Tigers Show Their Title Credentials

Bison 2 Telford Tigers 4

29/11/14

Those lucky enough to have been paying patrons at Planet Ice last night were treated to a cracking game of hockey between arguably the two best teams in the EPL. A very close game in all aspects ended with the Telford Tigers cementing their dominant position at the top of the league. Who can stop them? Probably no-one on this showing, although they are bound to have slip ups along the way. But who apart from the curmudgeonlies would deny them their title, if indeed they are destined to win it, after an Atlas type existence propping up the EPL for so many seasons. Is “buying the league” morally right? Discuss amongst yourselves.

P1 was played out in a very competitive and entertaining fashion with Bison slightly the better side, outshooting the Tigers by 12 to 9. The Tigers’ best opportunity came when Joe Miller and Peter Szabo found themselves in on goal in a 2 on 1, but alas for the Tigers it all came to naught as Szabo slipped and crash into the net, forcing it off its moorings and stopping play.

The interval saw the Bison backers contemplating the proceedings. Whilst doing so the Rabble Rouser of Block A applied fresh wax to the ends of his moustache. Bison’s own Man of Steel nonchalantly broke a chain across his pectorals. Oxobloke poured himself another cup of gravy. What were they thinking? I have no idea.

P2 was played out in the same fashion as P1. Although more dominant, certainly if the shot count of 10 to 5 is anything to go by, Bison managed to fall behind twice before ending the period on level terms. The deadlock was broken in the 29^th minute following a period of Bison pressure. It was the visitors who snatched the lead. Jonathon Weaver broke clear from a scrap on the boards and fired in a shot. Dean “Deano” Skinns saved it, but the puck bounced into the air to Jason Silverthorn who made himself a thorn in Bison’s side by batting it into the net. 0-1 Tigers.

The Tigers’ lead was short lived. Less than 3 minutes later Bison had levelled it. The goal followed a pair of penalties. Martin Ondrej checked Lumberjack Joe Rand from behind and sent him into the boards with a loud report. Bison skipper Nicky Chinn, seeking retribution, set about Ondrej. “It’s clink for you two fine fellows” said referee Pickett, as he doled out a 2 + 10 to Ondrej and a 2 minor to Chinn. Within 3 seconds of the restart the puck was in the back of the net. Directly from the face off the puck fell to Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba. Goaltender Tom Murdy knew he would be unable to react to the shot, as he saw Miro’s stick coming down to send in a one timer slap shot, so he had to make himself as large as possible and hope that he blocked the majority of the goal. Alas he did not possess the goal blocking qualities of Augustus Gloop, that “great big greedy nincompoop”. Worse still Rand got his stick in for a tip and the puck flew past the hapless Murdy making him look like a nincompoop, if not great, big and greedy. 1-1. An orgy of celebration, but thankfully not of any other variety, was seen in the Bison blocks.

But the Tigers were not disheartened and came back with a goal of their own some 3 minutes later to retake the lead. Silverthorn laid a drop pass for Peter Szabo to fire in with a well placed wrist shot from the point. Joe Miller picked up the second assist. 1-2 Tigers.

The Tigers’ celebrations had hardly died away before it was 2-2. Crikey! It was a cataclysmic, calamitous and comedic catastrophe caused by crummy, cruddy and crumbly D work. Well it was unlucky anyway. An attempted pass out of the Tigers’ defensive zone hit a Telford player. I did not see who passed it and whom it hit alas, but I am sure the two fellows in question would prefer to remain unnamed and unshamed. In such a situation what would you, as a Tigers’ player, coach or fan, not want? Well they got exactly what they didn’t want as the puck fell to a lurking Coach Sheppard. He seemed as surprised as a man whose false teeth had fallen out on a dinner date. However, he quickly composed himself, took the puck forward, feinted to shoot and then slotted past Murdy catcher side. 2-2. The goal resulted in a scene of joyous jollification, jaunty joviality and jocular jubilation amongst the Bison backers, if not the Tigers’ faithful, who, bearing in mind the current fortunes of their team, were numerically rather small.

The deciding goal came on 46 minutes. I could not describe in detail exactly what happened, but it appeared to be a comedy of errors as a bouncing puck seemed to hit almost everyone on the ice except the Tigers’ goaltender and then go in off a Bison player. The goal was awarded unassisted to Joe Miller who was adjudged to have been the last Tigers player to touch the puck. It was an incredibly scrappy affair and had the Bison D been composed of Homer Simpsons all would have said, “D’oh!” The Tigers faithful, albeit lacking in numbers if not enthusiasm, were overjoyed and had they counted amongst their number Bart Simpson and Ned Flanders they may have greeted the goal with shouts of “Ay Carumba” and “Hey-diddly-ho” respectively, but neither was at the game. 2-3 Tigers.

The Tigers nearly put the game beyond doubt on 51 minutes, but a spectacular double save from Deano kept the homesters in it. Bison were continuing to press, but without reward. They were becoming as frustrated as a masochist with no-one to whip him (let’s not go there).

Finally with 34 seconds remaining Bison called a time out and proceeded to the restart without their goaltender. Things turned from potentially sweet to definitely sour when Jason Silverthorn scored an empty netter from a position on the boards at halfway. Bison’s chances of winning were now as dead as a Chicago gangster who had been “rubbed out” by the mob, mown down in a hail of Tommy gun fire, then stabbed and then garrotted to make sure. Such chances were now wearing concrete boots and sleeping with the fishes. 2-4 Tigers.

However, the game was not quite over and an unsavoury incident from the face off after the goal soured the proceedings for the Bison backers even further. Cuddly Joe Greener and Maxim Birbraer entered into a disagreement, which seem to result in the latter plummeting to the ice as if shot. Many were of the opinion that Birbraer had taken a Premiership footballer style dive, there being minimal contact from Cuddly Joe. In fact, it would be true to say that an angry tirade of disagreement erupted from the Bison backers. Some hit the roof, others hit the road, whilst others still wanted to hit the bottle. Having said all that, Birbraer left a patch of blood on the ice when he eventually got to his feet (skates). The abrasion had to have happened when he fell and the necessity of his falling over was the contentious issue. Cuddly Joe received a 5 + match and, as there were only 10 seconds remaining, there was no realistic chance of Birbraer getting back on for at least a token shift (the usual sporting practice) so that the penalty could be reduced to a game.

Aaron “Billy” Connolly and netman Tom Murdy received the Top Banana awards for their respective teams. Telford had grabbed their 17^th win from 20 games. Can they be pipped for the league this year? It is not looking likely at the moment. Are they “buying the league” and, if so, is that morally right? Well, although no accounts are ever made available, it is highly likely that their balance will be massively in the red this year. However, it needs good coaching and motivation to mould a collection of good players into a winning team, so having “the best” players is not necessarily a guarantee for success. Are they a winning team? You bet. And likely to get better.  And is it morally right? Opinions are polarised. I am not saying “yea” I am not saying “nay”, but what I would say is that Telford have paid their dues in this league, propping it up and acting as everyone’s whipping boys for several seasons before the big money takeover. And if it had happened to our team, would we have protested petulantly, parading with placards outside Planet Ice saying “we don’t want your money, Mr. Scholes”? I think not.

Raiders' Raid Repulsed

23/11/14

The Anglo-Zanziba War of 1896 was the shortest war in history. It lasted for only 38 minutes. It started at 9:02 with a British naval bombardment of the palace of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash and ended at 9:40 when the white flag was hoisted up the palace flagpole. Last night at Planet Ice the game involving Bison and the Wightlink Raiders lasted longer than that (60 minutes of playing time to be precise), but the game could have been a lot shorter if Coach Jeremy Cornish had been able to find a white flag to hoist up the Wightlink flagpole. Bison were once again without a clutch of their best players and gave ice time to youngsters Hallum Wilson and Alex Sampford as well as icing back up goaltender, Dan Weller-Evans, but even a weakened bench proved way too strong for the Islanders.

Bison took only 5 minutes to execute a successful raid on the Raiders’ net. Set up by Grant Rounding and Rick “The Beard” Skene, Lumberjack Joe Rand found himself in on goal. A clever deke and a backhander past a committed goaltender Shannon Long and it was 1-0 Bison.

Rand and Rounding combined again for goal no.2 on 10 minutes. Rand sliced through the Raiders’ D using a combination of jiggery, pokery, sorcery, skulduggery, trickery and chicanery, although he probably didn’t realise he was utilising all these qualities at the same time. He passed to Rounding at the back door where there was a big gap between goaltender and post for Grant to fire home. 2-0 Bison. Aaron “Billy” Connolly was declared assistant no.2. It was a superbly executed move and one which must have been practiced in training. For Coach Sheppard it must have been a goal to die for, although thankfully he didn’t or at least not that I noticed.

The Raiders managed to reduce the arrears with less than a minute remaining on the P1 clock and what an unusual goal it was. Set up by Ben Paynter, Bison old boy, Jaroslav Cesky, fired in a shot from the slot, just as Craig Tribe was getting to one knee after being cross checked to the ice by Rick “The Beard” Skene. Tribe dangled his twig and managed to deflect the puck and send it bouncing past Dan Weller-Evans in the Bison net. 2-1.

Only a solitary goal in arrears, Coach Cornish must have told his Raiders in the first interval “Hey guys we’re still in this game”. But, just as a slate, whose fixing nail has rusted through, slides from the roof of a Victorian house to shatter on the pathway below, so the Raiders’ chances of getting something from the game slipped irretrievably to ground and smashed to smithereens in P2 when a rampant Bison slammed 6 goals without reply past a shell shocked Shannon Long.

Only 2 minutes into the period the slates began to slide off the Raiders’ roof. Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino took the puck around the back of the goal and passed to Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba. Miro’s slap shot was saved, but the rebound went straight to Cuddly Joe Greener, who took his time, picked his spot and wristed it in. 3-1 Bison.

On 24 minutes it was 4-1. Skene found Rounding on the wing. He spotted Rand inside and unmarked. The Raiders’ D seemed to have melted away more quickly than a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream in the oven at Gas Mark 8. Joe slammed a shot against the bar and in. “It went in bar south,” said the Bespectacled Youth, employing hockey jargon that few people understand.

On 26 minutes Bison surged further ahead with a power play goal, Aaron Edwards having had his collar felt for slashing. 23 seconds in and Vantroba passed inside from a wing position to an all alone Cameron “Popeye” Wynn. Cam skated in and backhanded past the goaltender. The Raiders’ penalty kill hadn’t. Stuart “The Cat” Mogg was awarded the second assist for the goal. 5-1 Bison.

On 30 minutes it was 6-1. Long Ciaron Long set up Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino for a back door snap shot. The Raiders were now reeling like a man who had been on a 3 day bender in the company of Johnnie Walker, Jack Daniels and Glen Fiddich. But worse was to come because Bison hadn’t finished. 2 minutes later they bagged another. Grant Rounding robbed possession in mid ice, barrelled in on goal and sent in a vicious wrist shot which beat the goaltender for sheer pace. Matt “Bad News” Selby was awarded an assist on his return to the team after a nasty concussion. 7-1 Bison.

Talking of assists, Brendan Baird was awarded one for the 6^th Bison goal, much to the delight of one of the Good Time Girls, holder of membership card no.001 of the Brendan Baird Appreciation Society. Nearby the Bespectacled Youth asked “Has Grant Rounding got 2 goals?” “No. Grant’s got one and Rounding’s got one,” replied the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs Shirt.

And then ignominy of all ignominies. Goaltender Shannon Long, had to endure the shame, embarrassment, mortification and chagrin of conceding a goal to his own brother. Set up by Vantoba and Melachrino, Long Ciaron Long’s slap shot thudded against the pad of his brother, but alas for the hapless netman he could not deflect the puck away or kill it dead and it squirted past him and over the line. 8-1 Bison. The goal made the crowd want to sing. Some did. The aristocrat in Block A broke into a rendition of “Rule Britannia”, the cockney in Block C “Knees up Mother Brown” and the vicar in Block V “Jerusalem”.

Things were getting so hot for the goaltender that he must have felt he was sizzling on a griddle. Enough was enough for Coach Cornish and he decided to give the unfortunate Long a rest for the 3^rd period. In came another Bison old boy, Matt Colclough, but wearing someone else’s shirt. It was a good move as Colclough stopped 14 of 15 on target shots against him. As for the Raiders scoring machine, their lines were looking as ineffectual as a line composed of Lance Corporal Jones, Captain Mainwaring and Private Godfrey. They had managed only 5 shots on goal in the second and went one worse in the third – only 4. Luckily for them, Bison managed only a solitary goal in the final period enabling the Raiders to at least avoid the ignominy of a double figure goal defeat. The aforementioned solitary goal came in the 51^st minute with captain for the night Lumberjack Joe Rand completing a hat-trick against his old team with an audacious wraparound goal. Connolly and Rounding picked up the assists. The goal must have irked Mystic Jo, who may even have wanted to drive pins into a wax effigy of Lumberjack Joe in revenge. Why? Because she had predicted a final score of 8-1 and Joe had just spoiled that. Never mind – only a solitary goal out this time for Bison’s own Nostradamus. Pretty impressive.

There were now 9 minutes to play. Could the Raiders come back from this? They were only 8 goals in arrears. Alas, there seemed more likelihood of finding a recognisable piece of onion in a steak and onion Pukka Pie. And so it proved. The clock ticked down with no further scoring and the massacre was over. Craig Tribe was elected Top Banana for the Raiders and Grant Rounding with a 2+3 performance copped the Bison beers.

Essex Men Discover That The Only Way Is Bison

Bison 4 Chelmsford Chieftains 1

22/11/14

The Chelmsford Chieftains visited Planet Ice for the cup clash with Bison last night, having been overrun by 5-1 in the home fixture against the Basingstoke icemen in early September. Was it going to be a walkover? To draw an equestrian analogy, would Bison’s thoroughbred race horse run rings around the Chieftains’ Hercules (who? Steptoe’s carthorse of course). As it turned out, Bison playing at three quarter speed, with Vantroba, Sheppard, Wales, Selby and Reynolds all missing from the line up, easily overcame the Essex men, but only by 4-1. In a competition which has seen double figure scores notched up by EPL teams against their ENL counterparts, the Chieftains must have been satisfied with their respectable defeat. But they did have their moment of glory, as I shall relate.

That moment came on 8 minutes when the Chieftains snatched the lead with a goal which came out of the blue, out of left field and out of nowhere. What happened? Julian Smith delivered the perfect defense splitting pass for Ross Brears to skate onto. Brears couldn’t have skated forward any faster than if he had been pursued by a pack of rabid stoats. He wasn’t going to be caught. He executed a clever deke and slotted the puck over the line. It was 1-0 Chieftains. The Chieftains’ faithful, Essex men/women to a man/woman I am sure, vocalised their approval of the goal in estuary English. As for their Bison counterparts, it would not have been surprising if at least some of them had fallen to the floor in a dead faint from the shock of it all, but I noticed no-one doing such.

It wasn’t until the 16^th minute that Bison leveled the game up. Lumberjack Joe Rand fed Bison skipper Nicky Chinn who worked the puck out from behind the goal line to Aaron ”Billy” Connolly to smash home from in front of the net. It was 1-1 and the goal brought a feeling of relief to the Bison backers. Bison’s own Man of Steel hoisted a baby elephant over his head in celebration, Mystic Jo threw her tarot cards in the air and Oxobloke poured himself a celebratory cup of gravy from his flask.

There were no more goals in the period and it ended 1-1 with Bison clearly the dominant team, outshooting the Essex men by 18 to 7. Could they continue in the same vein in the next period? Well in actual fact they couldn’t and P2 was much flatter with the Chieftains almost matching Bison shot for shot. However, Bison finishing was much improved with a 2 goal return for 8 shots on the Chieftains’ net. The first came on 29 minutes and was a power play goal. Brandon Aycliffe was done for tripping and was invited to rest awhile. Alas for him, the rest lasted only 11 seconds. Bison besieged the Chieftains’ defensive zone, working the puck from side to side and around until Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird was presented with an opportunity of a slap shot from the point. He gave it all he had and Joe’s clapper hit the back of the net for 2-1 Bison with the goaltender beaten for sheer pace. Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov and Cuddly Joe Greener were awarded assists.

4 minutes later it was 3-1 Bison. Cuddly Joe Greener’s set up was quite superb. He picked up the puck on halfway wide left and cut a path forward and around the back of the net as easily as if he had been a buzz-saw wheel from Rufus Roughcut’s Buzz Wagon. He emerged at the back door, but delayed his pass. Eventually he saw the opportunity and found Long Ciaron Long in the slot with space for a shot. Long Ciaron, who subsequently unluckily hit the post with a tremendous shot, was lucky on this occasion. His thunderous slap shot thudded against the pad of goaltender Ben Clements, but continued in a forward direction (or backward direction from Clements’ perspective) and over the line. The goal made the Bison backers as happy as Augustus Gloop when he found a golden ticket in his bar of Willy Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight.

The final period proved to be a one sided affair with the Chieftains tiring. They managed only 4 shots on goal, whereas Bison tested Clements on 16 occasions and with another 2 shots (from Greener and Connolly) ringing the goal frame. Could Bison kill off their opponents? Could they deliver a decisive blow equivalent to a Kendo Nagasaki kamikaze crash? The game began to unravel for the Chieftains in the 45th minute. First of all Martin Piecha was done for interference. The dictionary defines “interference” as “a jumbling of radio signals, caused by the reception of undesired ones” That’s not what we saw/heard. What we saw was nothing to do with radios, but was, nevertheless, very much undesired. The whistle blew and Piecha had his liberty interfered with for 2 minutes.

Defending the power play, the Chieftains had to keep their discipline and keep it tight. To concede a goal now would have been a cataclysmic catastrophe of a capacious classification, causing criticism and contempt to congest the corporate consciousness of the Chieftains’ cognates, whereas in the Bison blocks it would have created a coincidental condition of considerable contentment and cued a cacophony of conviviality carousal in character. Alas for the visitors, they did not keep their discipline, cool, composure or noses clean. The 5 on 4 became a 5 on 3 when John Connolly was called for cross checking. The Chieftains held out until there were only 12 seconds left on the 5 on 3, but were unfortunately undone by the powerful shooting of Long Ciaron once again. Set up by Greener and Rand, he rammed home the puck via a vicious slap shot displaying the accuracy of a full length of the table black ball pot by Jimmy White (the snooker player that is, not the Great Train robber of the same name, although he may been a good snooker player himself – I don’t know). Netman Clements was beaten for sheer pace. Now 4-1 Bison and, although there was plenty of time remaining, the Chieftains looked as deflated as a tyre with a slow puncture and unlikely to come back. And indeed they did not.

A very strange incident occurred on 52 minutes. Grant Rounding was cross checked by Martin Piecha and knocked to the ice. He was then subject to a continuance of the assault by the cheeky Chieftains’ Czech chappie. In steamed Rick “The Beard” Skene, delivered a Mick McManus style forearm smash to Piecha’s chest and enunciated his considered opinion on the assault on his team mate to Piecha. In stepped the officials and doled out a 2 roughing to Rounding, who didn’t seem to have done anything other than be put upon, and merely a 2 cross checking to Piecha with nothing for his continued assault on a prostrate Rounding and nothing at all to Skene. Hmmm.

That was the last piece of exciting action in the game, which ended with the traditional “Great Escape” ringing from the rafters of Planet Ice. It had been a great escape for the Chieftains made possible by a good performance from their goaltender, Ben Clements, who stopped 38 of 42 shots directed at the Chieftains net not to mention being saved by the goal frame on several occasions. Needless to say he was elected Top Banana for his team. Aaron “Billy” Connolly picked up the award for Bison.

“Billy” Connolly and Mystic Jo Nail It

Bison 2 Swindon Wildcats 1

15/11/14

Aaron “Billy” Connolly grabbed a brace of goals, both set up by Lumberjack Joe Rand, to enable Bison to edge a game which they should have won easily against a Wildcats side, who were clearly having an off night. In the words of Baloo, Bison should have been “solid gone” long before the end. Never mind Billy’s brace, the real star of the night was Mystic Jo. After her near miss predictions in the last two games (see previous report), she changed her brand of tealeaves and got it bang on the nose (not literally thankfully). 2-1 she said and 2-1 it was.

The game started well for the Basingstoke icemen. With barely a minute and a half on the clock, they romped into the lead. The set up for the goal by Lumberjack Joe Rand was quite superb. He scrapped for the puck on the boards behind the goal and then set off on what looked like a wraparound attempt. Goaltender Stevie Lyle positioned himself hard up against his post to thwart the effort and must have been shocked to see instead Joe emerge in a wide sweeping arc and fire an across the crease pass to an unmarked Aaron “Billy” Connolly at the back door. It was too late for Lyle to get across and Billy slammed the puck home. Some shouted "GOAL!" Others "HURRAH!" The vicars present shouted "PRAISE THE LORD!" notwithstanding that it is unlikely that the Almighty had anything to do with the goal. But Lumberjack Joe and Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds had and they were both awarded assists.

Then came a goal that wasn’t a goal, but should have been. Had Referee Szucs been taught by my old physics teacher, “Ernie” Retter, he would have realised that Muzzy Wales’s effort in the 2^nd minute was legitimate. What happened? Well a thunderous shot hit the plexi and bounced back in front of the net where Muzzy hammered it home, as confirmed to me by the Beared Rabble Rouser of Block A, a close observer of the incident. Much to the chagrin of the Bison backers Mr. Szucs stood with arm splayed wide, as if impersonating the Angel of the North. He had seen the catch netting above the plexi move and thought that the puck had hit it after hitting the plexi. He declared the play dead. However, my teacher Mr. Retter would have told him that when a moving object hits a solid stationary object, only some of the kinetic energy is absorbed by the stationary object, but the remainder causes the moving object to bounce away from the stationary object in the opposite direction. A net is not a solid object and will absorb virtually all the energy, causing the puck to fall limply to the ice below. But plexi is solid (OK it’s slightly wobbly) and in this case the puck rebounded a full 6 or 7 metres back in the direction from whence it had come where it met Muzzy who smashed it in. Had Mr. Retter been present he would have shown nothing more than mild irritation (I never saw him angry) that Mr. Szucs clearly hadn’t paid attention in class. It mattered not a jot. “No goal and to hell with physics,” said the gent in the stripes and no goal it was or rather a goal it wasn’t.

Bison continued to press, but, despite outshooting the Cats by 14 to 4 in the period, could not increase their lead. The nearest they came was in the 14^th minute when Coach Sheppard became a boarder in the penalty box for boarding. Any fans of Minder and The Sweeney out there? Well Maple leaf Doug thought the call rather harsh and looked at the referee with a Terry McCann “LEAVE IT OUT, ARFUR!” look on his face and got a Jack Regan “SHUT IT!” look back from the ref. In the ensuing power play the Cats were suddenly caught with their trousers down and a 2 on 1 breakaway. Rand and Connolly bore down on the Cats’ net, but Rand’s option of a pass to Connolly at the back door was prevented by the covering D-man and he had to shoot himself (not with a gun of course). His shot was saved by Lyle. 1-0 it remained and 1-0 the period ended.

The Bison backers were hoping that their team would carry on in P2 from where they had left off in P1 and turn their dominance into goals, but things don’t always go the way one would expect and Bison instead found themselves pegged back to 1-1 within 3 minutes of the restart. Alas a defensive slip up by Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba, who proved slightly less than marvellous on this occasion, let in Jonas Hoog, who set up Tomasz Malasinski to score. It was robbery. Not of a type which a highwayman would perpetrate. I heard no-one demanding “Stand and deliver. Your money or your life.” Adam Ant might have, had he been present, but he was not, much to the chagrin of the Man with 3 Ear-rings, who holds the Adam and the Ants Appreciation Society membership card no.001. So not highway robbery, but certainly a hockey robbery.

The period played out with the Cats a lot better than they had been in P1 and, on their P2 performance, possible worthy of being on level terms if not in terms of play overall. That doesn’t really make sense does it? I know what I’m trying to say.

Into P3 we went and the game’s decider took 6 minutes to arrive. It was a power play goal. Shane Moore, who obviously doesn’t play bingo or he wouldn’t wear no. 88, hooked and had his liberty revoked. With only 18 seconds remaining on the power play Bison executed the decisive move. In 1897 H.G.Wells wrote a novel entitled “The Invisible Man” in which a young scientist named Griffin discovered the secret of invisibility, hence the title of the book …… surprisingly. For Griffin, read the Cats’ D. They also seemed to have discovered the secret of invisibility when a Lumberjack Joe Rand pass sent “Billy” Connolly clear of the D and barrelling in on goal. He didn’t mess about. He saw an expanse of net top right and found it with a rip snorter which beat Lyle for sheer pace. The goal was greeted by a hurling of hats to the rafters of Planet Ice – the sauerkraut salesmen from Hamburg their Homburgs, the canal tollmen from Panama their Panamas and the fishermen from the South West their Sou’westers. 2-1 Bison.

The Cats were being as outplayed as they had been in P1, but with it being just a one goal game and with players as dangerous as Hoog, Nell and Malasinski on the ice, there was always a chance that the visiting icemen could level it up once more or even chalk up a come from behind win. That was, alas for the Cats’ cognates, until Shane “Two Fat Ladies” Moore, blew it for his team. Right in front of the referee, he slammed his elbow into the face of Long Ciaron Long. PEEEEEEEEP!! The referee’s whistle blew. Or more correctly had been blown. A whistle can’t blow itself after all, so why do we say “the whistle blew”? A quirk of the English language, but let’s not split hairs. Mr Szucs had seen everything and, as Long Ciaron crumpled face first to the ice with blood gushing unrestrained (well dripping actually) from a facial wound, Moore must have known that he was in the mire good and proper. Had it been a case of beard envy, Long Ciaron’s cave man style beard being much more luxuriant than Moore’s facial effort? With only 4:11 remaining a 5 + match for the hapless D-man ensured that the Cats would be playing out the rest of the game short handed. A patched up Long Ciaron made it back onto the ice for a shift after the incident thus enabling the officials to reduce Moore’s match penalty to a game penalty – a fine example of sportsmanship from Bison and possibly not one which “Two Fat Ladies” Moore deserved such had been the violence of his assault on Long Ciaron. Had he done that in the street, he would have been looking at a stretch inside for GBH.

Bison nearly put the result beyond doubt with a minute left when a slap shot from the point was tipped onto the post by Billy Connolly (I think). With only 16 seconds remaining Grant Rounding was done for hooking. This gave the Cats the opportunity to turn it into a 5 on 4 as they pulled Lyle from the net. They could not take advantage, however, as Bison cleverly trapped the puck on the boards a couple of times, giving the Cats no opportunity for a strike at goal. The game ended with an empty net goal which wasn’t. Lumberjack Joe Rand’s lofted shot from the Bison half found its way into the net, but the referee ruled that the buzzer had gone before the puck had crossed the line, so it remained 2-1. Never mind it was game over and a narrow but well deserved win for Bison. And well done Mystic Jo. She said she wasn’t going to use PG Tips tea leaves anymore and has instead switched to Yorkshire Tea. After this, you can see why.