Bison Spoil the Phantoms’ Halloween Party

Bison 5 Peterborough Phantoms 2

2/11/2013

The rusty hinges creaked in protest as the door of the penalty box swung open. Shoeless Joe Miller stepped back onto the ice to immediately latch on to a defense splitting pass from Rabbit's Foot Joe Baird. Like a flag fluttering in the autumn breeze the number 19 rippled on his back as he powered forward. The arena lights glinted dazzlingly off his skate blades, which sent up showers of ice particles like sea spray exploding from a wave as it dashes itself in its death throes against a breakwater. Akin to a giant mosquito’s proboscis his trusty stick, clutched in a steely grip, extended out before him as he propelled forward the vulcanised rubber disc. Between him and glory was his sole remaining opponent Tom Murdy, the Phantoms’ goaltender. The backstopper stared out through the grille of his mask like a caged animal, as he readied himself for the ultimate test. It was one on one. Could he spoil the party? His eyes opened wide. His nostrils flared. Beads of cold sweat trickled down his face. Who would prevail? Joe was now so close that an image of the pillar box red goal frame and its helmeted custodian reflected off his visor. He could see the whites of the netman’s eyes. The inviting 5-hole loomed large, but he knew it could be closed in an instant. Yet it bewitched him like the song of a Siren. It took all the mental fortitude he could muster to ignore its seductive and dangerous lure, but ignore it he did. He suddenly unleashed an unstoppable wrist shot which flew past the hapless netman. Akin to a warning beacon on a stormy night, the goal light shone out, dazzling those who dared to look directly at it. Joe had won the battle of wits. It was 4-2 Bison …….. OK I must face reality. I’m never going to win the Booker Prize with this sort of stuff, so let’s just say Joe hammered forward and scored, but why use 5 words when 300 will do?

Let’s go back to the beginning. The Phantoms, clad in corpuscular red shirts, came to Planet Ice with high hopes of repeating their 5-4 victory over Bison 3 weeks earlier. It would have been a fine Halloween celebration for the ghostly visitors had they pulled it off, but Bison had no intention of playing the pumpkins.

The Phantoms nearly opened the scoring in the 11^th minute. Frantisek Zubek broke clear, bore down on Dean Skinns in the Bison net and fired in his shot, but Deano pulled off a wonderful save. No doubt frustrated by his failure to score Zubek was adjudged to have tripped Cuddly Joe Greener immediately afterwards and was sentenced to 2 minutes behind bars. In the resultant power play, Bison stormed into the lead. Chinn to Lumberjack Joe Rand, who picked out Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino from behind the goal line. Andy Melons (the only Bison player with 2 nicknames) bamboozled Murdy with an aesthetically pleasing swivel and back handed shot. It was 1-0 Bison. Zubek had proved to be not so much hero and villain, but more villain and villain.

Not content with the concession of one power play goal, the Phantoms decided, one assumes involuntarily, to give up another, this one in the 18^th minute with Luke Ferrara, one of the 3 brothers Ferrara, in the can for tripping. A long range slap shot from Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba was spilled like a hot potato by Murdy and Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov poked in the loose puck. 2-0 Bison. Coach Sheppard with the further assist.

To the small but enthusiastic contingent of Phantoms fans who had made the trip the goal was a slap round the chops, a jab up the left nostril and a poke in the eyeball (with or without a sharp stick). It looked like it was going to be a long night for them. But they needn’t have worried because, within a minute, they had their own power play goal to celebrate and what a goal it was. With Baird banged up, Cesky and Weldon combined to work the puck to Bison old boy Marcel Petran. He unleashed a trade mark slap shot from the blueline, which gave Skinns no chance at all. You won’t see a more spectacular goal than this. How we miss Marcel's slap shot goals.

At 1-2 behind at the first buzzer, the Phantoms were back in it. But not for long. 2 minutes into the 2^nd it was 3-1 Bison. A shot by Karpov was spilled into the crease and, after a bit of stabbing, poking and slashing at the loose puck, the biscuit was finally propelled across the goal line by Andy Melons. Tim “The Mole” Burrows with the further assist. The goal was greeted in the Bison blocks by a scene straight from Bedlam. An observer may have thought that the Bison faithful had, in fact, gone raving mad. Depression in the Phantoms block was followed in less than a minute by the Potty fans going potty. Put in by Frantisek Zubek and brother James, Luke Ferrara, who would later be declared the Phantoms Top Banana, scored a wonderful individual goal. The slipshod Bison D slipped up and let it slip. Attempts to stop the slippery Luke slipped away as he gave them the slip, slipping through them like the slipperiest of slippery eels and slipped the puck high past Skinns. It was a one goal game once more. The Phantoms were back in it.

We were then treated to a cameo of shooting from Joe Baird, the most superstitious man in the EPL. A tremendous slap shot from Rabbit's Foot Joe hammered against the post and then moments later another from the same spot was deflected away by Murdy, the puck hitting the dust and cobweb laden net above the glass behind the goal (why don’t they take it down and wash it?). Joe was unlucky not to open his season’s scoring account.

On 29 minutes Bison romped into a 4-2 lead courtesy of Shoeless Joe Miller – see opening paragraph. I won’t repeat all that rubbish. Aaron “Billy” Connolly and Kurt “The Knife” Reynolds with the assists. With the concession of the 4th goal the Phantoms’ chances of winning the game were receding faster than the hairline of the Rabble Rouser of Block A, for whom not even Dr. Follicle’s Marvel Hair Restoring Embrocation would be of any help. Could the Phantoms come back from this precarious position? That seemed as unlikely as Gerard Depadieu winning the Tour de France mounted on a French onion man’s bicycle laden with ...... onions of course. However, they had produced not one but two amazing goals from nowhere, despite being outshot by a margin of nearly 3 to 1, so there was always a chance, wasn’t there? Well actually no. Bison, as it would later transpire, sealed the victory with their 5^th on 36 minutes. Miller fed Connolly, who skated out in front of goal, swept around in an arc and sent a pinpoint pass to the back door. And there was Karpov. Was it former world chess champion, Anatoly Karpov, acknowledged by many as one of the greatest chess grandmasters of all time? Of course not. It was Bison’s own grandmaster Tomas Karpov, who finished another aesthetically pleasing move for his 2^nd of the night. In the Phantoms’ block, some moaned, others groaned. Some phoned (a friend), others disowned (their defense). Some mourned, others looked forlorn, their hopes torn, their aspirations shorn. Some may have wished they had never been born.

There was no further scoring in the 3^rd, Bison playing a game of containment with shots on goal even. The highlight of the period was a bonzer bit of blueline work from Zach “Sully” Sullivan. Not renowned for bone crunching body checks, the unsung hero Sully’s forte is the poke check – sticking his stick where the opposition don’t want it. It’s all a question of timing. On 49 minutes a dangerous breakaway was stopped in his tracks by a classic Sully poke. Away went the puck from the stick of the marauding forward and the day was saved.

The clock ran down, the Bison backers began to celebrate. The fat lady was now singing the Beatles classic “Hello Goodbye” with the emphasis on “Goodbye”. The Halloween party was over for the ghostly visitors.