Connolly Empty Netter Clinches The Double

Bison 5 Manchester Phoenix 3

EPL Playoff Final

6/4/14

Veni, vidi, vici. Or for the non Latin speakers amongst us (I’ll include myself in that category as I failed Latin O-level twice) – I came, I saw, I conquered. Julius Caesar’s famous catchphrase of course. A bit like Brucie's “nice to see you, to see you nice”. The legions of Basingstoke, far mightier than the legions of Rome, marched to Coventry and snatched the victor’s laurels. It wasn’t so much Hail Caesar, but more Hail Doug Sheppard, the man who had masterminded the double. Having cast aside the Guildford Flames, Bison took on the Manchester Phoenix in a do or die gladiatorial contest. There could be only one winner and death (well not really but it sounds good) awaited the defeated.

The contest opened in grand style, but remained goalless after 20 minutes of play. Bison had the better of the P1 with 14 shots against 5, but failed to find a way past Steve Fone in the Phoenix net. Their best chance was when Coach Sheppard was put through, but Fone saved. At the other end Dean Skinns performed similar heroics when a lightning break from Frankie Bakrlik caught Bison with trousers down, but Deano stood up and deflected the puck over the bar.

Early in the 2^nd Deano was called on once again to save Bison bacon when he pulled off a double save to prevent a shortie with Bakrlik in the slammer. 4 minutes later it was Long Ciaron Long who was carpeted for boarding and became a boarder in the penalty box. Only 20 seconds into the 5 on 4 Phoenix snatched the lead. Robin Kovar snapped in a rebound close in. Michal Psurny and Tony Hand were adjudged to have had a hand in the goal. 1-0 Phoenix and 28 minutes gone.

 

Having been the better side for half the game and having looked capable of snatching a go-ahead goal, Bison’s concession of a go-behind goal must have caused their supporters to adopt feelings of deep gloom instead of those of deep joy which the Phoenix fellows were experiencing. But all that was about to change only 26 seconds later with an error of gargantuan, cataclysmic and humungous proportions, as I shall relate.

Andy McKinney, facing his own goal, lost control of not only the situation, but also his destiny and, most importantly, the puck. He fell headlong to the ice and, as he did so, he swished his stick at the puck like a man trying to swat a fly. But the swish missed and the fly flew away. Marauding past the prostrate form of McKinney and leaving him to flounder like a beached whale, was Long Ciaron Long, who had had his naturally red beard dyed for the playoffs.....red. Long Ciaron took the puck unopposed to the back door and smashed home through the gap between post and Fone, who had no time to phone a friend about what to do to keep Long Ciaron out. 1-1. McKinney immediately got to his feet (skates more accurately) and how he did grumble and grown, chunner and chunter, babble and burble to the officials. Perhaps they were offering him an assist for the goal and he was saying he didn’t want one. But he deserved one because he had set up the goal.

Shortly after Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba was less than marvellous and ended up being hooked into the slammer for hooking. Now was Phoenix’s chance. Could they capitalise on the man advantage and retake the lead? Well actually no and, worse still, they fell behind. A turnover saw Lumberjack Joe Rand barrelling in on goal with only Fone to beat. The pursuing Phoenix man was Robin Kovar. He had a split second decision to make. “Do I give up the chase and hope that Fone has his number or do I drag him down in a dastardly and cynical fashion? If I let him go, he will have as many bites of the cherry as my netman will allow. If I drag him down, I may get away with a 2 minute minor. At worst it will be a penalty shot, which should favour my goaltender and he will have but one bite of the cherry.” Well what would you do? Of course - he wrapped his stick around Joe’s legs and should really have shouted “TIMBER!” as Joe fell headlong to the ice like a felled Canadian pine. There was a sudden volcanic eruption in the Bison blocks. Their howls of protest did indeed erupted volcanically in violent and vehement vociferation. Some shouted “PENALTY SHOT!”, others “REF-ER-EEEE!”, others still “HOOKING!” Had any members of the aristocracy been present they might have been moved to say, “I say referee, old bean. That was a trifle caddish, don’t y’ know?” But I heard no such utterance. “Penalty shot” said the referee and a penalty shot it was. The puck was placed at centre ice and Joe skated up. Fone moved forwards to make the goal invisible as Joe moved in. Back went Fone. In came Joe. He shaped to shoot and bang! In it went through the hapless netman, who got a piece of it but couldn’t stop it. Over the line it raced. On came the goal light. Polite applause (oh really?) rippled from the Bison blocks. 2-1 Bison.

Into the 3^rd we went and very soon it was all square. Bison were called for changing on an icing, an offence so frequently missed by officials, and in the resultant power play Bakrlik, set up by Hand, saw his shot rebound to James Archer (or was it Geoffrey Archer? No it was James), who snapped it in for 2-2.

 

On 47 minutes Bison had a goal washed off (a rather strange term I always think – after all if you scrub the scorecard with soap and water it will go all mushy). I can’t describe in detail what happened, as it was a humungous blue paint scramble, but I can confirm that the puck crossed the line and the goal light came on. Much to the horror of the Bison backers, the referee was seen to throw wide his arms. Was he saying, “last time I went fishing I caught one this big”? If only, but alas for the Bison backers, the referee was not a fly fishing disciple of J.R. Hartley and his gesture signified a big fat negative no-no not to be. No goal. Why not? Who can tell? Not I.

It didn’t matter because only seconds later it really was 3-2 and the scorer was trying to write on the sodden scorecard. Set up by Rand and Connolly, Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird found himself with a crowd of players in front of him, but a shooting chance nevertheless. “A wrist shot or pass to someone else,” pondered Joe. “No. Maybe a clapper.” And a clapper it was. Joe fired in his slap shot through a crowd of players, the shot deflecting off a Phoenix player, across the front of Fone and in off the post. Perhaps all of Joe’s superstitions (I haven’t got enough paper to go into all that) had paid off. It was a lucky goal, but well deserved. 3-2 Bison.

2 minutes later, Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov sent the Bison backers into paroxysms of pleasure and the Phoenix fans into the depths of doom with goal number 4 and what a goal it was. Coach Sheppard surged forward in a lightning break from his own defensive zone. His pass forward found the Grandmaster in the neutral zone with sight of goal. We were expecting a trademark skate forward and take a chance in a one on one with the goaltender. However, Tomas must have been at the end of his shift. Leaden legs he may have had, but Titanic was the strength in his arms. Now he was just inside the blue line and he raised his stick high to the rafters of the Skydome. Fone must have heard 4 distinctive sounds, all within a split second of each other – the rifle crack as the Karpov stick hit the ice then puck in one sweeping movement, the swish of displaced air as the puck flew past his mask above his catcher, the rustle of rubber against sisal as the puck hit the net and, for him the most depressing sound of all, the explosion of celebration which erupted from the Bison blocks. If the deafening goal celebration had to be likened to the human form, it would not be described as skinny, undernourished or anorexic. Fie no. It would be more corpulent, rotund, full of figure, suggesting the ingestion of too many Pukka Pies, Big Macs and Mr. Kipling’s exceedingly good cakes. More Robbie Coltrane than Robbie Williams you might say. Never mind all that it was 4-2 Bison.

 

With the clock ticking down to just over 4 minutes remaining, Coach Hand called a time out. Phoenix had to pull a rabbit out of the hat and they did. With just over 3 minutes remaining they brought it back to a one goal game. Under pressure Bison couldn’t clear their lines and a centring pass from wide of the crease by McKinney was snapped home by Kovar. Now this was an assist McKinney did want. The other went to Robert Schnabel.

From the Bison perspective to concede a goal now was as undesirable as the scrapings from a fish gutter’s chopping block. The mood in the Bison blocks became as tense as tense could be. It couldn’t have been tenser or even more tense. The hair of the Crinkly Haired Lady began to uncrinkle. The Bespectacled Youth aged prematurely. The hands of the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt began to shake (yes they really did). Climbing Girl began to climb the walls. The Headbanger banged .......... his head. The Man of Steel began to lose his Sampson-esc strength, as if he’s had a Kurt Reynolds haircut. The Gooner gurned. The Rabble Rouser’s moustache began to droop. And both the Howling Man and Duracell Man became quiet. Surely not! Like a cricketer approaching a century it was the nervous nineties for the Bison backers. The glittering prize of the double dangled agonisingly before them, but was it to be snatched away and were Phoenix about to rise from the Flames (the metaphorical flames that is, not the Guildford Flames – they’d already gone back to the Library - remember?). Bodies were put on the line, pucks were keenly contested in the corners, attacks were snuffed out. The clock ticked down. Phoenix were becoming as frustrated as an ASBO toting chav armed with a hammer but with nothing to smash. But for them now was not the time to throw in the towel or even throw up. They had to throw caution to the wind and, with a last desperate throw of the dice, throw themselves a lifeline. It was time to throw the goaltender off the ice and throw on an extra skater. This they did and there were one or two scares for Bison, but valuable time was eaten up by trapping the puck in the corners. Eventually Bison got their chance. A Phoenix move broke down and Aaron “Billy” Connolly took possession. He couldn’t get a clear site of goal as he moved forward, especially when a Phoenix player threw himself prostrate to the ice and risked damaging his prostate if the puck hit it. But the durability of his prostate was not tested as Billy delayed and delayed, shifting the puck wider and wider until at last he had a clear site of the Phoenix net emptied of its telephonically named custodian. Now was his chance. He slid the puck across the line with only 2 seconds remaining. 5-3 Bison and game over. Sorted!

The explosion of celebration in the crowd had to be seen to be believed. Grown men fell weeping with joy to the floor. Drunken Telford fans just fell to the floor. Old ladies cheered so loudly that their dentures shot from their mouths with the velocity of a Marcel Petran slap shot. Mothers hurled their babies into the air and forgot to catch them. Can you believe that? OK I’ll admit only the bit about the Telford fans is actually true, but who cares? Bison had done it. No trophies since Nicky Chinn had played hockey in the age of the Druids and now, like busses, two at once. And well deserved. What a season. The ice became littered with discarded equipment as the Bison bench cleared and Dean Skinns disappeared under a mob, not of angry villagers but of his euphoric team mates. The only helmet glove or stick not thrown onto the ice was Chinny’s helmet, which remained firmly on his head – not sure why. Is a Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird style superstition? Muzzy Wales, for whom I am sure the team had won it, was brought onto the ice, sat on a chair and given one of Grandmaster Karpov’s MoM beers and it was nice to see Phoenix’s Frankie Bakrlik, skate up into the midst of the Bison boys and give his personal congratulation to Muzzy, his old team mate at Slough, who had been so unlucky to sustain his nasty injury and miss the playoffs. The medals were distributed and every time a player put his beer down to collect his medal, that naughty chappie “Billy” Connolly took a swig from it. Finally, the EPL Playoff cup (little bigger than an eggcup but who cares?) was planted into the hands of Bison skipper Nicky Chinn and he lifted it high to the rafters of the Skydome to the acclamation of all present (well almost all but not the Phoenix fans or indeed the small contingent of allied Flames fans who had not yet gone back to the Library) as the champagne sprayed forth to celebrate a champagne victory. Each player raised the cup in front of a joyous Bison crowd and it was great to see the “child line” of Cameron “Popeye” Wynn, Stuart “The Cat” Mogg and Danny “Iceberg” Ingoldsby all coming forward together to raise the cup. It was just a shame there weren’t 3 handles on it. Slovak blueline hero Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba and Czech twinkled toes Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov came forward together holding one handle each, which was great to see – these two were compatriots when Czechoslovakia existed. The celebrations went on and on, but I won’t, dear reader, as I am sure you have other things to do, except to say that all there remained to do was for the Telford fans to find their fallen comrades, old ladies their false teeth and mothers their discarded babies.