40 Shot Bison Receive No Reward

Bison 2 Guildford Flames 3

21/12/14

Who was it who said, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics?” Was it Mark Twain, Benjamin Disraeli or Henry Du Pré Labouchère? (Who?) I’ll leave you to debate that one, if you wish, and all I will say is that whoever it was, he or indeed she would have loved to have been present at Planet Ice last night to prove the theory beyond a shadow of doubt. Looking at the shots on goal for the game Bison managed 40 and the Flames only 14, but it was the Flames who won the game. Did Bison deserve to win? Well probably not because many of their shots were long range efforts straight into the chest of goaltender James Hadfield, the sort of shot that most goaltenders worth their salt will gobble up until the cows come home. In contrast the Flames used their chances well and killed off the Bison challenge with 3 really well taken goals and a resolute defensive display which reduced Bison to the blue line blasters. Had there been present a party of peripatetic pagans from Popocatepetl, they might have wanted to make a human sacrifice on behalf of Bison to the hockey gods for good fortune. Would that have made a difference? Who knows? The pagans from Popocatepetl were absent.

It took the Flames only a minute and a half to find a way past Dean “Deano” Skinns in the Bison net. It was a neat move on the break. Matt Towe sent David Longstaff away along the right wing. Maple Leaf Doug Sheppard raced across to block Longstaff’s path to goal, which he succeed in doing. Alas for Coach Sheppard the Bison D had gone to pot, gone to pieces, gone missing, gone belly up, gone west, gone south, gone out to lunch, gone kerflooey and gone with the wind all at once. (Yes kerflooey is a real word). Longstaff used his long staff to fire the puck into the path of Roman Tvrdon, skating in to support his visor less captain, and his snap shot bulged the net. 0-1 Flames.

On 5 minutes in an all-Slovakian encounter Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba executed one of his characteristic hip checks on Vladimir Kutny. The Flame, however, did not fall over or cede possession of the puck. Marvellous Miro’s check then turned into interference as appeared to be giving Kutny a piggy back. The referee clearly thought that Miro required a period of silent contemplation to reflect upon the gravity of his misdemeanour and hopefully embark on a path to redemption. Into the penalty box he went. Bison successfully defended the power play, allowing only a single shot on goal in the ensuing 2 minutes. However, just as the door of the box swung open and Miro stepped back onto the ice to restore the contest to an even handed one, Jez Lundin snapped home from close in front of the net and it was 0-2 Flames. A solitary second separated the end of the penalty and the goal. Marcus Kristoffersson and Coach Paul Dixon were awarded assists. Had Che Guevara been present and been a Flames fan, he would have hurled his beret into the air, lit up his Cuban cigar and shouted “Viva la revolución”. Had Fidel Castro been present and been a Bison fan, he would have snapped his cigar in half and thrown it to the floor. But, in common with the pagans from Popocatepetl, neither of these hirsute revolutionaries were present.

Shortly after Grant “Barbie Girl” Rounding collapsed to the ice and remained there. It seemed like an age before referee Boardman blew his whistle, must to the fury of the crowd. In particular the Howling Man exploded into a characteristic tirade of disagreement. His “considered opinion”, as he calls it, was delivered at full volume. When Rounding left the ice he did not look in good shape and played no further part in the game. It looked like a nasty leg injury.

The clock ticked down and it looked as if the Flames were going to move into the first interval with their 2 goal lead intact. However, with only 8 seconds remaining the hockey gods gave Bison a bit of luck to reduce the arrears to 1-2. Long Ciaron Long raised his stick to send in a slap shot. Hadfield braced himself for the shot, but, much to his chagrin, it didn’t go where he thought it might. Long Ciaron’s shot was muffed and instead of flying towards Hadfield, it flew to Cuddly Joe Greener unmarked at the back door. He fired home, leaving Hafield looking as shocked as if he’d caught a protruding part of his anatomy in Granny’s mangle. Big toe was what I had in mind. Not sure what you were thinking of.

It had been a fairly even 1^st period. The 2^nd was not. Bison managed to outshoot the Flames by 18-5, but it was the Flames who returned to the locker room at the end of P2 with another goal and Bison with empty hands. That goal came in the 32 minute. The hockey gods had clearly shifted their allegiance to the men from the library by now. The play leading to the goal began when Long Ciaron cracked a superb shot off the underside of the bar. No Bison player was on hand to sweep in the rebound and the puck was fed to David Longstaff by Matt Towe via Vladimir Tvrdon. Longstaff, skating in from the left wing this time had Declan Balmer to beat. Mystic Jo assures me that ghosts are able to pass through solid objects, such as walls. Longstaff is no ghost, but he didn’t need to be as he slipped through Balmer as if he wasn’t there and beat Skinns with a low angled wrist shot. 1-3 Flames. The Bison backers were suffering pain as surely as if their feet had been run over by a Saturn V transporter (the largest wheeled vehicle ever built – I’ve told you that before).

There were no further goals in the period, but I cannot progress to a description of events in P3 without lauding the bravery of Bison netman Dean “Deano” Skinns. On two occasions he was hit on the mask and I’m not talking about glancing blows, I’m taking about full blooded, square on pile drivers to the bonce. On both occasions he stayed down on the ice for some time, much to the horror of Speedway Girl, holder of membership card 001 of the Dean Skinns Appreciation Society (I’ve told you that before). Eventually he was able to continue and continue he did. He always does. However, it has to be said he didn’t look right for the rest of the game and maybe he should have been pulled for his own sake. Hockey goaltenders may be all mad, but they are also made of stern stuff and are possibly even brave to the point of stupidity. It will continue to be a massively controversial debate as to whether a sportsman, who suffers a blow to the head, should be automatically withdrawn from the game. Can’t see that working in boxing, though.

Bison continued the onslaught of P2 in P3. They bombarded Hadfield with 15 shots, while the Flames managed only 3 in reply. However, it was with only 8 seconds left that they finally managed to reduce it to a one goal game with Deano pulled from the net for a final hurrah 6 on 5, as I shall relate. Before I do so, however, I feel an obligation to appraise you of the details of a less than savoury confrontation between Danny Meyers (as opposed to Mike Myers who is someone completely different) and Cuddly Joe Greener (as opposed to Hughie Green who is also someone completely different), the former taking umbrage at the physicality of the latter.  The two opponents came together in an angry manner. Was it going to be akin to the famous 1810 All England title fight between Tom Cribb and Tom Molyneux  – 33 rounds of savage bare knuckle pounding, blood, guts and sinews? Well no. There were no bare knuckles, no pounding, no blood, guts or even sinews, just verbals and the confrontation subsided without further ado. Would Mike Myers and Hughie Green have behaved in the same way? Who can tell?

Back to the goal. Don’t ask me to describe it. Notwithstanding that I run the risk of surrendering my apparent air of neutrality as a reporter, I have to admit, dear reader, that by then I was sinking into a morass of despair, defeatism and depression and I wasn’t concentrating. All I can tell you is that it was a messy goal scored by Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov assisted by Aaron “Billy” Connolly and Long Ciaron Long. 2-3 Flames.

Only 8 seconds remained, alas not long enough for Bison to pull off the miracle comeback. The shot count for the 2^nd and 3^rd periods combined was 33-8 in Bison’s favour, but Hadfield had managed to gobble up 32 of those shots and it was he who carried off the Flames’ Top Banana award. His Bison counterpart was Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds, who once again and for the umpteenth time had a superb game on the Bison blue line and, had he not been playing, the Flames’ shot count for the match would have been a lot higher than 14 and, belying the statistics, it could have been a runaway victory for the well drilled librarians.