Bison Top the Table Toppers

Bison 4 Manchester Phoenix 2

19/10/13

Top Bananas, the Manchester Phoenix, clothed in rather fetching purple, with an average haul of 6 goals a game and Steve Fone, a goaltender in top form with an insane save percentage of 0.96, provided the opposition at Planet Ice last night. Could Bison prevail? The Doubting Thomases doubted it, but by the final buzzer Bison had indeed prevailed and the Champagne Charlies amongst their supporters could celebrate with Champagne or Charlie or whatever they fancied. Even Phoenix’s player/coach. Tony Hand, admitted his team were beaten by the better side (OK I admit I have got this third hand – you weren’t looking for cutting edge reporting here were you?)

Bison did not have the game all their own way. In fact the 1^st period belonged to the Phoenix and they went into the locker room with a 2-1 lead and looked capable of going on from there. Bison seemed apprehensive, but what I can only assume was an inspirational “Hey we can beat these guys” speech by Coach Sheppard in the 1^st interval saw a much more confident Bison take the game away from Phoenix in the 2^nd and 3^rd periods.

The goal on 4 minutes was scored by Psurny (the man with the silent P). Set up by Hand and Archer, he finished a fast flowing attack with a top shelf wrist shot. Amongst the Bison backers shoulders hunched, heads drooped and feet shuffled, as teeth were gnashed, hands wrung, and sighs expelled. Exclamations of “Oh dear!”, “Blow it all!” and “Here we go!” rent the air. 

However, there was a long way to go and Bison returned to parity in the 13^th minute with a power play goal. Frankie Bakrlik had been banged up for slashing, the first of several penalties to him on the night. Set up by Chinn and Sheppard, Aaron “Billy” Connolly stabbed in. I must confess I did not get a clear view of the goal and was relying on the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A for an account, he being a much closer spectator to the incident. Alas he said that the plexi has been steamed up and thus visually impaired, he saw nothing. I went away from our interval meeting none the wiser.

 Phoenix regained the lead in the 17th minute. The mother of all mellées in front of the Phoenix net (there were several of these during the game) ended with Fone eventually managing to cover the puck, but was immediately followed by another, this time behind the net with several players stabbing, slashing, poking and prodding at the puck. Eventually it all boiled over with Cuddly Joe Greener and Robin Kovar getting involved in an unseemly altercation which resulted in Joe being sentenced to solitary. The Phoenix power play didn’t last long, however, as Andy McKinney had his collar felt shortly after for a slash. In the resultant 4 on 4 Phoenix snatched back the lead. They carved open Bison’s D. Psurny was in on Skinns unchallenged. Instead of shooting he rifled the puck across the goal to Hand who scored to make it 1-2 Phoenix. The Bison D-men, their faces salmon pink with embarrassment, must have felt gutted and filleted. It had been sink or swim, but they had fallen for Phoenix’s tactic hook, line and sinker. It had proved as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Let’s not go off on a red herring, there was nothing fishy about the goal, although it was a different kettle of fish from the next one. Phoenix had dangled the bait, reeled in the Bison D and landed the catch. The travelling fans shouted “Holy mackerel” in their shoals, leaving the Bison backers to mutter “Cod almighty.”

Bison came so close to an equaliser in the 2^nd minute of the 2^nd. On another power play Vantroba so nearly scored, but his shot was saved and there then ensued another scrambling mellée, during which the puck hit the post. Shortly after Bison nearly scored on the power play. It was an all Joe affair when Cuddly Joe Greener and Shoeless Joe Miller set up Lumberjack Joe Rand, whose shot was saved. All we needed was Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird, the most superstitious man in the EPL, to join in, but alas he was on the bench at the time. 

The second Phoenix goal had come as a shock, but maybe it had sparked Bison into action. As the period progressed they switched the play with some electric passing and movement and were determined to make the Phoenix D blow a fuse with their high voltage performance. The visitors tried desperately to plug their goal and stop the Bison battery, but they were swimming against the current.

Bison levelled it in the 33^rd with another power play goal. With Luke Boothroyd taking a trip to the penalty box for a trip, a cross ice pass from Nicky Chinn set up Marvelous Miroslav Vantroba at the point away to Steve Fone’s left. The goaltender faced the slapshot with the apparent tranquillity of a meditating Hindu holy man seeking his inner self in that he didn’t move. However, I am sure the last thing on his to do list at that moment was meditation. All he could do was make himself as large as possible and hope that the he got in the way of the shot. He failed. We heard a noise akin to a rifle crack as Marvelous Miroslav’s stick hit the ice and sent the puck flying past Fone. The follically challenged Slovak blueliner stood on the spot from where he had delivered his unstoppable drive, arms aloft, nodding his head as if to say “Yeah. I’m good.” And he is. It was 2-2. Second assist to Coach Sheppard.

It had been a pulsating period with Bison in the ascendancy, outshooting Phoenix by 17-4. However, they had failed to capitalise on this dominance with only a single goal to their credit and they very nearly fell behind again in the dying seconds when Kovar found himself in on goal, but Dean Skinns, who had been injured in the first period, saved well.

An interesting 3^rd period beckoned. Who would get their noses in front? That proved to be the home team with a third power play goal in the 42^nd minute. The miscreant this time was Ben Wood in the box for tripping. Set up by Cuddly Joe Greener and Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov, Lumberjack Joe Rand hammered a shot goalwards. We heard a thud and then, much to everyone’s astonishment, we saw the puck pea rolling slowly over the line. The unfortunate Steve Fone must have heard the celebrations before he knew what had happened. He looked round and his worst fears were confirmed. You could tell by his body language he had suddenly adopted feelings of disappointment. It was 3-2 Bison and the Bison backers hurrah’d and huzzar’d, yahoo’d and woo-hoo’d (Ok woo-hoo isn’t a real word, but yahoo is – look it up if you don’t believe me). As for the visiting fans, they cursed and carped, groused and grumbled, moaned and muttered.

Shortly after, goalscorer Joe Rand picked up an interference penalty. The Howling Man didn’t like it and raised to the rafters his considered opinion. The words incandescent, purple, exasperation, rage, agitation, throbbing vein, close to a seizure could all be used to describe the outburst. All we could make out were the words “you moron”, but to whom this was addressed we can only speculate. It mattered not as Bison survived the power play and went on to seal the game in the 52^nd minute. The Phoenix D failed to clear the puck, which fell to Zach Sullivan on the blueline. Sully sent in a back hander towards Rand who was lurking suspiciously at the back door. Fone must have misjudged the path of the puck and prepared himself to shut out a shot from Rand. That shot never came because the puck found the gap between Fone and post for 4-2 and Sully’s first EPL goal. Whereas before the goal, Phoenix’s chances of winning the game were hanging by a thread, now they were positively hanging by the neck until dead. 

The clocked ticked down to 4 minutes remaining. Phoenix had to keep their composure to have any hope. To concede a penalty now would have been as undesirable as finding a child’s chocolate finger prints all over your Picasso. However, that’s exactly what happened (the former not the latter that is). The sadly ill disciplined Bakrlik was called for a 2 + 2 boarding and slashing penalty on Rand, although I did not see how he managed to do both. Greener steamed in in support of his fallen namesake and picked up a 2 roughing. That meant that with coincidentals being served Bison went on the power play for 2 minutes and would win the game if they kept Phoenix at bay for the last 2 minutes of even handed play. This they did so effectively that Phoenix did not even have the opportunity of pulling their goaltender for a last desperate hurrah. 

The final buzzer was greeted with a cacophony of champagne corks popping in the Bison blocks. Really? Ok no - I just made that up. But it should have been because it certainly had been a champagne performance. Psurny and Vantroba were declared Top Bananas for their respective teams.