“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.