Skinns saves the day as Karpov hat trick fires Bison back to the top

Bison 5 Peterborough Phantoms 4

18/1/14

What a fantastic competitive league the EPL is. Anyone can beat anyone and frequently do. Why only last week lowly placed, albeit financially invigorated, Telford Tigers were recording a shock 4-2 road win over table topping Bison. At the same time bottom of the table Phantoms snuffed out the Guildford Flames by trouncing them 6-3 on their own ice. Could the Phantoms do it again? It didn’t seem likely. Surely Bison were going to prove too strong for them. However, as shall unfold in this narrative of what was to prove the most exciting game of the season at Planet Ice, they very nearly did.

The game had an explosive start. Not even Gypsy Rose Lee would have predicted what was about to happen. Hardly surprising really as she wasn’t a clairvoyant as her name might suggest. She was a Burlesque performer. Google image her if you dare. The Phantoms scored twice in the first minute and then romped even further ahead in the 3^rd minute.

Goal no. 1 on 38 seconds was scored by Erik Piatak, who took a pass from Luke Ferrara from behind the goal line and found the net with a wrist shot. James Ferrara was the further assistant to the goal. Goal no. 2 came on 51 seconds. Deadly Darius Pliskauskas set up by Declan Balmer and James Hutchinson put his foot on the gas and burst forward in typical Pliskauskas style. The Bison D-men couldn’t catch him, although they tried hard. However, such was Deadly Darius’s speed that the Bison D might just as well have been made up of malingerers, ne’er-do-wells, loungers, slouches, loafers, wastrels and deadbeats as the protection they provided for their goaltender was the same i.e. none at all. Pliskauskas fired in and it was 0-2 Phantoms. Goal no. 3 in the 3rd minute was a power play goal. Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird had been sent down for a high stick offence. In the ensuing power play Balmer and Piatak set up Marcel Petran to fire in one of his exocet style slap shots from the point. We heard a thud. Dean Skinns had got a piece of it with his pad. Alas for Deano the puck continued moving in a forwards motion (or backwards from his perspective) and crossed the line, albeit rather slowly. That didn’t matter - it was now 3-0 Phantoms. The Phantoms faithful cheered, were cheery, and displayed a cheerful demeanour. Well why not – they had reasons to be cheerful 1-2-3, as Ian Dury might have observed. As for the Bison backers, funereal perturbation and inconsolable defeatism set in. The gloomy expressions on their faces would have made Albert Tatlock look like a euphoric ecstatic. Could Bison come back from the dead? Well Lazarus managed it so why not Bison? At this stage, however, there did seem more likelihood of seeing John Lennon’s “semolina pilchards climbing up the Eiffel Tower” (what was he on when he wrote that line?).

Aaron “Billy” Connolly nearly had the puck in the net shortly after, but a stabbing, slashing, prodding, pushing, shoving goalmouth scramble ended with the referee’s whistle and a killed puck. The Phantoms players thought that Billy had been overzealous in his attempts to score. He disagreed and in the time it takes to say “abominable altercation of the most abhorrent assortment” there occurred an abominable altercation of the most abhorrent assortment. This culminated in Billy calling out the entire Phantoms bench to settle their verbal disagreement in a physical fashion. His offer was declined by all.

Bison opened their scoring account with a powerplay goal in the 8^th minute. Weldon had been called for a tripping offence and this escalated into a 2 + 10 misconduct for expressing his disappointment to the officials. 23 second in and Petran cross checked and found himself entering the institute of penal reform which is the Sapphire Cleaning penalty box. The Phantoms survived the 5 on 3, but not the 5 on 4 which ensued. They made a hash of an attempt to clear up ice. Cuddly Joe Greener blocked the way, snatched possession and set up Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov, who netted after a rebound off Kamil Jarina, the Phantom’s hapless netman.

The clock ticked down. The last thing the Phantoms needed was the concession of a 2^nd goal before the period’s end, but that’s exactly what happened. Had Lance Corporal Jones been the Phantoms coach he would have shouted to his players, “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” But he wasn’t and they did. With only 8 seconds remaining Long Ciaron Long forced the puck in unassisted and it was now a one goal game. How did it go in? I have no idea. Nor did all the observers I asked in the interval – Duracell Man, the Genial Brummie, the Bespectacled Youth, the Rabble Rouser of Block A, the Man from MI5, the Man with 3 Ear-rings…… No-one had a clue. But who cares? A goal it was and Bison went into the interval only 2-3 in arrears.

The 2^nd started as explosively as the 1^st with a brace of goals from Bison inside the 1^st minute to propel them from 2-3 to the bad to 4-3 to the good and record what may be the fastest 3 goal burst in the EPL this season – 3 in precisely a minute. The equalising score came 38 seconds in. Michael “Muzzy” Wales to Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino to Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov on the left wing. Karps accelerated forward, beat his man and lifted a wrist shot past the glove of Jarina. 3-3 became 4-3 only 13 seconds later. Set up by Bison skipper Nicky Chinn, Lumberjack Joe Rand rifled in a wrist shot from the right. Jarina was seemingly under fire from all angles. The visiting fans were incredulous. It was astonishingly bad to concede 3 goals in a minute to throw away their advantage. Had Chris Kamara been present, he might have been moved to describe it as “Unbelievable, Jeff”. But, believable it was because it had actually happened.

But the Phantoms did not capitulate and managed to level it up on 32 minutes with a power play goal of their own. With Zach “Sully” Sullivan a convict for interference, Petran took the puck around the back of the goal and squared across for an all on his own Marc Levers to score. The Beatles told us there were 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. Well there appeared to be just as many holes in the Bison D on this occasion. Luckily no-one was called upon to count them. It was 4-4 and 4-4 the period ended - a very creditable position for the Phantoms to be in, having been outshot by 20-6 in the period.

Into the 3^rd we went with all to play for. The Phantoms had endured a rocky period sinking from 3-0 to 3-4 and then coming back to 4-4. They were still in with just as much of a chance as Bison. Who would snatch the all important go ahead goal? It was Bison with what turned out to be a winning score in the 50^th minute. Greener passed inside to Karpov who top shelfed his wrist shot blocker side to complete his hat trick and make it 5-4 Bison. 

A minute later the hat trick hero was called for high sticks. The crowd turned ugly. They didn’t like the decision, which brought on a shouting contest on the fringes of Blocks B and C as the Howling Man and the Crinkly Haired Lady, both of whom had been voicing their considered opinions at high volume all evening, competed to see who could deliver the loudest objection. The only difference between the two was the pitch of their voices. He started off in baritone but became more tenor as his protestation progressed and his vocal cords tightened. She was more mezzo-soprano bordering on pure soprano. It mattered not a jot as the decision was clearly not going to be reversed. 

The Phantoms continued to pile forwards and were having their best period. However, they couldn’t skin Dean Skinns despite testing him on 16 occasions. His biggest test came with 26 seconds remaining. With the Phantoms playing 6 on 5, Lumberjack Joe Rand was adjudged to have moved the net off its moorings. Initially a 2 minute penalty for delay of game was called, but the referee changed his mind and a penalty shot was awarded. The crowd didn’t like it and became ugly again. The Man from MI5, observing incognito from Block C, had the ideal means of eliminating the referee, who had suddenly become universally unpopular with the Bison crowd, but he couldn’t get close enough to use his garrotte watch. Deadly Darius Pliskauskas was to take the shot. It was all down to Dean Skinns. Ilya Bryzgalov, that very eccentric Russian goaltender, once described the universe as “humungous big”. These are hardly words you could accurately ascribe to Dean Skinns. According to the Bison web site, Deano is 5’6” and 120 lbs (that’s 8 stone 8 lbs for Heaven’s sake – surely not) and is akin to Lowry matchstick man under all that equipment. However, he must have appeared “humungous big” to Deadly Darius as he blocked the penalty shot. Celebration bordering on delirium and mental instability exploded from the Bison blocks, but no men in white coats were called to cart away the frenzied fans in strait jackets. Speedway Girl, holder of the Dean Skinns Appreciation Society membership card number 001, was particularly euphoric.

Play restarted and the drama was not yet over. With only 8 seconds to go Deano saved the day again with a stop at the foot of his right hand post from Luke Ferrara. That was it. There was no time to call upon the fat lady nor indeed for the usual la-la-la-ing of “The Great Escape” by the Bison backers. The final buzzer sounded to terminate a pulsating game, which saw a splendid mascot performance by the Diminutive Enforcer. The win meant that Bison returned to zone zenith at the top of the EPL while a spirited Phantoms continued their Atlas existence propping up the pile, but surely one suspects, if they can perform like this, for not much longer.