Bison 8 Guildford Flames 3
29/1/14
On February 14,
1929 hit men employed by “Scarface” Al Capone gunned down 7 members of the
“Bugs” Moran gang in a garage on Chicago's North Side. Well to be pedantically
correct 6 members and an optician who just liked hanging out with gangsters.
Last night’s EPL cup semi-final first leg encounter between Bison and Flames
may not have been on a par with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre as nobody
died. However, the game was a brutal execution of sorts. Jack Ketch would have
been impressed (Jack who? Read on).
The game did not
start well for Bison. After a minute they were a goal to the bad. Dean Holland,
set up by Kvetan and Potts, fired in over Dean Skinns’s shoulder from an acute
angle. The puck flew in and flew out. Most of the crowd didn’t think it was a
goal, particularly as the goal light remained unilluminated, but there was the
referee signalling a score so a score it was. 1-0 Flames.
2 minutes later
Bison had levelled it at 1-1 with a 5 on 3 power play goal. Longstaff and Watt
found themselves banged up for tripping and cross checking. Not on each other
of course. 36 seconds in and Lee’s pipes were penetrated. Set up by Cuddly Joe
Greener, Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov fired in a shot from the blue line. Lee
saved it but gave up the rebound and there in front of the net to pick up the
pieces and slot past Lee was Joe Rand, as opposed to Jo Brand. She wasn’t icing
for Bison last night. (Isn’t it strange the way some people have almost
identical names but are completely different? For example Paul Potts, genocidal
leader of the Khmer Rouge, and Pol Pot, operatic tenor from Bristol. Or is it
the other way round?)
The Flames
retook the lead on 8 minutes. It was a power play goal with Kurt “The Knife”
Reynolds banged up. Set up by the long staff of Longstaff and the equally long
staff of new import signing Martin Opatowsky, Branislav Kvetan used his long
staff to hammer in a slap shot from the blue line. A truly spectacular goal
which made it 2-1 Flames.
A minute later
Bison went on the power play with Rick Skene receiving a 2 + 10 for checking
from behind, but couldn’t take advantage. However, on 16 minutes they did
manage to level it. Set up by Bison skipper Nicky Chinn and Cuddly Joe Greener,
Long Ciaron Long broke forward. The pressure of point loading from his skate
blade or was it the heat generated by friction of the blade on the ice (the
scientists amongst you can argue that one) caused the top surface of the ice to
melt enabling him to glide serenely across the surface at great speed. Could he
be accurately described as walking on water? Some of the Bison faithful might
think that he is capable of even that. He set himself for a slap shot and
roofed the puck past the goaltender blocker side. An aesthetically pleasing
goal if ever there was one and Long Ciaron’s 10th goal in 13 games
since re-joining Bison. What a good acquisition he has proved. All square at
2-2.
With a shot
count of 18-8 in Bison’s favour, the Flames might have considered themselves to
be lucky to be on level terms and the first half of the 2nd saw more
of the same, but no goals. Anyone remember the opening titles of
“Thunderbirds”? Jeff Tracy told us “Anything can happen in the next half hour”.
And in the next half hour at Planet Ice it did. Bison hammered the Flames for 6
to emerge runaway winners.
It all started
going wrong for the Flames in the 31st minute. An unsavoury
altercation of the most opprobrious variety occurred behind the Bison net. When
it had all calmed down Potts was adjudged to have hooked and had a 2 minor
slapped on him. A worse punishment of 2 + 10 later amended to a 4 +10 was doled
out to Jez Lundin for butt ending. Heavens above! The crowd bayed for blood.
Had the match been played circa 1680, then Jack Ketch, the King’s executioner,
would have been summoned to hack off Lundin’s head. Thankfully it wasn’t and the
Flames’ D-man’s head remained in place. Well it was only a butt ending offense
after all, not high treason. However, it was betrayal of a kind because Bison
took full advantage of the 5 on 3 and purloined the lead for the first time in
the game. Set up by Long Ciaron, Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov hammered in a slap
shot which Lee couldn’t hold and there was Lumberjack Joe to poke in a dirty
goal. They all count. The delirium amongst the Bison faithful was unabashed,
whereas the Flames fans may wished to have bashed up their ill-disciplined players
for putting them in such an undesirable situation. 3-2 Bison.
Just before the
goal, as Bison piled on the pressure, the Flames net had mysteriously moved off
its moorings, presumably not as a result of telekinesis i.e. using the power of
the mind to cause movement of an object without touching it. Thankfully no
goaltender I know of can do that. The crowd, led by the famous Howling Man in
Block C, urged the referee to award a delay of game penalty. The Howling Man’s
outburst could have been measured on the Richter scale, had someone brought
along the necessary equipment needed to take a reading. Of course no-one had. The
officials ignored his request. Perhaps they believed it had been telekinetic
movement, but they just couldn’t pin it on anyone.
With the net
back in place and the game restarted, Bison needed to keep it tight, but at the
same time push on. The Flames were sure to give them a kitchen sink throwing game
for the second leg and, although quite capable of winning in the Library, as
they had on all 3 previous occasions this season, they ideally needed a decent
lead to take there. Push on is precisely what they did and it proved to be Bison
who were on fire not the Flames. On 46 minutes an untidy melée in the Flames’
blue paint ended up with Lee down and a team mate on top. The hapless Lee could
do nothing to stop a Maple Leaf Doug Sheppard slap shot. Rand and Connolly were
adjudged worthy recipients of assists and the Man with 3 Ear-rings wondered
whether the Flames player lying on top of his goaltender would be given one as
well. Maybe he should have. 4-2 Bison and that’s how the period, which had seen
a shot count of 15-8 in Bison’s favour, ended.
Bison then
proceeded to run away with the 3rd period. On 41 minutes, set up by
Reynolds and Muzzy Wales, Grandmaster Karpov glided through and foxed Lee with
a low wrist shot. 5-2 Bison. Then on 47 minutes it was 6-2. Skene hooked and
was hooked into the penalty box. Karpov picked up a loose puck and set off on
one of his typical surges around the back of the goal. He pushed through the
Flames D as easily a 25 stone Scottish caber tosser would barge through a crowd
of anorexic supermodels. The Man with 3 Ear-rings was moved to shout “Come on
Tomas, don’t try to do it all by yourself”. But he obviously wasn’t listening
because that’s precisely what he did. Well almost. As he emerged at the back
door, he fired the puck in off a Flames defender. Intentional? Of course!
On 51 minutes it
was 7-2. Set up by Reynolds and Chinn, Long Ciaron Long bagged his second of
the night with a top shelf wrist shot in off the pipes. Now 11 goals in 13 for
him. The Flames’ defence seemed to have more holes in it than there had been in
General Custer after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Things were getting so
hot for the goaltender that he may have thought he had accidentally taken the
down elevator and was now a guest at Beelzebub’s barbecue. Perhaps that’s where
he went next because Coach Dixon had seen enough and the hapless Lee pulled to
be replaced by the hapless Hadfield, who was to face 3 shots and stop only 2 of
them.
Before the final
flurry of scoring the crowd were shocked by an outrageous and indeed malevolent
incident occurred between Nicky “You What” Watt and Michael “Muzzy” Wales. What
started the altercation is anyone’s guess. Had they been gentlemen of honour
one would have brushed his glove across the other’s face and invited him to
name his seconds. But it was not to be pistols at dawn, but instead a punch
your lights out confrontation. And Muzzy did. He recovered from having his
jersey pulled over his head and floored a still helmeted Watty with a humdinger
of a shot. Knock out win for Muzzy I would say.
A minute later
it was 8-2. Set up by Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba and Coach Sheppard,
Lumberjack Joe Rand completed a well deserved hat-trick with a poke home from
close in. Well done Joe. A classic snipers hat-trick – all scored from being
Johnny on the spot in front of the net and picking up the loose pieces. He made
it look easy, but of course it wasn’t. In the aftermath of the goal, Kvetan
picked up a 10 misconduct, presumably for verbals.
By now there was
a party atmosphere amongst the Bison backers. Suddenly a most singular sound emanated
from Block C. ♫♫ When the Bison ♫♫ Oh when
the Bison ♫♫ Oh when the Bison go skating in ♫♫. The Bespectacled Youth had
burst into song very loudly, much to the chagrin of those within earshot. Alas it
didn’t scan, was out of tune and no-one joined in. Undeterred he sang the whole
verse anyway. Had there been any saints present they might have turned into sinners and strangled the Youth. Thankfully there weren’t (or at least none who revealed themselves as such), as we rather enjoyed the Youth’s rendition.
The Flames
pulled one back with 13 seconds left. New import man Opatowsky poked in a
rebound off Deano with assists going to Kvetan and Watt. 8-3 it was and 8-3 it
finished. The Bison faithful may have been tempted to be gloatingly jubilant by
jubilantly gloating. However, Bison fans are fair minded people, who are
magnanimous in victory and so they behaved in a victoriously magnanimous manner
instead. Hopefully the Flames faithful could bring themselves to be generous in
defeat because their team had been defeated rather generously. It had been a
champagne performance from Bison, premier
cru you might say. In contrast the Flames’ performance had been more brown
ale and stale brown ale at that. As a result of a defensive performance, most slipshod,
torpid and somnolent, they have left themselves with a mountain to climb in the
2nd leg.
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