Bison 3 Bracknell Bees 1
30/1/16
“General” Tom Thumb grew to a height of 3 feet
4 inches. Robert Pershing Wadlow was 8 feet 11 inches at the time of his death
in 1940 (and still growing). The top v bottom contest we saw at Planet Ice last
night should have been just as disproportionate, especially with the Bees able
to ice only 11 skaters and having this week lost their best player Milan
Kostourek. But Bison played well within themselves and seemed to be doing just
enough to secure the points without over exerting themselves, maybe with what
could be a tough road trip to the Manchester Phoenix today in mind. For the
spectators the game turned out to be a must for the insomniac. Avoiding
drifting into the arms of Morpheus was about most the crowd could muster. (The
arms of who? The ancient Greek god of dreams of course). At this stage of the
season, however, the result is much more important than the performance and
Bison bagged the points to keep clear at the top of the EPL. So job done and
never mind Morpheus.
It looked a bit
half speed right from the first puck drop. Anyone who witnessed the frantic
final period at Guildford on Wednesday where 100 m.p.h. hockey, kitchen sink
throwing and blue paint scrambles were the order of the day, will agree. Bison
scored the first of what many thought would be an avalanche of goals in the 8th
minute. From Stuart “The Cat” Mogg Dan Lackey took the puck around the back of
the net. René Jarolin took over possession and emerged on the right side of the
line. He then skated across the front of goal looking for an opportunity to
shoot. Bees’ goaltender, the luxuriantly bearded Alex Mettam, must have had his
view of the puck screened by the crowd of players in front of the crease as
Jarolin skated past everyone without a challenge. Mettam had not moved across
to cover Jarolin’s progress and now, as the Slovak emerged clear of the crowd,
the gap between goaltender and post was wider than the gap between Terry
Thomas’s front teeth. Jaro drove the puck firmly into the net. 1-0 Bison. The
Che Guevara impersonator in Block C gave a clenched fist salute and shouted
“VIVE LA REVOLUCIÓN! VIVA EL BISONTE!” (Look I’ve told you before this bloke
really exists).
So far so good
for the home team, but the floodgates remained unopened and the period ended
with only one other goal added to their tally. On 15:40 the expulsion of air
through the referee’s whistle resulted in a loud high pitched noise, which
signified his intention to call a temporary halt to proceedings in order to
declare a minor penalty for interference by Carl Graham. In physics interference is the
process in which two or more coherent waves combine to form a resultant wave in
which the displacement at any point is the vector sum of the displacements of
the individual waves. Is that the sort of interference we saw from Graham in
the 15th minute? No. It was simply a getting in the way of. Scooter
doubtless relished the thought of reclining in the penalty box for a relaxing 2
minute rest away from the frantic goings on on the ice. Alas for him his
sojourn lasted on 15 seconds and was terminated in a manner which I shall
relate, dear reader.
Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov slid
the puck back to Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer just inside the blue line. He skated
across to the slot looking for a pass, but none was on. So he decided to slap
one instead. The shot came in and there was Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson to
deflect it past a hapless Mettam. Neither he nor his luxuriant beard could stop
the puck. 2-0 Bison.
P1 ended without
addition to the score. It had been a pretty one sided affair with a shot count
of 10-5 in Bison’s favour. It was to get worse for the Bees in P2 with a shot
count of 13-3. However, they managed to keep Bison out. The nearest the
homesters came to making it 3-0 came late in the period when Long Ciaron Long
fired in a shot at the back door with Mettam closer to the other post. Somehow the
hirsute netman got across to stop the shot. It was a fabulous save and had Long
Ciaron been Dick Dastardly he would have said “Curses. Foiled again!” The period
ended soon after and really not soon enough as it had been a rather somnolent,
slumberous and soporific affair for the watching public. Never mind the Bison
backers were thankful that they were sitting comfortably at 2-0. What could
possibly go wrong? We shall see.
The Bees played better in the 3rd
and managed 9 shots on Baston’s bastion, more than they had managed in the
first 2 periods combined. Bison, who had already lost their skipper Aaron “Billy”
Connolly, were unlucky to loose Matt Towlaski hit in the face by a stray puck. The
follically challenged forward immediately left the ice for the locker room as
on came the stewards to clear up the corpuscular material he had left behind. Let
us hope he is patched up and OK for tonight’s action.
Shortly after Long Ciaron Long
was called for slashing, but the Bees advantage evaporated 1:07 into the power
play when Matt Foord, who seems to have one too many “Os” in his name, was sent
to the dungeon for interference. Nothing came of the 5 on 4, 4 on 4, 4 on 5.
However, on the stroke of 53 minutes played something quite bizarre occurred.
Scott Spearing, always a favourite with the home crowds wherever he plays,
scored. On the 4th of December 1872 a
party from the Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia boarded the Marie Celeste, an
American merchant ship, that had been found floating adrift in the Atlantic off
the Azores. She was in seaworthy condition, under partial sail with her cargo
intact and a half eaten meal on the galley table. But the entire crew was
missing. Similarly the Bison D has also gone missing, but whereas the absence
of the Mary Celeste crew was a mystery, the absence of the Bison D could be
explained. It was just rank bad defending. Spearing took the puck from behind
the net, came out in front and spun round to score just like a ballerina on top
of a jewellery box except he was not wearing a tutu. Whether or not he wears
such a garment at other times must remain a matter of speculation.
It was a shocking goal to concede. In the ranks of the
Bison backers, Duracell Man’s mouth fell open, the Desperate Dan lookalike’s
beard went grey and Mystic Jo dropped her crystal ball. To concede a goal at
this time and effectively throw away their dominance was as undesirable as the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block
A returning home to find his eccentric butler has broken off the arm of his Rodin
sculpture to use as a rolling pin for his pastry. The deafening
roar of celebration which came from the Bees’ block awoke all from their slumbers as suddenly
as if someone had driven a knitting needle up their collective nostril. If
there were any still asleep thereafter they too were jolted out of the arms of
Morpheus when a sudden explosion of ecstatic euphoria in
Bock C was heard as the winning ticket of the “shirt off the back” was
announced. It was that of Jonny “Shut-em-out” Baston. Immediately the Bespectacled
Youth began a negotiation to buy the shirt, but the potential deal floundered
with the price stuck on £50,000.
The Bison backers were now forced to endure an uncomfortable
5 minutes before Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov put the result beyond doubt on 58
minutes. A move across the front of the Bees goal involving Long Ciaron and
Shaun “The Sheep” was finished with a backhander across the line. 3-1 Bison. The Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block
A’s monocle fell out, the Che Guevara impersonator lit up a Cuban cigar in
celebration and the Howling Man howled.
The Bees called a time out. Mettam and his beard were
pulled from the net for a desperate 6 on 5, during which Karpov had a shot on
the empty net blocked. The clock ticked down to zero and it was curtains for
the visitors. Men of the match were Thompson and Graham. It had been a game
which was closer than it needed to be, but in the final analysis the
differences between the two teams had been Thumb/Wadlow-esque.
Robert Pershing Wadlow and friend
