Bison 3 Milton Keynes Lightning 1
10/10/15
At Planet
Ice last night a
keenly contested contest was contested by contestants for the EPL top spot. The clinching goal came with 7 minutes remaining from Bison’s
free scoring blueliner. No not Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba, but Kurt “The
Scissors” Reynolds, who this season has shaken off the cloak of “stay at home” by
venturing forward into the rarefied atmosphere of the opponents’ defensive zone
to bag vital goals. Who could forget his overtime winner against the Guildford
Flames in the opening game of the regular season? His goal last night was effectively
a game winner, serving to deflate Lightning at a time when their attempts to
draw level were looking likely to bear fruit.
The
game opened in robust style with both goaltenders being tested early on. The
deadlock was broken in the 3rd minute and it was the visitors who
snatched the lead. Markku Tartinen set up James Griffin, who scored with a long
range wrist shot from the right wing. 1-0 Lightning.
Bison
pressed forward for a levelling score, but Jordan Marr in the MK net was
beginning to prove a formidable barrier, showing more the resistance of a steel
reinforced bank vault door rather than a wet paper bag, even though he did have
one or two nervous moments with spilled pucks. But there was to be no shutout
for Marr and Bison blew open his door on 13 minutes. A shot from Long Ciaron
Long was saved but pushed to Marr’s right into the path of Stuart “The
Cat” Mogg. 100 odd years ago they weren’t very politically correct. Hence
William Foulke, Sheffield United and England goalkeeper, who weighed around 20
stone, was universally known as “Fatty” Foulke. (Why not Google image him – you’ll
be quite shocked at the sight of his seemingly unathletic form). Had Jordan
Marr possessed corpulence comparable to Mr. Foulke, he could have blocked the
goal completely, but alas he did not rejoice in the rotundity of the aforementioned
dietarily challenged northern netman and all Mogg could see was a large expanse
of empty net to shoot into. He rifled home to level it up at 1-1.
On
18 minutes Long Ciaron Long was adjudged to have delayed the game. “You’re going
up the river for that,” said referee Pickett. “I would have liked to have sold
you down the river, but I can’t.” Up the river? Down the river? See footnote.
And so Lightning embarked on a power play to straddle P1/P2. If they could
hammer home their advantage and shovel in a goal within the last 1:21 of the
period they would take a 2-1 lead into the 1st break and thereby put
Bison on the back foot. There was indeed a goal, but, the merry band of
drum beating, bugle blowing and raucously chanting Lightning fans, far from being elevated to a state
of joyous nirvana and ecstatic gratification by the goal, were conversely
plunged into a condition of darkest gloom and despairing malaise, as the goal
which was scored on 19:27 was a Bison short handed goal. How did it happen?
Read on, dear reader.
Play
was broken up by Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds and the puck slipped to
Lumberjack Joe Rand in mid ice. He skated forward at breakneck speed with Bison
skipper Aaron “Billy” Connolly in support to his right against a solitary and
rather lonely D-man. Had Joe and Billy been on the blue smarties? That must
remain a matter of conjecture. What we can say for sure is that the pursuing
D-men had not as they clearly showed no signs of hyperactivity in their
attempts to catch the Bison pair. Next we saw an example of goaltender
bamboozlement, a better one of which you are unlikely to witness. Joe looked
across and looked across again at Billy, turned his body towards Billy, delayed
and delayed again until, judging by his positioning and movement, goaltender Marr was left with no doubt that a cross ice pass was going to be the
order of the day. Suddenly, from an acute angle, Joe whipped in a wrist shot
which, as confirmed to me by the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A, a close
observer, flew in over the Marr shoulder. 2-1 Bison.
Back
in 1967 that famous super group Cream recorded a song entitled “I’m so glad”,
which contained the lyric “I’m so glad, I’m so glad, I’m glad, I’m glad, I’m
glad.” This could have been written about the Bison backers, who showed they
were not only “glad” but also “so glad” with a characteristic celebration of
the goal. At best most had been hoping that Bison could kill the power play and
end the period on level terms. But instead some 33 seconds later they shuffled
off to purchase their hot dogs and other culinary delights at the food bar with
their team enjoying an unexpected lead which they were never to lose.
We
saw no goals in P2, which was hardly surprising as there weren’t any. The
period was not without incident, however. On 34 minutes Alan Lack was adjudged guilty
of a trip. Alas and alack Lack would lack his freedom for 2 minutes. Less than
a minute later a confrontation between Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird and an MK player
(sorry I don’t know who that was) occurred within a milling melée of players
behind the net. It wasn’t looking good on the accommodation of views front. The
two seemed further apart in opinion than Martin Luther King and Nathan Bedford
Forrest might have been on the subject of racial equality (Nathan who? Why the
first Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan of course). When the officials broke
it all up it was only Joe who copped a penalty for slashing and neither of the
two anything for roughing. But of course the upshot of this was that there was
another Bison man in the box and Bison were thus plunged into an Alamo style 5
on 3 defence for 1:11, which they achieved without the help of Davy Crocket.
They also survived the 5 on 4 when Lack emerged a free man from the box to turn the
numerical disadvantage into a solitary man.
Into
P3 we ventured. MK searched for the ever elusive levelling score. They were
beginning to become as frustrated as a broke and hungry down and out sitting
opposite a street food stall in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf as the smells
from a sizzling cauldron of cioppino pervades his nostrils. (Cio what? A
combination of crab, clams, shrimp, scallops, squid and mussels, all sourced
from the Pacific Ocean, sautéed with fresh tomatoes in a wine sauce and served
with toasted sourdough or French bread). I wouldn’t say that their lines were
proving as ineffectual as a line composed of Homer Simpson, Ned Flanders and
Krusty the Clown. They were passing and moving well and getting in their shots,
but they could not find a way past Bison goaltender Tomas “no nickname yet”
Hiadlovsky, who was enjoying a “man of the match” match, matching save for shot.
And
then with 7 minutes remaining the locks of hope of the MK faithful were shorn by
Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds, causing them to fall limp and lank to the barbershop
floor as he bagged a grade 1 goal. A face off in the MK defensive zone was won
by Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov or it could have been Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson.
The puck squirted to Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson or it could have been Tomas “Grandmaster”
Karpov (I am not sure which way round it was), who fired the puck into the slot
where Kurt was waiting to fire in a slap shot through traffic and it was 3-1
Bison. The goal could be described as a purple moment for Bison and had Prince,
the Artist formerly known as Prince, the Purple One, Symbol, Squiggle or
whatever he calls himself these days, been present and a Bison fan, he would
have partied like it was 1999.
MK’s
chances of winning the game now looked as if they’d been hammered flat with a
sledgehammer, then run over by a 10 ton steamroller and finally put through
granny’s mangle. There was still time for a comeback and Lightning attacked the
Bison net with renewed vigour. Then with 1:25 remaining they pulled Marr for a 6
on 5, but still could find no way past the rock solid Hiadlovsky. Cuddly Joe
Greener very nearly scored an empty netter in the dying seconds, but the shot
was deflected as the buzzer sounded to call a halt to proceedings. Bison had won
it to go level on points at the top of the EPL.
Footnote : “Up the river” – if you
were convicted in a New York City court you would be sent up the Hudson River
to Ossining State Prison , better known as Sing Sing. “Sold down the river”-
before the abolition of slavery troublesome slaves in the North would be sold
and transported down the Mississippi river to the much harder life on the
cotton plantations of the south. Now you know.
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