Not On Our Ice

Bison 4 Guildford Flames 2

9/3/13

The Guildford Flames came to Planet Ice last night seeking a win that would have clinched their second successive EPL title. However, Bison had other ideas and slammed the door in their faces with a polite “Not on our ice you don’t.” The Flames may be odds on to be crowned champions once again, but they don’t seem to be able to win at Planet Ice. Suffering their 6^th successive EPL defeat in Basingstoke, they will have to be content with waiting another day to take the pennant. 

The crowd were treated to a tough, physical, competitive and exciting game - a contest of blood and guts, blood and iron and blood and thunder. Bison blood was up and they were determined to spill the Flames’ blood on the carpet. There was no bad blood between the teams, but right from the first puck drop Bison smelled blood and sweated blood to give the Flames a bloody nose. And we even had some blood when Greg “Chubbs” Chambers drew blood from Nathan Rempel near the end of the 2^nd and was initially given a match penalty, which caused the blood of some of the Bison faithful to boil and the blood of others to run cold.

It took Bison 7 minutes to draw first blood (OK enough “blood” for this report). A miscontrolled puck flew high into the air and was caught by Greg “The Specs” Owen. He saw a clear path to goal and, dropping the puck in front of him, skated forward with it. When he saw the whites of netman Mark Lee’s eyes he let loose a wrist shot. If Tommy Walsh had been the Flames goaltender he could have quickly built a brick wall to block the goal completely (actually I’m not sure he does brickwork). Lee has no such abilities nor did he have the time to do so and Owen’s shot flew past him for an unassisted goal and 1-0 Bison.

There was no further scoring in the period, but not for the want of trying with both teams giving their all to ensure that the scoreboard operator didn’t drop off. However, it didn’t take long for Bison to increase their lead with the 2^nd period underway. And it was the crowd’s favourite – a short handed goal. Shoeless Joe Miller was adjudged to have hooked. The Flames faithful spectating in great numbers might have thought that the punishment for Joe’s misdemeanour should have been more appropriately a sentence of 2 years breaking rocks on the chain gang. However, it is not within the power of the men in stripes to impose such a draconian punishment and Joe ended up with a 2 minute holiday sitting on a comfy bench enjoying the spectacle of his team’s penalty kill and celebrating a short handed goal. With the Flames’ 5 men committed up ice, the puck broke to Greg “The Specs”. He powered forward clear of the field and fired in a shot which Lee saved, but couldn’t freeze. On hand was Cuddly Joe Greener to force the puck home. It was 2-0 Bison.

Shortly after the Bison faithful were treated to a wonderful cameo of never say die determination from back from injury Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino. Down on the ice and apparently out of the play he hooked the puck at full stretch into the path of a team mate.

With the game approaching the halfway stage, the Bison goal remained intact, despite the Flames nibbling away at it and hoping Stonewall Stevie Lyle would end up with egg on his face and make the hitherto gloatingly jubilant Bison supporters eat humble pie. D-man David Savage, no couch potato when it comes to chipping in goals for his team, had the Flames crowd eating out of his hand as he scored with a plum effort. It was a peach of a back hander, delivered blind, which sent the puck sizzling into the net like a whirling mini pizza. Not so much “dish of the day” it certainly was “goal of the game” on my menu and a provided a great moment for the Flames fans to take away at the end of the game.

It was now those Flames fans who were the gloatingly jubilant ones. With their team only a goal away from parity, they could sense a comeback. However, within 3 minutes the cup of optimism was to be wrenched from their lips in no uncertain terms with a goal scored with panache, aplomb, flamboyance, style, swagger, verve and élan to reanimated the Bison crowd and impregnate them with a revived feeling of optimism to replace the one of unease and concern which had been slowly creeping in to cloud their consciousness. It was a “Joe” goal, set up by Lumberkack Joe Rand and scored by Shoeless Joe Miller. Rand battled on the boards, broke clear and sent a peach (OK no more food analogies) of a long pass diagonally across the ice to Shoeless Joe steaming in from the right wing and bearing down on Mark Lee unopposed. Had Lee possessed magical powers he could have done something like making Joe’s stick disappear in a puff of smoke. But he didn’t and he couldn’t or maybe he did have, but the spell just didn’t work. Suffice it to say that he could do nothing to stop the unstoppable – a top shelf wrist shot which threated to break the net. “Goodbye, goodbye, we’re leaving you, skiddlydye. Goodbye, we wish a fond goodbye, fa-ta-ta-ta-ta, fa-ta-ta-ta”. So sang Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It might just as well have been sung by the Flames D because they appeared to have left the game, hanging a furious Lee out to dry. He showed his displeasure by way of a tantrum of which a “terrible two” would have been proud.

The turning point of the game came shortly afterwards and straddled the 2^nd and 3^rd periods. On the stroke of 37 minutes Greg “Chubbs” Chambers was given a 5 + match penalty for high sticking fellow Canadian Nathan Rempel, handing Bison a 5 minute power play to defend. To make matters worse, Cuddly Joe Greener had his collar felt for charging in the final minute of the period, handing 2 minutes of a 5 on 3 to the visitors. To concede now would have been as undesirable as the scrapings from the bottom of Tutenkhamun’s sarcophagus, but a combination of resolute, organised defense, good fortune and a lack of ability to make it count from the Flames saw Bison snuff out the power play completely and they even had time to conjure up another short handed goal opportunity as Owen broke away but saw his shot saved. Had the Man from MI5 been present he would have appreciated Bison’s iron curtain style power play kill, but alas he was on holiday. His vacation destination has to remain a secret of course.

The Flames did eventually manage to return the game to a one goaler on 53 minutes when Paul Dixon skated across goal and fired in a wrist shot unassisted. It was 3-2 and now Bison had a nervy final 7 minutes to hold on.

With 2 minutes to go after some excellent grinding in the corner had killed valuable time to further frustrate the Flames’ efforts to grab that all important levelling score, tempers flared and Greener and Rempel exchanged pushes and shoves, but not punches without gloves, so the officials let it go. As the seconds ticked down and with the fat lady busy practicing arpeggios, Lee was pulled from the net to give the Flames a 6 on 5. Somebody lost count and with 8 seconds to go the referee pointed out to the Flames that they had 7 men on the ice just before a face off. One of them skated off, the puck was dropped. Calamity for the visitors. It broke to Coach Sheppard. A few strides forward to give himself a clear sight of goal and there was the net gaping open like a yawning hippopotamus, the Grand Canyon, the mouth of a wide mouthed frog or any other wide open object you might care to mention. Maple Leaf Doug made no mistake as he slid the puck home for 4-2 Bison. Had any members of the aristocracy been present, they may have shown their enthusiasm for the goal by shouting “What a spiffing score, old fruit”. But the Bison crowd appears to be made up principally of solid members of the proletariat and no such utterance was heard.

Suffice it to say that the fat lady was now required to sing. It was game over, but, much to the delight of the Bison faithful, not title decided.