OUTRAGE!

Bison 6 Peterborough Phantoms 4

18/9/14

Heavens above! Where to start? What we expected was a good competitive hockey game with Bison running out comfortable winners against a spirited (no pun intended) but poor Phantoms team. Well “spirited” they were – too spirited. And, due to a night of utter madness from their import goaltender, Janis Auzins, who will surely be flying back to Latvia in the morning clutching his P45, what we got was a game containing more violence than the Gunfight at the OK Corral, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and World War 2 all rolled into one. Not even Mystic Jo, Nostradamus and Paul the psychic octopus (remember him?) with their combined predictive powers could have foreseen what was to happen. More about that later. Let’s not forget a hockey game was played and won.

P1 could be described as a feisty affair with penalties galore. Bison picked up 5 x 2 minute minors and the Phantoms 7. Despite this neither side could take advantage of their respective power plays. The Phantoms did, however, take an unexpected lead in the 7^th minute with an unassisted goal from Edgars Bebris. His first shot was saved but the puck rebounded into the slot and he slotted it home at the second attempt. 1-0 Phantoms.

3 minutes later we had the first indication that goaltender Auzins might be a fugitive from a mental institution when he received a slashing penalty for an assault on Lumberjack Joe Rand after a goalmouth scramble. An unseemly altercation ensued and Joe was given a 2 + 2 roughing penalty with 2 roughing each for the Phantoms’ Norton and Hutchinson. Joe’s card was now well and truly marked as we shall see.

Bison levelled it on 12 minutes with a well taken goal. Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov worked the puck to Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino from behind the goal. The latter fired an across the crease pass to Cuddly Joe Greener at the back door. A snap shot through the gap between goaltender and post and it was all square at 1-1. The Phantoms D had proved as soft as the pastry at the bottom of a Pukka Pie soaked in brown mushy whatever-it-is.

There was no more scoring in the period with Bison looking unlucky to finish on level terms after dominating the period with a 15-9 shot count in their favour. However P2 was to prove all Bison, who romped into a 4-1 lead and were cruising. The first of the 3 goals was scored by Cuddly Joe Greener (again). On 21 minutes Will Weldon was called for tripping. The dictionary defines “tripping” as “causing to stumble”. It doesn’t say anything about making someone fall flat on his face in an embarrassing and ignominious fashion, which is what Weldon did to Long Ciaron Long. Referee Dave Cloutman said “TRIPPING!” and the hapless Phantoms D man had to take a trip to the box. However, his incarceration was short as Bison snatched the lead only 8 seconds into the 5 on 4. Karpov set up Greener whose shot from the slot beat Auzins catcher side. 2-1 Bison.

Goal no 3 for Bison and Greener’s hat-trick came on 24 minutes. The set up was beautiful to watch as Maple Leaf Doug Sheppard turned back the clock with a masterpiece of skating and stick handling which had the Bison backers open mouthed in admiration. Furtively and with feint and fourberi he flounced his fleet footed form through his frayed and frustrated fighting foe’s formulated but flaky defences. What? Oh never mind. A pass to Cuddly Joe, who 5-holed the unfortunate Auzins. 3-1 Bison. The goaltender was beginning to tick.

Shortly after Rand was in Auzins’s face again after he saved a shot from Nicky Chinn. The red mist descended and the nettie shoved Rand in the face. How he escaped a penalty for this I don’t know but what he did receive was a stern lecture from Mr. Cloutman, who doubtless warned him in no uncertain terms about his future conduct. One can only assume that Auzins doesn’t speak English because he completely ignored Clouts’s friendly advice as we shall see.

Lumberjack Joe further endeared himself to the Phantoms players with a massive hit on Luke Ferrara, who made the mistake of putting his head down as Joe steamed in. He collapsed to the ice like a ragdoll and stayed down. The whistle had to be blown. Eventually Ferrara recovered. No penalty – it was a clean hit. However, the incident must have added fuel to the fire, although it wasn’t until halfway through P3 that the powder keg was to go up in and spectacular style in.

Bison romped into a 4-1 lead on 29 minutes with another power play goal with Jason Buckman in the slammer for high sticks. Set up by Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba and Cuddly Joe Greener, “Grandmaster” Karpov set himself for a slap shot from the point. As the shot came in, goaltender Auzins must have been hoping he was the right man in the right place at the right time. It was indeed the right place at the right time but, alas for the netman he was the wrong man and he failed to stop the shot. Straight through the 5-hole, which must have added further to his teeth grinding frustrations.

P3 started with 3 penalties carrying over from the end of P2. After a solitary second Bison’s penalty expired giving them half a minute of 5 on 3. They took full advantage and fired in a 5^th goal – another explosive slap shot, this one from Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba, set up by Joe Greener, who now had a tally of 3 goals and 2 assists for the game. Marvellous Miro’s clapper from the slot flew past Auzins, who could only wave his catcher at the passing puck. It was 5-1 Bison and the purple veins in the frustrated netminder’s temple were beginning to pulsate (OK I admit I couldn’t actually see that).

The Phantoms reduced the arrears with a goal on 46 minutes. The Ferrara brothers set up Milan Baranyk who skated in unopposed and fired in Luke’s pass from behind the goal.

5-2 it was, but not for long as Long Ciaron Long restored Bison’s 4 goal advantage only 19 seconds later. Coach Sheppard broke up play in mid ice and fed Long Ciaron, who barrelled forward and beat Auzins with a dazzling backhand/forehand deke. 6-2 Bison and time for celebration. Had there been present any fugitive fish fryers from Featherstone, Faisalabad or Fukushima they would have thrown their battered cods into the air in celebration. But, if there were such individuals present, they remained incognito, like the Man from MI5, and any battered cods which they may have had concealed about their persons remained unthrown. As for Auzins he was moving closer and closer to the edge (and I’m not talking about the U2 guitarist).

Could the Phantoms come back from this? Only 13 minutes remaining, 4 goals to the bad, playing poorly in defense and with a very mediocre goaltender. There seemed more likelihood of Albert Steptoe becoming Mr. Universe. But what was becoming an increasing probability was another loss of control from Auzins and this is exactly what happened with 10 minutes of the game remaining. What I am about to relate is a mere snapshot of the proceedings without the benefit of video replays, so please, dear reader, do not take this as a comprehensive account of all that happened. Please read on….

It all started with a breakaway. Grant Rounding was in on goal but, before he could get his shot in, the whistle blew – for a penalty call on Brendon Baird. By now Rounding was virtually on top of Auzins and I can only assume that his momentum took him into him or that he gave him a tap on the way past. Verily I say unto you that the enraged goalie did leave his crease to confront the Bison forward on the boards. His did smite his opponent causing him to fall to the ice. A general melée ensued, this escalating into fisticuffs, which was enough to earn Joe Greener a game penalty. The linesman attempted to usher Cuddly Joe off the ice, but clearly he had a score to settle with Luke Ferrara, who by now was back on the other side of the wall. The ugly confrontation quickly escalated into a fight with several Phantoms players steaming into Joe – 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th men in? By now the entire Bison bench was on the ice milling around as was most of the Phantoms bench, so what happened next wasn’t exactly a “bench clearance”, but that was the effect. Everybody steamed into everybody else. Suddenly we saw Matt “the Tank” Selby and the obnoxious provocateur Greg Pick circling round each other centre ice. They came together in a slugging match in which both of them landed telling punches before finally grinding to an exhausted draw. Finally everything calmed down, both teams left the ice and the officials were left with a lot of work to do. How they decided who did what with which to whom without the aid of video review perplexes me. Almost certainly most of the players got away with it. I won’t mention any names, but to say the fists had been flying in all directions would be an understatement.

What was to be the fate of goaltender Auzins? “FLOG HIM! BIRCH HIM! HANG HIM! CUT OFF HIS RIGHT HAND!” shouted some of the more radically minded spectators. But Mr. Cloutman had no power to order any of those things. The villainous Latvian received a match penalty instead as did Greener, Selby and Pick with a game penalty for Long. There were also a number of minors, which bizarrely ended up with Bison having to defend a 4 minute power play when play restarted.

We were lucky the game restarted at all as Coach Koulikov came out of the locker room all on his own and was locked in conversation with Coach Sheppard and referee Cloutman. It appeared that he was arguing for the game to be abandoned. I can only presume that Mr. Cloutman had no intention of abandoning the game and lectured Coach Koulikov about the dire consequences of failing to complete the game. Eventually the Phantoms came out and must have been pleased that they did because they grabbed 2 power play goals, both scored by Milan Baranyk, the second in dubious fashion with a Phantoms player lying on top of Bison goalie Dean Skinns as Baranyk slotted home his hat-trick goal.

There were still 7 minutes to play. Could the Phantoms pull off a remarkable comeback? What was I saying about Albert Steptoe becoming Mr. Universe? No he couldn’t and no they couldn’t. However, the game had a heart stopping climax for the Bison backers as the Phantoms, initially with the 4 minute power play and then with a pulled goaltender giving them a 6 on 5, which became a 6 on 4 with a hooking Vantroba hooked into the box, dominated the final stages of the game. Alas for them their hopes were finally dashed as Dean Skinns, down on the ice with Phantoms players raining blows upon his person, causing Speedway Girl, holder of the Dean Skinns Appreciation Society membership card number 001, to rise from her seat in indignation, smothered the puck with 2.6 seconds left on the clock. A rendition of the “Great Escape” started up and rose to a deafening volume – no.11 on the Marshall scale.

So ended an interesting evening and probably also the Phantoms career of Janis Auzins. Bison play tough, physical and robust hockey. OK infractions are committed, rules are bent, chirps are chirped, but, if Auzlins can’t handle this from one of the more honest and skilful teams in the EPL, how on earth is he going to fare against the likes of the dirty dogs of Sheffield? You can bet your bottom dollar that Payette, Elliott, Duncome and the rest would relish the opportunity of sticking the knife into such an unstable individual, whose fuse is so short he appears not to have one at all. He should take a leaf out of the “Dean Skinns Book of Composure”. However, frustrated and battered Deano might get in a game you never see him lose his rag. And Auzlins isn’t a stand out goaltender anyway. In my view it’s an easy decision for Coach Koulikov. The man must be dismissed without references immediately.