Bison 7 Hull Pirates 2
28/11/15
In midweek the
announcement of the premature retirement of Lumberjack Joe Rand saddened the Bison
community. The vacant import slot was quickly filled by Slovak sniper René
Jarolin inexplicably released by Milton Keynes (coach Russell must have had his
reasons). Could he make an impact against last night’s piratical visitors, who,
although bottom of the table, have posed Bison problems in their previous two
meetings? Bloody right he could, as I shall relate, dear reader.
It didn’t take
long for Jarolin to become an instant hero and score his first point for his
new team. He supplied the puck to Cuddly Joe Greener who moved forward on the
right wing and centred the puck to an all alone Long Ciaron Long. Long Ciaron deked
and shot and the goal light came on. Tony the Tiger was convinced that the puck
had come off the post and back over the line off the goaltender. Was he right?
I have no idea. But what I do know is that it was 1-0 Bison.
2 minutes later
and it was 2-0. Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird fired a cross ice pass from the left
wing to the right where Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer slapped a shot goalwards.
Before it reached the crease Cuddly Joe Greener was there to snap it past the goaltender.
The goal caused tongues in the Bison blocks to be loosened, not held, tied or
twisted. Well why not? Their team were 2 goals to the good already. Blistering
barnacles the Pirates were beginning to look upstream without a paddle,
rudderless, all at sea and cast adrift.
Soon after disaster
struck for Bison. Tomas Hiadlovsky made a save and then stayed down on the ice.
He had done something unspeakable to his leg, groin, ankle or knee. I don’t
know which. After a period of recovery he got to his feet and made to carry on,
but it was out of the question and on came Dan Weller-Evans to replace him.
The Pirates may
have been buoyed up by this unexpected turn of events and may even have thought
that they could get Bison into stormy seas when they pulled one back after 11
minutes. Long Ciaron Long used his long stick to hook his piratical opponent
and ended up in the brig. On the power play Bonner set up a splendid
opportunity for Osman to score unopposed at the back door. So goal Pirates – Dominic
Osman from Lee Bonner, as opposed to Donny Osmond from Bono.
What had looked
like plain sailing for Bison, 2-0 up in 2 minutes and cruising towards Treasure
Island, suddenly became a trifle worrying for the glass half empty brigade
amongst the Bison backing buccaneers. However, the 2 goal lead was to be
restored less than 4 minutes later. The Pirtaes’ D were caught off their guard,
off the pace and off on a tangent. The defending was so poor it made their fans
go off their rockers, off colour and off to the bar. The Pirates coach wanted
to go off his trolley, off home and off on one. A defence splitting pass from Rabbit’s
Foot Joe Baird found Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov surging forward over the blue
line with a similar velocity to that of grandad’s false teeth fired out during
a violent sneeze. It was 1 on 1, although with a name like Martins Raitums, you
might have thought that there was more than one goaltender. It mattered not how
many there were because Karpov is on a hot scoring streak. Hotter in fact that
a Carolina Reaper hot pepper dipped in Flamin' Flatulence Hot Sauce. You think
I’ve made those up, don’t you? Well Google them – I can assure you the pepper
and the sauce really exist. Back to Karpov, he went route 1 through the 5 hole.
3-1 Bison. And that did for the scoring in P1.
Bison needed to
keep their momentum going in P2 and this they did grabbing another goal on 27
minutes. Can you imagine a sundae composed of peaches and vanilla ice cream
sprinkled with castor sugar and coated in a mixture of golden syrup and caramel
topped by whipped cream and crushed maltesers? Sweet indeed and a significantly
different experience for your buccal cavity than the pepper/sauce combination
mentioned in the last paragraph. Sweet maybe, but not as sweet as the way in
which Cuddly Joe Greener set up the goal for René Jarolin. Greener received the
puck from Long, waited for the opportunity and then shaped to shoot. But his “shot”
was disguised and it was, in fact, a pass to the back door where Jarolin lurked
predatorily. The hapless Raitums was hopelessly out of position as he prepared
for the shot from Greener which never came and Jarolin snapped the puck through
the yawning gap between goaltender and post for 4-1 Bison and his first Bison
goal.
Mystic Jo had
predicted a 4-1 Bison win and at this precise moment she was bang on. The problem was that over half the game remained. The Man
in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt looked across. “No more goals then,” he said.
Alas for Mystic Jo the tealeaves had lied, but at least our favourite
clairvoyant was partially right like the clock which has stopped but tells the
correct time twice a day.
Anyway back to Jarolin.
His second Bison goal arrived a little over 2 minutes later. This time it was
Long, fed by Balmer, providing the long pass down the centre and Jarolin was in
on goal. As he bore down on goal the Pirates’ D may have wished his movement
would be akin to a lackadaisical, languid and listless (or even lifeless) lounge
lizard-esque loafer. But no. Jarolin’s advance was at breakneck speed. He
closed in and shot. We heard a thud and then the goal light shone forth in a
beacon-esque manner. The puck had hit the goaltender’s pad and then continued
in a forward direction (or backward from Raitums’s perspective) through the
5-hole and over the line. 5-1 Bison and doom for the Pirates.
As the period
neared its conclusion a hooking Hutchinson impeded the progress of Jarolin as
he bore down on Raitums once again. Up went the referee’s arm for a delayed
penalty call for hooking. When play eventually stopped the ever popular Mr.
Thompson crossed his arms above his head. Penalty shot. Alas for the Bison
backers the shot was saved and Jarolin failed to complete his hat-trick. Maybe
he missed on purpose, thinking, “if I score a hat-trick they will expect one every
week.” Maybe not.
Bison did make
it 6 some 7 minutes into P3 and a controversial goal it was, scored by Aaron “Billy”
Connolly off his skate. Stuart “The Cat” Mogg fed Jarolin (yes him again - I'm getting fed up with mentioning this bloke) and
his lightning pass caught Connolly unable to react, which was just as well as
he didn’t have time to kick the puck into the net. As there was no kicking
motion it was declared a good goal. The Pirates didn’t object and it seemed
pretty clear to all of us except the Bespectacled Youth, but his opinion
differed from Mr. Thompson’s, whose flat hand pointing towards the net told us
all we needed to know.
The goal plunged
the visiting fans into the doldrums of despair, from which, in the absence of a
fair wind, there was no escape. Their Bison counterparts, however, were well
and truly sailing towards the sunset. The Pirates’ chances of winning were now looking
as lifeless as someone who had been shot, stabbed and poisoned, then strangled,
pushed in front of a bus, blown up, electrocuted, suffocated and drowned before
being hung, drawn and quartered just to make sure. However, they didn’t throw
in the towel (maybe they couldn’t find one to throw in) and a minute later they
reduced the arrears once more to set the nerves of the glass half empty Bison
backers jangling. It was a nice move involving Josh Gent, Tom Stubley and Pasi
Salonen, the latter sending an arrow shot into the top corner of the net above
Dan Weller-Evans’s glove.
6-2 and all to
play for. Could the Pirates pull another 4 goals back in the 11 minutes which
remained? I should flippin’ co-co. No of course they couldn’t and didn’t. In
fact, it was Bison who completed the scoring with a power play goal in the last
minute. Sam Towner tripped Jarolin and consequently took a trip, thankfully not
a drug induced one, to the brig for 2 minutes. The goal was pure Karpov as he,
fed by Jarolin, went on a typical mazy dribble and drew the defence, so that
when he fired an across crease pass to Ryan “You What” Watt in front of goal
there was no-one to stop Watty banging home a one timer. As far as the Pirates’
D were concerned the goal had been a mishap, a mistake, a misadventure, a
misdemeanour, a mischance and a misfortune all rolled into one. They had gone
missing and now it was mission impossible for them at 2-7 down with only 22
seconds left to full back a 5 goal deficit. They didn’t.
The final buzzer
sounded and all that remained to be concluded was the election of the Top
Bananas. Pasi Salonen collected a box of beers for the sunk Pirates, there being
no rum available, and René Jarolin unsurprisingly bagged the bounty for Bison
with a 2+3 performance – not a bad debut. A word for Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer,
who picked up 3 assists from the D and also Dan Weller-Evans who stepped in to protect
the Bison pipes and acquitted himself very well.
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