top scorer. It was no surprise that the young Latvian sniper picked up the Dogs’ man of the match award. Liam Chong picked up the Bison beers for another all effort performance and his third successive MoM.

A final little cameo to relate. The rumours of Payette being the next player/coach of Bison are rife. At the end of the game he did a solo skate past and salute of the Bison blocks, maybe to gauge the reaction of the Bison crowd? Who knows?