Owen Spec-tacular

Bison 5 Telford Tigers 1

5/1/13

Once in a lifetime there comes someone so good at his chosen sport that he is remembered in sporting history as an all time undisputed great, maybe possibly the greatest who has ever graced the grass, the ring, the baize or the ockie – Pele, Muhammad Ali, Stephen Hendry, Phil “The Power” Taylor, Johnny Philpott. Johnny who? Yes Johnny Philpott. I won’t have it said that there was ever a better player of Chigwell School Room 9 table football. Was there such an all time great honouring the Basingstoke ice last night at the Bison v Telford clash? No of course not. But we did have by Greg “The Specs” Owen, who is not half good. He keeps banging in the goals and scoring the points. Last night he scored two goals and an assist and his fine performance made him worthy winner of the Top Banana award.

Before the game started, the crowd received an early shock. Declan Ryan, the Tigers’ goaltender, a young man barely out of his teens and of youthful appearance when last seen at Planet Ice, had aged hideously and now resembled a follically challenged man of twice his age. It looked like a case of Dorian Gray (Google him if you like) in reverse. What on earth could have happened to the young netminder? What life of debauchery could he have led to end up looking this old in such a short space of time? And then we realised that the netman, wearing Ryan’s shirt was, in fact, our old friend Barry Hollyhead, who had been dragged screaming and kicking from retirement to cover for Ryan’s absence. Welcome back Barry.

Bison went into the game on the back of three successive defeats and knew they needed a good performance. They started in lively fashion, but took 13 minutes to register their first score. Shoeless Joe Miller fed Greg “Chubbs” Chambers on the left wing. Chubbs’s forward movement could not be described as tardy, unhurried or plodding, but more as animated, mercurial and sprightly. In fact, he belted forward with impressive velocity and sent a diagonal pass to Greg “The Specs” Owen, who hammered his first goal of the evening. A textbook example of how to capitalise on a 2 on 1.

On 15 minutes Bison blueliner Carl “Scooter” Graham was condemned to spend 2 minutes in the Sapphire Cleaning dungeon for tripping. Bison survived the power play and shortly after went further ahead. An interception enabled Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky, and Maple Leaf Doug Sheppard to set up another 2 on 1. Goaltender Hollyhead would rather have faced a stampede of the Mongol hordes of Ghengis Khan than two of the EPL’s deadliest marksmen, but Gengis wasn’t icing last night, which is hardly surprising as he’s been dead for 876 years. As Jaro skated forward with the puck, Doug moved wide to increase the gap and make life depressing for the hapless Tigers’ blueliner. Jaro’s pass found the coach, who drew the D-man and then fired back to the Bouncing Czech, now in on Hollyhead. He shovelled the puck in for 2-0 Bison.

Bison went further ahead 4 minutes into the 2^nd. Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino failed to pick up a pass, but ruthlessly hunted down the loose puck with the determination of a rodent control operative chasing a rabid stoat to deliver a fatal blow. He collected the puck behind the goal line and flicked a perfect pass to Coach Sheppard. Maple leaf Doug didn’t fluff it, scuff it or muff it, but stuffed it past Hollyhead for 3-0. The crowd leapt to their feet to register their approval of the goal with shouts of “Yahoo!”, ”Yippee!”, “Hurrah!”, “Woo-hoo!” and other similar exclamations. Had the late/great Sid Waddell been present he might have shouted “180!”

3 minutes later, Carl “Scooter” Graham was adjudged guilty of a cross check, but worse still a cross check from behind. The referee, Mr. Cloutman, may have considered that this was a deed so malodorous and malevolent that 10 years on Devil’s Island would have been an appropriate punishment. However, not even the all powerful Dave Cloutman has the authority to impose such a sentence of penal servitude and instead slapped a 2 + 10 on the unfortunate Graham. Bison managed to snuff out the resultant power play and indeed nearly scored a shortie. Cesky broke clear but fired over. 3 minutes later it was the Tigers who fell foul of officialdom with Daniel Croft finding himself banged up for hooking. They too survived the 5 on 4. Amazingly that was Bison’s only power play of the game.

With less than 2 minutes to go in the period, Bison were again called to account for breaking the rules. “Interference” said Mr. Cloutman, who is the Man with the Clout, and Greg “Chubbs” Chambers found himself serving solitary. The Tigers seemed determined to take advantage of the one man advantage with some dazzling play. As their forwards ran rings around the Bison D, Stonewall Stevie Lyle in the Bison net became busier than a one eyed cat watching nine rat holes. Players appeared as unexpectedly as pieces of toast jumping out of a pop up toaster in front of the net, behind the goal line, on the point and at the back door and then disappeared only to reappear elsewhere as if from Aladdin’s lamp. It must have been so confusing for Stevie that he may have thought that players were even descending from the rafters of the Planet ice roof like spiders on gossamer threads. Eventually the pressure told and a clever interchange between Scott MacKenzie, Thomas Soar and Callum Bowley finished with the latter firing home from in front of the net. However, the Genial Brummie and the Rabble Rouser of Block A testified to me, albeit not under oath but I believed them anyway, that the puck had left the offensive zone momentarily during the build up and an offside call should have been made, but wasn’t. What did matter was that Honest Pete had put on his goal light and Mr. Cloutman had given a goal.

The final period belonged to Bison. The Basingstoke icemen piled on the pressure and bagged another couple of goals to confine Mystic Jo’s prediction of a 3-2 win for the home team to the dustbin. (Much closer was Mystic Matthew with a prediction of 4-1). Bison’s 4^th  goal came along on 49 minutes. Tony “Tosh” Redmond set up Owen and Chambers in yet another 2 on 1. As Chubbs and Greg “The Specs” bore down on Hollyhead’s goal, Barry must have wished that, were he as mighty as the Colossus of Rhodes, he would have a chance of blocking the goal. On second thoughts perhaps not as the Colossus was somewhat immobile and had an enormous 5-hole (Google image him if you need confirmation). Suffice it to say that Chubbs found a sufficient gap above the Hollyhead right shoulder to fire in a wrist shot and galvanise a doubtless jubilant, albeit outwardly impartial Honest Pete into action with his goal light.

The final goal came from yet another 2 on 1 involving the same two players. This time Tosh Redmond and Coach Sheppard combined to set Greg “The Specs” away with Chubbs charging up the left wing in support. Hollyhead clearly thought that there was to be a cross ice pass to Chubbs at the back door and left a gap large enough for Greg to rifle home a terrific top shelf wrist shot. “What a goal” was the opinion of the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt and no-one around him disagreed. This final Bison goal sure was kickass and a kick in the teeth for the Tigers’ fans. Their D had been caught kicking their heels and Bison had kicked them when they were down, not to mention kicked them in the unmentionables. Their chances of a win had now been well and truly kicked into touch. No point in kicking up a fuss, they were now as good as kicked out of the contest. Their coach was certain to be kicking up a stink in the locker room and delivering a kick up the pants to his team at the end of the game.

A final word for the best supporters in the EPL, the 20 members of the Telford faithful who made the trip. Come rain or shine (and let's be honest it's mostly rain in Tigerland) they are there supporting their team, who seem destined to finish bottom of the pile year on year. They are dyed in the wool supporters and they never say die. Everyone knows it’s a long way to Tipperary, but let’s not forget it’s also a long way to Telford.