Season Of Good Cheer? Not At Planet Ice It Wasn't

Bison 3 Swindon Wildcats 2

26/12/16

Stuffed with turkey, Christmas pud and other festive culinary delights and with “Good King Wenceslas” on their lips, the Bison backers trudged through the snow to give cheer to their hockey heroes as they took on the Wildcats from Swindon. (OK there wasn’t any snow and I didn’t hear anyone singing, but no-one reads my reports expecting accuracy do they?) Christmas is supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men isn’t it? The scene of the most opprobrious violence you could imagine that we saw at the end of the game suggested that the “goodwill” part of that saying had been left behind somewhere. But I jump ahead, dear reader. There is much hockey stuff to relate – thrills, spills, goals, near misses, robust challenges and officiating of the highest calibre (OK that last bit might be a bit of artistic license as well). Let us return to the start of the game.

Bison took the lead just before the chimes of the 7^th minute mark. Solid forechecking from René Jarolin forced an error and the puck was turned over to Stuart “The Cat” Mogg just inside the blue line. He skated forward and unleashed a shot/pass which found Antonov, who swept it in. Which Antonov? Whether it was Vanya or Ivan I cannot say. Fortunately their brother Ilya doesn’t play for Bison or it would be even more confusing. 1-0 Bison.

Bison thought they had taken a 2-0 lead shortly after. A shot from Long was engulfed by Stevie Lyle like an amoeba ingesting a food particle. He then slid across the line and into the net with the puck remaining concealed about his person. The goal light remained unilluminated, but Long’s long arms were raised aloft and he executed a victory jump into the plexi. An officials/goal judge discussion ensued. Was it a good goal? The Bison players and supporters said “YES!” But the referee said “NO!” so the opinion of the former mattered not a jot. No-one had actually seen the puck cross the line as it was hidden from view. In those circumstances a goal cannot be given and on this occasion wasn’t. It was dashed hard cheddar for Bison. 1-0 it remained.

The first period ended. The second period began. The second period ended. Enough said. OK I’ll say a little. It was a most frustrating 20 minutes with stray passes, wayward shooting, no goals and not much else.

We moved into the final period all hoping for a better period than the second and we got one. Bison seemed to have shaken off the lack lustre of P2 and were going for the jugular. However, it would be the Cats who would level it on 46:11. Phil Hill, not the American racing driver of the same name, who won the Formula 1 championship in 1961, but the other one, slewed a cross ice pass where Jan Kostal was skating in unopposed. Bobby Hull, one of the all time great stars of the NHL, is credited with inventing the slapshot. He was also bald and wore a hairpiece on the ice. “Oh balderdash”, I hear you cry, “that’s made up”. Well no – see footnote. Anyway had Bobby Hull been present last night he would have been impressed with the way Kostal despatched the puck past Tomas Hiadlovsky in the Bison net by way of a clapper. 1-1.

Ooo Betty. This was not a good moment for Bison. Although they had had the better of the period and seemed to have stepped up the necessary gear to win the game, they now found themselves on level terms and in danger of letting everything slip like Bobby Hull’s hairpiece. They needed a goal and pretty damned quick. And they got one only a couple of minutes later. The puck was cycled round and round until finally Rabbits’ Foot Joe Baird was set up by Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds with an opportunity of a long range shot. He hammered the puck goalwards by way of a Bobby Hull clapper. Lurking in front of the crease was Dangerous Derek Roehl and he thrust his twig into the path of the puck and redirected it low past Lyle and just inside the post. Imagine you are Leo Tolstoy. You have just finished writing “War and Peace” on your laptop – all 587,287 words of it. You go away to make a cup of tea. When you come back your laptop has crashed and you realise you’ve forgotten to save your work. You would be unhappy. Bison’s go ahead goal must have propelled the Cats’ faithful into a state of mind similarly lacking in joy and contentment. 2-1 Bison.

And the Tolstoy-esque imaginary scenario disappointment didn’t end there for the travelling supporters as 2 minutes later it was 3-1. Now if you were to Google “Top Ten Geniuses of all time” you might find Einstein, Mozart, Shakespeare and da Vinci on that list. You wouldn’t find the name of Tomas Karpov. However what we saw him do on 51:34 was a piece of hockey genius. Taking a feed from Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer, Antonov set Karpov away behind the net. He emerged well wide of the goal and shaped to deliver a centring pass, which is what Lyle was expecting. In “Waltzing Matilda” a jumbuck (sheep), who comes to drink at a billabong, is taken by surprise by a jolly swagman who grabs him and stuffs him in his tucker bag. What happened couldn’t have surprised Lyle more if Karpov had grabbed him and stuffed him into a tucker bag. For at that precise moment, suddenly and without warning, Karpov whipped a wrist shot over Lyle’s shoulder and into the net short side from an acute angle. It was an astonishing piece of quick thinking combined with letterbox marksmanship. The only words I can think of to describe the moment would be “By jingo. What an absolutely spiffing score. Well done, old bean”. 3-1 Bison.

Bison were now in a comfortable position and just needed to see the game out. The minutes passed without the Cats being able to make any impression at the fag end of the game. And finally there came a time for the Cats to throw caution to the wind, as opposed to the towel in. Matt Towlaski was called for roughing and even before his seat in the house of correction was warm, the Cats called a time out. Lyle was dragged from the net and the teams plunged into a period of 2 minutes of 6 on 4. There were some hair raising moments for the Cats (sorry I didn’t mean to make oblique reference to Bobby Hull’s hairpiece again) with Jarolin’s empty net opportunity blocked and then Long Ciaron Long’s long backhanded chance from inside his own defensive zone going wide. But the Cats survived and with only 5 seconds of the penalty remaining the audacious move paid off. Set up by Maxim Birbraer and Jonas Höög (a man with more than his fair share of umlauts), young D-man Ben Nethersell proved he was no ne’er-do-well as he hammered the puck in off Hiadlovsky’s pad. 3-2 with 16 seconds left to play. Could the Cats pull off an unlikely recovery? Well actually no they couldn’t. The final buzzer sounded and it was Bison who had bagged the win.

But the excitement didn’t end there. Oh no. An ignominious conflict of gargantuan proportions broke out in the handshake line. Who knows how these things start, but the only penalties doled out were to Kurt Reynolds and Jordan Kelsall, so I would imagine it must have been those two who kicked everything off by failing to find common ground in their discussion, just as surely as John D. Rockefeller and Mao Tse Tung would have struggled to achieve a consensus of opinion when discussing the merits of capitalism. The highlight of the said brawl came when the diminutively statured and dietrally challenged linesman Justin Lalonde was seen dragging two Cats players to the bench door to prevent their further involvement in the unseemly fracas. It was the corpulent official’s finest hour, but one which carried much comedic value. Top marks to Mr. Lalonde, however.

Eventually everything simmered down like, just as would an overheated pan of goat and mushroom stroganoff when you turn off the gas. Top Bananas were elected and they turned out to be Phil Hill for the Cats and Long Ciaron Long for Bison.

Footnote : While playing for the Winnipeg Jets in the WHA Bobby Hull got into a fight with none other than Slapshot’s famed Dave Hansen, who was actually a real hockey player not an actor. Hansen was shocked to suddenly find Hull’s hairpiece in his hand and disdainfully threw it to the ice. The headline in the paper the next day was “Is Nothing Sacred?”

Dangerous Derek’s Double Derails the Dogs

Bison 4 Bracknell Bees 2

17/12/16

OK It wasn’t the Dogs it was the Bees, but if I’d said Bees it would have spoiled the alliteration of my headline. So for the avoidance of doubt it was the Bees, THE BEES, THE BEES.

Bison dominated the early passages of play, but it wasn’t until the 6^th minute that they broke the deadlock. A Bees’ D-man (sorry I don’t know who that was or I could name and shame him) had possession of the puck on the blue line. As he dithered, disaster struck. Dangerous Derek Roehl jabbed in his stick, dispossessed him, burst past him (it wasn’t the D-man’s day) and was in on goal. Roehl wasn’t going to mess about with any fancy deke. He rifled an unstoppable wrist shot past the luxuriantly bearded, but also follically challenged Alex Mettam and into the net. Perhaps the shot was stoppable, but clearly not by Mettam. An unassisted goal surely as the D-man had control of the puck before his downfall. But no. Assists were awarded to Long Ciaron Long and desperate Dan Davies. Why? How? Who knows? Who cares? It’s all grist to the mill. 1-0 Bison.

Bison looked capable of going on to run up a cricket score by the end of the first. However, that’s not the way things turned out and only 3 minutes later the Bees had levelled it. In the overall context of the game up to this point the equalising score was robbery. It would have been appropriate if the Bees players had been dressed as Dick Turpin. I saw no-one so attired. And it was a controversial goal. The puck was fired in from wide by David Gaborcik. It hit the ever popular Scott Spearing and went in as the net moved off its moorings. Did it cross the line after the net moved off? Had Spearing interfered with goaltender Hiadlovsky by bundling him over in the crease? Had Spearing thrust his shoulder forwards to deflect the puck in? On any one count the goal would be washed off. Alas for the Bison backers Referee Cloutman, who we are led to believe has been to Specsavers, saw none of these and his flat pointy hand thrust goalwards indicated that the scores were level.

As the period progressed towards a conclusion it looked as if Bison’s efforts were not going to bear fruit or at least as much fruit as could be found on one of Carmen Miranda’s head dresses. Carmen who? See footnote 1. But no or rather yes they were to bear fruit on 18:45. Roehl fed Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov, who skated across the front of goal and unleashed a shot which was saved, but the puck squirted straight to Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds. He banged it home off a post and it was 2-1.

 P1 finished and P2 opened. Bison were once again the dominant team, but just could not score. Was it going to be like last week when they lost to an inferior team because they couldn’t find the gaps between goaltender and goal frame? It was looking that way until 32:59. Had Shakespeare been present might have said “the tomfoolery amongst the bawbling jesters of the Bees’s defence was a comedie much admir’d by the merrie folk of Basingstoke.” Eh? Well alas for the Bees their comedic defending produced a chunderous outcome. From inside his own defensive zone René Jarolin with the eye of an eagle threaded a pass through the eye of a needle to Roehl, who lurked completely unmarked between the red line and the Bees’ blue line (or at least, as far as Planet Ice is concerned, between where these lines should be). Could the Bees’ D-men catch him, as he moved forward with the speed of a thoroughbred racehorse, while they trailed in his wake like a bunch of lethargic dray horses? Of course not. Roehl barrelled forward and sniped a wrist shot past Mettam in more or less exactly the same fashion as he had for Bison’s opener. The hapless goaltender couldn’t have been happy and may have made a mental note to cross Roehl off his Christmas card list. 3-1 Bison.

It wasn’t looking good for the Bees, but they held out for the remainder of the period and even grabbed another goal. With only 19 seconds left on the P2 clock Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson whipped in a shot, which dislodged Hiadlovsky’s water bottle. Is nothing sacred? Assists to Martin Pavlicek and Spearing. 3-2.

And so in to P3 we passed and we witnessed a period littered with penalty calls – 11 in total, including a 2 + 10 on Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson for a head check on Karpov, which, knowing Shaun “The Sheep”, as we do, must surely have been unintentional.  However, it did leave Karpov in a dire state, but hockey players are made of stern stuff and, and I am sure to Shaun “The Sheep’s” relief, Karps returned to the ice later in the period. The only goal of the period came in the 45^th minute. Once again the Bees’ defending was both chunderous and blunderous. Is Jimmy Hoffa (see footnote 2) sleeping with the fishes? Or maybe propping up a flyover encased in concrete? Or buried under one of the end zones in Giants’ Stadium? Who knows, but what we can be sure of is that he disappeared off the face of the earth in 1975. In a similar fashion the Bees’ D also disappeared off the face of the earth once again. To describe accurately the full enormity of the ineptitude of the defending would require the descriptive skills of a wordsmith greater than I. Suffice it to say that Reynolds and Long combined to put Desperate Dan Davies through and in on goal. The Colossus of Rhodes had a huge 5-hole, as you can see from the picture below. Mettam also has a large-ish 5-hole, not as large maybe as the Collossus’s, but certainly large enough for Davies to drive the puck through it and into the net after a bamboozling deke. 4-2 Bison.

Some may have said that the Bees chances of winning the game had now all but evaporated. However, evaporation is defined as the process by which a substance in a liquid state changes to its gaseous state as a result of changes in temperature and/or pressure and, as the visitors’ chances were never liquid or gaseous in constitution, the expression is clearly nonsense. Let’s not split hairs. Although there was plenty of time for the Bees to mount a comeback, realistically it was Goodnight Vienna.

However, the excitement was not over. Towards the end of the period we witnessed an extraordinary incident. The puck was played forward and Shoeless Joe Miller raced after it clear of the Bees’ D, who must have been looking for Jimmy Hoffa rather than defending their goal. Mettam, by his actions, clearly thought there was going to be no tomorrow – he was wrong as it proved. He had been sniped twice by Roehl and then 5-holed by Davies and must now have been thinking there were more holes in him than in Ena Sharples’s hair net. He thought he’d try something different and came charging way out of his goal to pokecheck the puck. What was he smoking? He came nowhere near the puck and Miller rounded him. Alas for Joe he couldn’t shoot into the goal from such an acute angle and took the puck around the back of the net. By the time he emerged at the back door the Bees’ D had abandoned their search for Jimmy Hoffa and were back in force. Joe’s shot was blocked and Mettam’s blushes were spared

In the dying seconds Mettam was pulled from the net, thankfully not by his luxuriant beard, for a 6 on 5, which bore no fruit (it had doubtless all been used to create Carmen Miranda’s head dress). However, it afforded the opportunity for Bison netman Hiadlovsky to have a crack at an empty netter. Alas it went well wide, but it was an exciting moment that had the crowd ooh-ing and ah-ing. The period ended and it was a win for Bison. Not a classic, but had Farmer Hoggett been the coach he might have said “That’ll do, pig”. Roehl and Mettam were elected Top Bananas.

Footnote 1 : Carmen Miranda was a was a Portuguese-Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress, and film star who was popular from the 1930s to the 1950s. Her trademark headdresses frequently contained real fruit.

Footnote 2 : Jimmy Hoffa was head of the Teamsters trade Union in America from 1958 until his mysterious disappearance in 1975 and one of the most powerful men of the era. No-one knows what became of him, but there is compelling evidence that he was “rubbed out by the mob.”

Bison Incinerated

Bison 2 Guildford Flames 4

10/12/16

Jumping Jehosphat on a pogo stick. Why can’t Bison beat the Flames? Last night’s visitors to Planet Ice have lost to every other team in the EPL including the Bees and the Phoenix. Yes even them. And Bison have beaten every other team in the EPL. But not the Flames. Their 3 regular season encounters this season have resulted in ignominious defeat on all 3 occasions. Despite the homesters outshooting the visitors by an impressive 40-16 they still ended up losing the game.

The first period was played out goalless, despite Bison raining in 17 shots on Dean Skinns in the Flames’ net which must have left the fellow shell shocked. However, he proved equal to all of them and his pipes remained unbreached. The highlight of the period was a goal which never was. On a breakaway the Flames appeared to have scored. At least that was what the entire contingent of Flames faithful behind that very goal thought. The net moved, but the earth didn’t. The Flames’ admirers leapt to their feet with arms aloft and cried “Goal!” “Hurrah!” “Woo-hoo!” “Wacko-the-diddle-o!” and other such utterances of joy. Alas for them the goal light remained unilluminated, the puck remained in play, the players continued to play and the officials officiate. No goal then. What caused the net to move? Maybe it was telekenesis.

A dominant Bison performance in P1 has borne no fruit and we passed into P2 with the Flames on a power play. In the dying seconds of P1 Dangerous Derek Roehl had been called for clipping. The dictionary defines “clip” as : “to cut, or cut off or out, as with shears, to cut or trim the hair or fleece of, shear, as in clipping a poodle, to cut articles or pictures from a newspaper”. In this case no poodles or newspapers were involved, but a flying Flames forward, namely Marek Maslonka was. And so with Roehl incarcerated Bison set about shutting down the Flames’ power play. On 21:16 there was a goal, but which way did it go? Read on, dear reader, and I shall enlighten you.

Ever heard of Jim Thompson? He served as a secret agent with the American military in WW2. After the war he stayed in Thailand and, single handedly, rebuilt the Thai silk industry, making a vast fortune in the process. In 1967 he went for a walk from his jungle holiday cottage and was never seen again. He had disappeared into thin air. What’s the connection? The Flames’ D did exactly the same thing. They were nowhere to be seen when Tomas Hiadlovsky fired a long pass forward to a completely free Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov. Skinns would have preferred Karpov’s movement forward with the puck to have been half hearted, indifferent, disinterested and apathetic. Alas for him Karpov displayed none of those characteristics. Rather his movement was brisk, dashing, nimble and velocious.  He fired in a shot. The puck disappeared from view. There seemed to be a lengthy delay before the goal light came on. I would surmise that Skinns had got a piece of it but not a big enough piece and it trickled over the line. A short handed goal assisted by Hiadlovsky. 1-0 Bison.

At last Bison had their noses in front. Alas for the Bison backers the lead was surrendered 3 minutes later. Despite being monumentally outshot the Flames found themselves back on level terms with a goal from Kevin Phillips. Put in on goal he outsmarted Hiadlovsky and back handed over the line. His assistants were identified as Michal Satek and Jens Eriksen. 1-1.

There were no more goals in the period and a feeling of impending doom pervaded the Bison blocks. At least amongst the pessimists. Alas they proved to be the realists. It was looking like the same old story – dominance of play, loads of shots on goal, but scant reward for the home team. P3 was to prove more of the same and the Flames were to carry away the points with 3 goals from only 3 shots on the net, one an empty netter. But I jump ahead.

Bison came out with all guns blazing for the final period, but it would be the Flames who would snatch the lead on 41:22. Bison failed to clear their corner, the puck passed from Ben Campbell (never trust a Campbell – remember Glencoe – I’ve warned you about that before) and then to Jens Eriksen. His pass from behind the goal line was snapped home by Satek and it was 1-2 Flames.

The Bison backers were beside themselves with incredulity. How their team could be losing this game was an enigma few could find an answer to. Incredulous they may have been, but incredible they proved as noise levels rose to unprecedented heights to threaten the structural stability of Planet Ice, a task which is not difficult these days. And just a few minutes later the Bison bombardment paid off.

Charge has various dictionary definitions including “to impose or ask a price or fee”….. “a duty or responsibility laid upon or entrusted to one”…. “to impute or ascribe the responsibility for”. Referee Cloutman did not consider any of these were relevant, but he was convinced that he had witnessed an “attack by rushing violently against someone” as Maslonka smashed into Roehl. He decided to feel Maslonka’s collar and off into the box went the Slovakian assailant. Surely Bison would make this power play count. They piled on the pressure. Things were getting very hot for the goaltender Skinns, perhaps not as hot as it must have been for Pontius Peperoni, the pork, paprika and pimento pie purveyor of Pompei on 24th August 79 AD, but hot enough. And with only 11 seconds of the power play remaining Deano's defence cracked. Set up by Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer, Shoeless Joe Miller shot from the slot. Deano made a pad save, but the puck deflected to his right where René Jarolin ws perfectly placed. He sent a wrist shot past the despairing netman as accurately as a shot from the Winchester rifle of Annie Oakley. Did you know that Miss Oakley owned a dog called Dave? See below. What a cute little rover. I digress. 2-2 the score.

 Bison continued to pile on the pressure. Surely the Flames must succumb. But no a fortuitous deflection saw the Flames resnatch the lead with 52:59 on the clock on the power play with a slashing Long Ciaron Long incarcerated. Set up by David Savage, Phillips tried a slap shot. The shot was not struck as well as Phillips had intended. It did not lift from the ice and seemed to be going just wide. However, it hit the skate of Balmer and deflected inside the post. One had to feel sorry for Balmer. He may not even have seen the shot, but, even if he did, he could not react. He had been desperately unlucky. Had he moved one of the dirty bottles of Alnwick? (Moved what? See footnote).

The clock was ticking down and Bison were becoming more and more desperate as the Flames threw themselves into a final rearguard action. Hiadlovsky yo-yoed back and forth from his net to enable 6 on 5s and was unfortunately absent when Satek scored an empty netter with seconds to go. 4-2 Flames and goodnight Vienna for Bison. Oh dear.

Top Bananas were Jarolin for Bison and Skinns for the Flames – yet again a goaltender winning MoM against Bison. But a 95% save percentage confirmed he had played out of his skin. It wasn’t Deano’s fault that Bison couldn’t find the gaps.

Footnote :150 years ago at the Ye Olde Cross public House In Alnwick (pronounced Annick) the innkeeper dropped dead whilst trying to clear empty bottles from the front window of the pub. Legend has it that anyone who touches them will be cursed with bad luck. So they have remained undisturbed ever since, as you can see in the picture below.

Hat Tricks for Jarolin and Long as Tigers’ Title Tilt Wilts

Bison 6 Telford Tigers 2

3/12/16

Oh the trials and tribulations of finances in British ice hockey. Having overspent their revenues by half a million quid in only 3 years, the Telford Tigers now find themselves in reduced circumstances. The rights (are there any?) and wrongs of what has gone on in the last few weeks have been thrashed to death in the press and on social media, so I will pass no comment here. Suffice it to say that the table toppers came short benched and with players in reduced circumstances to Planet Ice, but with the full intention of consolidating their title tilt with a second win in Bisonland this season. They failed, as I shall relate, dear reader

The Tigers did, however, get off to a good start, snatching the lead on 3:17. A shot came in. Tomas Hiadlovsky saved it, but the puck rose high into the air. On returning to the ice in a manner which would have pleased Sir Isaac Newton, it fell to Matt Davies, who fired a snap pass to Milan Kolena in the slot and he drove home before Hiadlovsky could recover properly from the save. 1-0 Tigers.

With the scoreboard clock showing 10 minutes precisely (well 10:00 at one end and something completely different at the other) a shrill blast from referee Matthews’s Acme Thunderer was heard. Too many men on the ice for Telford and a bench penalty was the call. It was not possible to transport the Telford bench to the penalty box. In fact this was not even attempted. Instead Adam Jones went. 1:03 into the power play and it was 1-1. A flowing move involving Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov, René Jarolin and Long Ciaron Long terminated in a wrist shot from the latter. Annie Oakley could shoot a playing card in half, edge on, firing her Winchester rifle backwards over her shoulder using a mirror to sight it. Long Ciaron’s shot was a trifle easier than this. But he buried it with equal aplomb and it was 1-1. It was a knock 'em dead goal, but thankfully nobody died.

There were no more goals in the period and the teams returned to their respective locker rooms unseparated. It had been a very even period and you couldn’t have fitted a Rizla fag paper between the two teams. P2 was to prove rather different as Bison surged into a 4-1 lead before the Tigers, who managed to outshoot their hosts by 12-10, grabbed a goal with 30 seconds of the period remaining to keep them in with a shout. My apologies - I jump ahead. Let’s go back to the 25^th minute.

On 25:54 a shot came in from the slot from Desperate Dan Davies. Sam Gospel in the Tigers’ net saved it, but the rebound fell to Ivan and Vanya Antonov. Neither of them could stuff it past a butterflied Gospel. Instead the puck deflected behind the goal where Jarolin lurked like a shady black marketeer.  He wrapped it around and in past Gospel, who had unwisely stood up from his butterfly and had been too slow in getting across to block the left hand side of his goal. The gap between himself and the post was as wide as a ravine of doom and thus was Gospel's doom sealed. Ooo Betty. 2-1 Bison.

Enter Clarkson. No not Jeremy, but it might have been better for the Tigers if it had been as Doug’s behaviour became more and more unusual as the game wore on, culminating in a 3^rd period call out of Jan “The Man” Jarabek, who, still recovering from a nasty facial wound, was wearing a cage. Jarabek treated the call out with the distain it deserved whereupon Clarkson chicken winged him. Luckily for Clarkson, Dangerous Derek Roehl was serving a ban for sorting out Frankie Bakrlik in the prevous evening’s game with Milton Keynes. Otherwise he might have had something to say. Anyway that was later, this is now. Clarkson did something illegal to Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds and, when this wasn’t called, felt he was able to get away with something else, so he grabbed Reynolds for a puch up. Alas the poor fellow was unaware than Kurt doesn’t fight, so into the box, a solitary figure, he went for roughing.

The Clarkson incarceration cost the Tigers dear a minute later. Bison cycled the puck. Jarolin to Balmer to Long, lurking on the point. Long Ciaron Long’s long stick came down. We heard the characteristic cracking sound and the puck left the ice. On the 3rd of August 1979 Jose Ramon Areieto managed to propel a ball at the incredible speed of 188 mph from his long wicker zesta punta during a game of pelota. (Using what in a game of what? See below). No I'm not going to tell you that Long’s slap shot went as fast as that, but it was so quick that the puck flashed past an unable to react Gospel blocker side and it was 3-1 Bison. Doubtless Doug Clarkson was thinking “oh dear”.

The last minute of the period saw 2 more goals. First Bison made it 4-1 with 39:10 on the clock. Antonov (the game sheet said Balmer) put in Long, who shot, but was denied by Gospel. Never mind, Jarolin was there to smash in the rebounded puck. But 21 seconds later Bison were caught with trousers down, flies undone, on the hop, out to lunch and away with the fairies all at once as Jason Silverthorn, set up by Clarkson and Kolena, found himself in front of the net and unchallenged. 4-2.

Into P3 we passed and Bison didn’t take long to surge further ahead, but in a rather unexpected fashion, as I shall relate, dear reader. Karpov was sent to the house of correction for a trip on 43:58. The Tigers could not take advantage of the 5 on 4 and, worse still, let in a short handed goal. A shot on the Bison net was saved by Hiadlovsky. The puck rebounded some distance and was picked up by Long. He surged forward with Aaron “Billy” Connolly in support in a 2 on 1. Significant quantities of velocity, rapidity, acceleration and momentum were involved in their progress towards the Tigers’ net. The pass to Connolly across goal never came. Instead Long whipped the puck past Gospel to complete a hat trick. The Bison backers’ goal celebration was sizeably massive, excessively copious and immeasurably monumental. Everyone loves a shortie. Assist to Bison netman Hiadlovsky. 5-2 Bison.

2 minutes later Bison drove the final nail into the coffin of the Tigers. Karpov and Long combined to set up Jarolin at the back door. He had been ignored as surely as a 60 a day chain smoker would ignore a government health warning on a packet of fags. The Slovak assassin smashed the puck into a wide open goal to complete his hat trick. It would have been appropriate to play Handl’s funeral march at this point as there had been a tragic death. The Tigers’ chances of winning the game had passed away. 6-2 Bison and the fat lady was warming up.

Shortly after Connolly nearly made it 7-2, but rang the bar instead. This moved the Bespectacled Youth to declare “Dinner’s ready”, but alas no refreshments were served. The game drew to a conclusion. It only remained for the Man of the Match awards to be doled out. Corey McEwan took the Tigers’ nomination and Long and Jarolin, each with a 3+2 night, shared the Bison award. Half a box of beer is not much reward for 3+2, but you couldn’t have fitted an after Eight mint between the two.