Flames Flicker and Fade

Last week I was brought to account by Steve, a chef of 26 years experience, when I described choux pastry as flaky. Steve reliably informed me that choux pastry is, in fact, not flaky at all. My mistake. Many thanks for that. I have learned something. The final paragraph in this report is specially for you, Steve. Hope you enjoy it and I hope it is free of culinary errors.


Bison 3 Guildford Flames 1

10/11/12

EPL champions, the Guildford Flames, blazed a trail into town to reignite the local rivalry with Bison, hoping to cook up a sizzling display and singe and scorch their hosts. In the final analysis they ended up the ones with their fingers burnt as on fire Bison roasted and toasted the visitors with a combustible performance, leaving the Flames with their title ambitions not quite up in smoke but certainly on the back burner.

(Sorry that opening paragraph sure is tabloid style journalism at its worst).

Bison can congratulate themselves on shutting out the deadly trio of Curtis Huppe, Nathan Rempel and David Longstaff. It was hardly surprising that the latter two failed to score a goal or even a point between them as they didn't ice.

The game started in a lively fashion and it wasn’t long before Bison found themselves on their first power play of the evening. Jez Lundin was adjudged guilty of a cross check and received an invitation to spend 2 minutes of solitary confinement in that dark, dank dungeon that is the Sapphire Cleaning penalty box. Bison’s 5 forward power play unit came on to punish the Flames, but alas they could not find a way through a solid Flames D which looked as impenetrable as Ned Kelly’s body armour.

The game ebbed and flowed with chances at both ends. Guildford were looking fractionally the better side and took the lead in the 16^th minutes. Ben Campbell collected the puck on the Bison goal line, skated back towards the blue line, swung around and beat Stonewall Stevie Lyle with a top shelf wrist shot to register an unassisted goal.  (Never trust a Campbell, some might say. Remember Glencoe!)

They say the grass is greener on the other side and this was certainly true for Cuddly Joe Greener, who stayed on the other side of the glass for the 2^nd and 3^rd periods still suffering from the injury he sustained at Slough on Sunday. Get well soon Joe.

The general consensus of opinion amongst the Bison faithful, mumbling amongst themselves  during the break, had been that Bison needed to step up their game and that’s precisely what happened. Only a minute or so into the 2^nd they were level. The execution of the move would have impressed even Elizabeth I’s Lord High Executioner. It involved Lumberjack Joe Rand and Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky. The latter fed a cross ice pass to Maple Leaf Doug Sheppard. There was no need to bother with Pythagoras’s theorem (squares and hypotenuses didn’t enter his mind I am sure) – Jaro got the angle just right. He found the stick tape of Doug, who moved forward and snapped his wrists. His shot arrowed in over the shoulder of Mark Lee via the crossbar with a sonorous clunk. The players celebrated, but referee Mr Szucs was not sure it had crossed the line and had to consult the goal judge. It was a tense moment for the Bison faithful and many a fingernail was gnawed. Suddenly Mr Szucs swivelled around and pointed at the net with a flat hand to indicate that the goal was good.  The feelgood factor erupted from the Bison crowd as those present exploded into an enthusiastic display of approbation. 1-1 it was.

A minute later Bison blueliner Zach Sullivan was adjudged to have hooked an opponent and was sent to the penalty box to reflect upon his misdeed. As the final few seconds of the penalty ticked down and with the Flames power play unit fully committed up ice a strange knocking sound like a hyperactive woodpecker reverberated around Planet Ice. We looked to our left to ascertain the source of this annoyance and saw Mark Lee hammering his stick on the ice to warn of the imminent release of Sullivan. Had the young blueliner emerged from the box with Bison in possession of the puck, an accurate long pass would have put him in on goal unchallenged. However, the Flames kept possession until the penalty expired, which was just as well as their skaters appeared to be completely ignoring Lee’s warning. 

Shortly after a scramble in front of goal saw Lumberjack Joe Rand and Cam “Popeye” Wynn stabbing, slashing, prodding and poking at a loose puck in the crease, but Lee managed to smother it. Then Stonewall Stevie Lyle, well forward out of his goal, executed a spectacular catch from a Jez Lundin slapshot.

Bison came within a Movember whisker of increasing their lead in the 30^th minute. The absence of Cuddly Joe Greener and Jacob “Pretty Boy” Heron (an officially approved nickname by the way) through injury had forced Coach Sheppard into experimenting with some unusual line combinations. Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino found himself in the hallowed company of Coach Sheppard and Bouncing Czech Cesky, who combined to put him in on goal. He raced forward faster than a benefit fraudster rushing to cash his ill-gotten Giro and unleashed a shot which Lee was equal to. Bad luck Andy.

As the period moved towards a conclusion, Kurt “The Knife” Reynolds survived an attempt on his life with the most extraordinary ease. A massive check into the boards had the rafters of Planet Ice ringing. The crowd winced in unison and worried about the safety of Kurt. Had he been reduced to the thickness of an After Eight mint? But no! He suddenly emerged with the puck and skated forward as if nothing had happened to set up Cesky, whose slap shot produced a butterfly save from Lee. 

Bison were now turning up the heat. They finished the period with a shot count of 19-4 and were clearly dominating play. But could they make their superiority count and take the game? Of course they could. It took only 4 minutes of the 3^rd for them to romp into a 2-1 lead. Blueliners Reynolds and Carl “Scooter” Graham” combined to set up Greg “Chubbs” Chambers. Chubbs skated in from the right wing into the offensive zone and rifled home a top shelf wrist shot. The puck was propelled forward from Chubbs’s stick with the same velocity as Grandad’s dentures ejected during a violent sneeze. The goaltender remained as motionless as a Norwegian Blue parrot nailed to his perch. (Those under 40 may have to Youtube the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch). The was much hurrah and huzzah from the Bison blocks as all, except those in the away seats, celebrated a well deserved lead.

Bison rounded off the scoring shortly after and clicked the scoreboard on to 3-1. They had finally made the Flames realise they had bitten off more than they could chew. Although the visitors were loath to leave the table with egg on their faces, their half-baked attempts to bring home the bacon just had not cut the mustard and it became a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire for the hapless Flames. Bison confirmed that they are no meat-and-potatoes team with another goal to spice up the proceedings. 12 minutes before the end it was salad days for Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky. Cool as a cucumber, but with form as hot as a chilli pepper, he put a real peach of a shot past the Flames’ goaltender, which helped towards him earning the top banana Man of the Match award. Put in by Owen and Miller, he was stirred onwards by the prospect of a meaty opportunity. His skates bit into the thin crust of the ice as he raced forward clear of the D, gobbling up the ice, deking and serving up a back hander. The puck sizzled across the ice from Jaro’s stick like an egg on a hot griddle. Had it been an egg Mark Lee may have had a chance of stopping it or at least breaking the yolk with his stick. But it wasn’t and he didn’t.  The egg  puck sizzled across the goal line. It was a cordon bleu goal served up by head chef, Cesky, to delight the goal gourmets in the crowd and maybe one on which he may dine out for years to come. The Flames’ D had been roasted, toasted, grilled, flambé-ed, sauté-ed, pan fried, filleted, nibbled at, gnawed at, chewed up, crunched up and swallowed up by the Bison forward lines. They had thrown the kitchen sink at them and gone through them like a hot knife through butter until their goose was well and truly cooked.