Bison Snatch the EPL Cup with Late Melachrino Strike

Bison 3 Milton Keynes Lightning 4 (Aggregate 7-5)

EPL Cup final 2^nd leg

12/3/14

    

At last! Silverware for Bison. In this their 25^th anniversary year what better time to stuff their first major pot into the trophy cabinet. Does such a thing actually exist at Planet Ice? If it does it must need WD40 on the hinges as it has never been opened. Having returned from the away leg with a 4-1 advantage Bison were firm favourites to carry off the cup. At the end of the 1^st period another 2 goals were in the bag and a 6-1 lead looked unassailable. But was it? Read on.

The game started perfectly for Bison. They needed to get out of the blocks fast and get an early goal to settle any nerves they may have had. This they did with a goal after only 20 seconds. The puck looped into the air and was caught by an MK player (not sure who that was) on the boards. He dropped the puck to the ice, but alas for him there lurked Rand. Which Rand? Was it Isaac Rand, that renowned botanist? No. He died in 1743. It was of course Bison’s own Lumberjack Joe Rand. What Joe did next was worthy of the award of 2 assists. He steamed into the check and knocked the MK man off the puck like a juggernaut hitting a ragdoll and took possession of the puck. He then slewed a cross ice pass into the path of Aaron “Billy” Connolly. Billy charged forward, not with the plodding pace of Puffing Billy, that famous steam loco of 1814 (top speed 5 m.p.h.) but more with the velocity of a modern day high speed locomotive (top speed 200 m.p.h.). The MK D-man shunting across to cut him off looked like he was up the sidings low on coal and out of steam. He didn’t have a chance. Billy raised his stick high a delivered a slap shot. Could Stephen Wall the goaltender stop the shot? He might have been capable of doing so, but he didn’t. The net bulged, the goal light came on. The goal caused some in the away blocks to adopt a demeanour of grumbling discontent, while others became adept at demeaning themselves with discontented grumbling. 1-0 Bison.

Bison surged further ahead with a power play goal on 11 minutes. With Cowney sent down the river for holding Long Ciaron Long in a loving embrace, MK set about defending the 5 on 4. They failed. The puck was fired across the blue line from Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba to Long. Long Ciaron’s slap shot came in and there was Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov dangling his twig in front of goal. He (or rather the stick) deflected the puck past Wall. 2-0 Bison. Present were a number of hand wringing doubters, apprehensive, sceptical and disbelieving – the glass half empty brigade. Some of these dastardly pessimists are so wavering in their faith that they don’t even have a glass to be half empty. The Bison goal to advance the aggregate score to 6-1 must have caused even these to scatter their misgivings to the four winds. However, as I shall relate in the humble account, MK were not dead yet and maybe the glass half empty brigade had good cause to harbour thoughts of doubt. At the time, however, who, apart from Mystic Jo, could have foreseen what was to happen?

The 2^nd opened with Bison cruising at 6-1. I know I already mentioned this, but I thought I would mention it again. 6-1 it was. What could possibly go wrong? Nothing surely? Well yes it could and did. The period opened with such a series of penalty calls against Bison that the hinges of the penalty box door began to suffer from metal fatigue. First Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird was ordered to do a stretch for delay of game, having scooped the puck over the plexi. Then Long Ciaron Long was accused and summarily convicted of tripping. Then the Outlaw Muzzy Wales became a real outlaw and was banged up also for tripping. On this third power play MK finally breached the Bison defences. Set up By Jordan Cowney, Ross Green fired in a slap shot. Skinns saved, but the rebound fell to Leigh Jamieson who banged it in. 2-1 and 6-2.

MK were controlling the game. More and more shots were being fired in on the Bison net. Dean Skinns was working overtime and brought gasps of astonishment from the Bison crowd at some of the blocks and catches he made. Eventually, however, the pressure paid off. With 3 minutes left in the period Stanislav Lascek worked the puck from behind the goal line to Adam Carr in front of the net and a snap shot flew past Deano. 2-2 and 6-3. MK were now only 3 goals to the bad. The Bison crowd began to sit a little warily. Frustration and doubt began to creep in. Hands were wrung. Brows furrowed. Beads of sweat broke out on Bison foreheads. Suddenly a shout of “Come on, boys! We’ve already bought the silver polish!” was heard in Block C. Had it been on sale or return?

Could MK continue their onslaught into the 3^rd? Could they find 3 goals from somewhere? Could Bison hold back the tidal wave? Can I stop posing rhetorical questions? The answers were yes, no, yes and no. MK found 2 goals to reduce the aggregate deficit to a solitary goal. The first came in the 43^rd minute on the power play with Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird bizarrely banged up for hooking when he was clearly having his stick held or am I showing my bias? Blaz Emersic’s shot was wide of the mark, but his shot came off the boards straight into the path of Stanislav Lascek who beat Skinns with a snapper. A snap shot that is, not a fish. Obviously. Why would Stan want to throw a fish into the Bison net? 3-2.

With the clock ticking down, and Bison’s margin of error ever reducing, the last thing they needed to do was let in a soft goal. That would have been as undesirable as the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A coming home to find that his eccentric butler has converted his 1954 Selmer Mark VI tenor saxophone into a coal scuttle. But that’s exactly what happened. The former not the latter that is. Leigh Jamieson lobbed in a speculative shot. Deano, who throughout the game had pulled off a string of fine saves and catches that many netmen would not have, saw it coming and inverted his glove to catch it in the netting of his catcher, but woe he misjudged the flight of the puck and over the glove and in it went. O calamity and catastrophe! At least it was for the Deano and the Bison backers. The goal caused their fans to adopt a state of clouded cheerless comportment, whereas their MK counterparts adopted a state of delighted delirious deportment. At 4-2 ahead on the night, leaving them only one aggregate goal behind and nearly 8 minutes to do something about it, MK, who looked completely out of it at 1-6, must have sensed that an improbable comeback was on the cards. 

Lightning continued to press. They had to keep turning the screw, throwing the kitchen sink, piling on the agony. Could they pull it off? The last thing they needed was a slice of indiscipline as big as a wedge of a Cake Lady cake. But that’s exactly what happened. With just under 4 minutes remaining Grant McPherson high sticked Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird and sent him into orbit. Words of indignation issues forth from the Bison blocks. Some may have thought the offence worthy of corporal punishment, maybe others of capital punishment, and to those McPherson’s sentence of 2 minutes in the box must have seemed lenient in the extreme. However, for Bison it was manna from Heaven because it would signal an end to the MK onslaught for 2 minutes and also give them the chance of putting the tie to bed with another power play goal. Surely this fairy tale end couldn’t happen. Well yes it could and yes it did. 33 seconds into the penalty and Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino scored the goal which settled it and a goal very similar to the Karpov effort in the 1^st it was. Kurt “The Knife” Reynolds fired in a blueline slap shot and there was the Andy Melons twig deflecting the puck past Wall for 3-4 on the night and 7-5 on aggregate. As if a dastardly saboteur, sly and shady, had detonated a bomb, an explosion of celebration burst forth from the Bison crowd. Some whooped, others hollered, some woo-hoo’d and others greeted the goal with blood curdling screams which would have frightened even a banshee. Oxobloke’s  cup of gravy went flying. The Headbanger banged his head. The Howling Man howled. The Rabble Rouser of Block A raised his rabble. The Genial Brummie became even more genial. The Desperate Dan lookalike became less desperate. The Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt cheered so loudly one of his fillings came out. But he didn’t care. Cake Lady began to think of a victory cake she could bake. The Chiefs Man hoped this would be after he had been to the dentist so he could eat some. Alas absent from the game was the Man from MI5. On holiday in Spain he had told me, but was he really on a secret mission behind the Iron Curtain? Never mind he was there in spirit.

MK had fought a courageous battle to turn the tables and looked a completely different team from the one which had slumped like a wet cob wall to a comprehensive 4-1 defeat on home ice in the first leg, but, at 2 goals adrift and their momentum brought to a shuddering stop, their chances of winning the cup were now so dead that rigor mortis had set in and the coroner had been called. On the other hand, alive and well and not in need of embalming was the fat lady, who was singing her head off. And so were the overjoyed Bison backers. The strains of the “Great Escape” echoed around the rafters. The final buzzer was greeted with an emotional outpouring unrestrained and understandable. It had been a long wait. The noise levels went seismic. Many screeched like Comanche warriors on the warpath. It was done and dusted. At last Bison had bagged a major honour for the first time in their 25 year history. OK the EPL Cup is not much bigger than an egg cup but what the hell it’s silverware and it does need polishing, so let’s get out the Silvo.