Bees Buzz but Bison Get the Nectar

Bison 4 Bracknell Bees 1

15/9/2012

Bearing in mind the strength of this season’s Bison bench and the rather unimpressive showing of the Bracknell Bees in the 4 TT, not to mention their two pre season defeats against Slough in the massively prestigious Berkshire Cycles Cup, many of the Bison faithful who poured into Planet Ice last night were expecting a game as unequal as an arm wrestling contest between Mike Tyson and Mr. Burns. However, the Bees showed spirit and fight (more about Scott “Turtle” Spearing in a minute) and matched Bison shot for shot in each period. Bison’s clinical finishing and another impressive performance from goaltender Stonewall Stevie Lyle were the differences.

The first major incident of the game occurred in the 8^th minute when Scott Spearing was called for a check to the head of Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino. He received a 2 + 10 for the check and a further 10 misconduct for letting his views be known to the officials, possibly in the language of a Billingsgate fish porter. We didn’t hear anything in Block C. We just saw his mouth moving. The Bespectacled Youth thought that the referee should have thrown Spearing out of the game. Not literally of course – now that would have been an entertaining spectacle.

 

The Bees survived the power play, but fell behind in the 12th minute. A wonderful diagonal pass by Shoeless Joe Miller found Greg Chambers on the boards. Chubbs cut in from the left wing and sent an unstoppable wrist shot past Carl Ambler in the Bees’ net. 1-0 to Bison. Kurt “The Knife” Reynolds picked up the second assist.

The Bison lead lasted only a minute. A delayed penalty was called. The Bespectacled Youth communicated his disagreement with the decision by uttering an unprintable word. I turned around to remind him that such expletives were not permitted when suddenly it was a goal. I had committed the cardinal sin of taking my eye off the puck. I had to rely on the testimony of the Desperate Dan lookalike, the Genial Brummie and Duracell Man for a description of the goal. Apparently a Marcel Petran slap shot was deflected past Stonewall Stevie Lyle by Alan Lack, fortuitously finding the smallest of gaps between pad and post. 1-1.

A quick response was needed and it was Chunky Joe Greener who rose to the occasion like a soufflé in the oven at Gas mark 5. Joe and Bison player/coach Doug Sheppard cooked up a great move between them. Joe poached the puck on the forecheck, and served it up to Maple Leaf Doug, whose lightning pass found fellow Canadian Joe Rand steaming in at the back door. If goaltender Ambler had possessed the physical attributes of Erica Roe, streaker of great renown (go on Google image her – blokes only), he may have had a chance of blocking the goal entirely. Alas for Scrambler he did not and he could not. Joe’s one timer screamed past the hapless netman and into the net behind. The roar from the Bison crowd threatened to take the roof off the building. Thankfully it stayed put, thus obviating the need for extensive and indeed expensive structural repairs. 2-1 Bison.

In the 16^th minute referee Szucs was lucky to escape with his life as he was involuntarily involved in a massive body check by giant Czech blueliner, Tomas “Fozzie Bear” Fojtik, on Alan Lack. It must have been a terrifying moment for the man in the armbands as the best part of 450 lbs of humanity and hockey equipment hurtled towards him as he casually minded his own business on the boards. Fortunately the hapless official managed to avoid the main impact by squeezing his generous form out from under the players like toothpaste being ejected from a tube and Mr Szucs lived to make another call.

The second period opened in lively fashion with opportunities at both ends. After 3 minutes Maple leaf Doug was thrown into the can for hooking. Bison survived the resultant power play, but only just. Former Bison favourite, Marcel Petran, aka the Slovak Cannon, wound himself up to fire in one of his characteristic slap shots. He muffed the shot and somehow, defying the laws of physics, the puck shot behind him from the Bison blueline and had to be harvested by Petran’s own goaltender. Shortly afterwards Rob Lamey showed how it should be done and sent in a humdinger of a slapshot which Stonewall Stevie saved. Lamey was then involved in an incident of a rather different kind – another thunderous hit from Fojtik. 256 lbs of moving man mountain slammed Lamey against the boards with massive force threatening to reduce his body thickness to that of an Rizla fag paper. The noise of the impact was probably heard back in Bracknell. The crowd voiced their approval. Miraculously, Lamey survived.

Bison went further ahead in the 26^th minute. A face off in the Bees defensive zone was won by Greg “The Specs” Owen. The other Greg, “Chubbs” Chambers, spotted Alex Symonds free at the back door and found him with slide rule pass. The Welsh blueliner took possession of the puck and let loose a top shelf wrist shot which beat Scrambler all hands down. With a goal and now an assist all Chubbs needed for a Gordie Howe hat trick was a fight. Perhaps he could have invited Turtleman Spearing to join him in an unsavoury embroilment. The latter, however, having already attempted to murder “Machine Gun” Melachrino, had his sights set on others, as we shall see.

There was no further scoring in the second, but Bison were to seal the victory with a fourth goal half way through the 3^rd period. Prior to this, however, Spearing provoked Shoeless Joe Miller into some push and shove. 2 minutes each in the glasshouse for “delay of game” was the punishment – a rather strange call, but the encounter was way too docile to be called “roughing”.

Barely out of clink, the Turtleman was involved in another unsavoury altercation. He wasn’t exactly endearing himself to the Bison crowd with his agitator antics. In fact, he had become just about as undesirable with the Bison players and crowd as the scrapings from the inside of a Mongolian tram driver’s gauntlet. His chosen opponent this time was once again Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino, the man who he had tried to murder with a head check in the 1^st period. A hard hit and clinch on the boards by the red line attracted a 2 minute roughing penalty for each. On their way to the slammer the verbals obviously continued and suddenly down went the gloves and off came the helmets, but it turned out to be nothing more than posturing and Melachrino was shoved through the open door of the penalty box by the linesman before anything developed.

Bison’s victory was sealed in the 50^th minute with a 2 on 1 breakaway goal scored by Greg  Chambers. Put clear by Doug Sheppard, Chubbs hammered forward like there was no tomorrow. Perhaps he thought there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow, but actually it turned out that there was. Greg “The Specs” Owen steamed forward on the left wing in support, but Chubbs didn’t need him. He fired home a top shelf wrist shot for his second goal of the game. The net immediately came off its moorings and it looked as if Chubbs’s shot had caused it to do so, but in fact it was a Bees player who had nudged it off. Further assist to Fojtik.

With 2 goals, an assist and a fine performance Chubbs was the obvious choice for Bison’s man of the match. The Bees award went to Alan Lack, who maybe should have earned the award for nothing other than surviving a Fojtik body check never mind scoring the Bees only goal.