A Night of Slap Shots and Rhetorical Questions

Bison 6 Manchester Phoenix 2

19/9/15

With 2 wins out of 2 on the opening weekend of the regular season the Phoenix came from the frozen wastes of the north (or to be more precise north Wales) to Planet Ice to take on Bison. Could they continue their good early season form? Could they overcome a short bench, lacking most importantly their top import Stanislav Gron, who most recently was a point and a half a game man playing in the Italian league for Cortina (I bet he doesn’t drive one). Or would Bison bring them back down to earth?

Early exchanges favoured Bison. Could they drive home their advantage with a goal? Yes the could. In the 15^th minute Robin Kovar was adjudged to have tripped.  It was useless for Kovar to expect the sort of forgiveness which would have been forthcoming had Mother Teresa of Calcutta been officiating. No. The referee was Stephen Matthews who was more akin to Hanging Judge Jeffries than Mother Teresa and off to the box went the hapless Czech chap. Would his misdeed cost his team dear? It did. Half a minute into the penalty a cross ice pass from Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov set up Long Ciaron Long for a slapshot. A well struck slapshot delivered at pace from within the blue line should give the goaltender no time to react. To save the shot he must make himself as large as possible. Alas artificial inflation is not a possibility, so he must rely on his positioning forward of the goal line, if safe to do so, and his stance and his solidity of physical form. In this case Steven Fone, the Phoenix netman, not only lacked positioning, but also stance and solidity. The puck flew past his head and into the net. 1-0 Bison.

Could Phoenix snatch an equaliser? Yes they could. With less than a minute remaining in P1 they levelled it. James Archer broke forward and was challenged by Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird, who lost out as he lost his footing, lost control and possibly even lost his marbles. He fell to the ice, but fortuitously between Archer and the goal. He remained prostrate providing a formidable block to a low shot. But would Archer shoot low? No he wouldn’t. He cleverly lifted the puck over his recumbent opponent and found the smallest of gaps between the post and goaltender. 1-1.

Early in the 2^nd Bison survived 54 seconds of a 5 on 3 and nearly scored a shortie in the ensuing 5 on 4 as J.J. Pitchley broke forward in a determined deed of do or die derring do and set up Lumberjack Joe Rand for a shot which Fone saved.

It wouldn’t be until the 30^th minute that we saw the scoreboard click on. A delayed penalty call on Jacob Heron came to nought. When the play went dead Referee Matthews, who enjoyed a game most enigmatic, perplexing and confusing, at least to the to the Bison backers, pointed at Heron. He may have spoken to the perpetrator of the sinful deed in a biblical fashion thus. “Thou shalt not hook. Ye must pay the wages of sin. Get thee behind me Satan. Get thee into the penalty box.” I bear testament that Jacob made the exodus from the game to suffer his fire and brimstone punishment with the patience of Job and hoping to emerge a good Samaritan having reaped what he had sown. His stay in the box lasted less than the life of Methuselah, less than 2 minutes in fact, when a slap shot from Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba was deflected in by Tomas “Grandmaster”  Karpov. 2-1 Bison.   

The seconds ticked away with the Bison backers feeling satisfied that their team had snatched back a one goal advantage, this achieved without their skipper Aaron “Billy” Connolly who had gone to hospital after a 1^st period clash with Mark Thomas which had seen him fall face first to the ice. 11 seconds remained. Was that going to be that for the period? No. What happened next would have taxed the combined predictive powers of Mystic Jo, Nostradamus, Paul the psychic octopus (remember him?) and Ginny the psychic penguin. Fed by Alan Lack, Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson saw off a robust challenge, kept possession of the puck, turned back and fired a cross ice pass into the path of Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer. The Bison D-man had already raised his stick before the puck arrived. He brought it down in a sweeping ark and blasted his slap shot from just inside the blue line past an astonished Fone. 3-1 Bison. The goal was timed at 39:50.

Fone was about to become even more astonished. Straight from the face off won by Long Ciaron Long the puck broke to Cuddly Joe Greener on the right wing. He skated forward and sent in a speculative lobbed shot. Fone raised his catcher, but, much to his very grave chagrin, not high enough and the puck sailed over the top and into the net for a major Oooo Betty moment for the hapless Mancunian (actually he’s from Rotherham). It mattered not a jot where the telephonically named goaltender was born it was 4-1 Bison. Never mind Victor Meldrew, it was Fone who was saying, “I don’t believe it.” The goal was timed at 39:56.

At 1-4 to the bad, short benched, without their best import forward and visibly tiring it looked like an Armageddon situation for the visitors from the frozen wastes of the north. Could they get back into the game with an early P3 goal? Yes they could. On 40:35 Michal Satek and Robin Kovar set up Mark Thomas to slap one in from the point. 4-2 Bison.

Bison’s 4^th goal blew Teaboy’s prediction of 3-2 out of the window, out of the water and out of sight. At this juncture Mystic Jo was spot on at 4-2. But were there to be more goals which would result in her prediction going to be blown skywards, blown away and blown to kingdom come? Yes there were. And guess who got it right? Was it Nostradamus? Or Paul, the psychic octopus? Or Ginny the psychic penguin? No none of these. It was the Bespectacled Youth with a pre match prophesy of 6-2. 6-2 it was to end, as I shall relate dear reader.

Having just given away the final score my next rhetorical question is irrelevant, but, as I love posing rhetorical questions (have you noticed?), I’ll pose it anyway. Could Phoenix stage a comeback? At the end of the 2^nd this seems as unlikely as seeing Her Majesty the Queen getting stuck into a plate of jellied eels down the Old Kent Road. However, the visiting icemen continued to press and a power play opportunity came their way 1 minute after their goal. The dictionary defines “boarding” variously, but including “a structure of boards, as in a fence or a floor……the act of a person who boards a ship, train or an aeroplane……the act of taking up residence in a lodging house.” What we saw was none of these, but what we did see was Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer shoving a Phoenix player headlong into the boards. “I define that as boarding,” said the referee and the Bison blueliner was invited to board in the penalty box for 2 minutes. Could  Phoenix make the 5 on 4 count? No. And in fact they nearly fell behind to a shortie, Long Ciaron Long’s centring pass bypassing Fone and hitting Cuddly Joe Greener on the skate in front of the empty net and deflecting away from the goal before he had time to react.

On 49 minutes up went Referee Mathhews’s arm. Why? It was delayed penalty call on Jacob Heron who had slashed and broken his stick in the process. He continued to skate stickless, his broken stick leaving him with a metaphorical smoking gun. He would, however, stick to his task and hoped to provide at least a stickless obstacle bigger than a stick insect to Joe Greener. But he failed to stick it to the man and Joe slewed a cross ice stick it in the net pass into the path of Stuart “The Cat” Mogg, who did indeed stick in in the net by means of an unstoppable slap shot. 5-2 Bison.

Could Phoenix rise from the flames? Or at least bag another goal to make the scoreline more respectable? Alas for their small bunch of loyal followers, they couldn’t. They nearly did in the 58^th minute when Hiadlovsky came a-wandering out of his goal to shoot the puck out from the Bison defensive zone. The puck was shot straight back into his empty net, but the “goal” was expunged from the records (or at least it would have been had it been recorded in the first place) for offside, there being a Phoenix presence the wrong side of the blue line.

Could Bison add insult to injury and go further ahead? They could. In the final minute Karpov set up Alan Lack, who was to be anointed Bison’s top banana, for a tap in in front of goal. 6-2 Bison. Who was man of the match for Phoenix? James Archer. And who is the master of the rhetorical question? Shall I tell you? Or shall I leave you to decide that one?