Towe Gives Flames a toehold on the Cup Final

Bison 0 Guildford Flames 1

(EPL Cup semi-final first leg)

20/1/16

Praise be to God. Allah is great. By Shinto. Vivat Jupiter. That last one’s Latin you know. You always suspected I was an educated sort, didn’t you? Latin and Ancient Greek O-level fail twice each if you must know – I can’t pretend I was a shining classics scholar. Enough about ancient tongues. Back to gods. Well, whoever your god might be, if indeed you have one at all, offer praise to that supreme being, as there may have been an element of divine intervention in sending us a robustly but fairly contested game where playing hockey was the objective instead of the brand of nastiness which the Steeldogs served up last Saturday. Admittedly there were some robust challenges, an unsavoury incident or two and even some fighting in the first period, but the game was played in a good spirit and, even though it was not the most entertaining spectacle we are likely to see, at least it didn’t leave us with a sour taste in the mouth.

P1 ended blank, but it was not without incident. In the 9^th minute Janis Ozolins, not to be confused with Janis Auzins, who is someone completely different, clashed with Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds. The two fell to the ice and while the latter was face down the former crosschecked him in a most unsavoury fashion. The latter took exception and, on regaining his feet, or more correctly skates) he assaulted the former and a pugilistic contest developed. The cross checking of a man face down on the ice was an outrageous thing to do. So outrageous, in fact, that the outraged Bison backers were outraged. "Outrageous" they shouted as their rage outed, confirming their outrage. Nearby Long Ciaron Long and Rupert Quiney decided to kick off a sideshow in which blows were exchanged. The upshot of all this was a Flames powerplay, which struck me as being a trifle unfair. But no the referee decided that Ozolins was worthy of only a single minor penalty for the cross check, Reynolds a 2 instigator and 2 roughing and Long and Quiney 2 roughing each.

Also during the period one of the linesmen, namely Mr. Ormond, was struck by the puck and, although he saw out the period, he could not return to the ice for the second and the remaining 2 periods were played with only 2 officials.

Into P2 we passed and once again saw no change to the scoreboard. Bison nearly scored a shorthanded goal on a Flames power play. In the 24^th minutes Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer was called for kneeing as he and Lee Edsers collapsed in an untidy and indeed unsightly pile to the ice. Had the referee been a member of the aristocracy he might have said to Balmer “I say old bean. Your action there was a trifle caddish. I’m going to bally well put you in the box for that.” I doubt whether Mr. Pickett is a member of the aristocracy, but he may have used those words nevertheless. Whatever was said, the hapless D-man ended up behind bars. In the ensuing power play it was Bison who looked most likely to score. Firstly René Jarolin forced a turnover and was in on goal, but Richard Ullberg in the Flames net proved equal to his effort. Then moments later another turnover put Long Ciaron Long and Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov in on goal. We were entertained with some comical juggling but agonisingly no goal.

Shortly after a tremendous noise of shouting and banging sticks arose from the Bison bench. Too many Flames imports on the ice was the call or rather it wasn’t as the referee didn’t spot that one.

Bison’s best chance of the period came at the half way stage when Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov raced in on goal from the wing under a heavy challenge, but still managed to slide the puck through the Ullberg 5-hole. Alas such was the tight angle that the puck slid onto the post instead of over the line and the score remained at 0-0.

Both teams were becoming frustrated as their lines were baffled, outwitted, hindered, blocked, checked, foiled, baulked, cancelled out and nullified all at once. Neither attack could find a way through solid D work. Bison had some really bad pieces of misfortune in the 2^nd and should really have been ahead. However ahead they were not and it was all to play for in the 3^rd.

Early in the 3^rd there was an ugly incident when Ozolins broke in on goal from the wing, got in close, but was foiled once again by Baston. In his frustration he slashed the netman. The dictionary defines “slashing” as “to cut with a violent sweeping stroke or by striking violently and at random, as with a knife or sword” There was nothing random about the slash perpetrated by Ozolins and thankfully no knife or sword was involved, but it certainly was a sweeping stroke struck violently. Seeking retribution for this opprobrious assault on his team mate Stuart “The Cat” Mogg confronted Ozolins and pushed him a couple of times, but Ozolins held up his arms in surrender and, had he said anything, it may have been “Briesmīgi žēl, mans dārgais kolēģis. Tika veiktas prom. Lūdzu, pieņemiet manus pazemīgos atvainošanos ar ķiršu virsū” or, loosely translated from Latvian, "Terribly sorry my dear fellow. Got carried away. Please accept my humble apologies with a cherry on top.” 

A couple of minutes later Danny Meyers stopped a fierce shot on his ankle and adopted a half kneeling position which much resembled Rodin’s famous sculture “The Thinker”. I am sure the only thing Meyers was thinking about at the time was pain. Eventually he got to his feet and left the ice in obvious discomfort. The strange thing about his exit was that no-one went to help him. Was this an indication of unpopularity or had nobody noticed his sculptural interpretation? We can only speculate. Perhaps inspired by this, Markus Kristoffersson seemed determined to bring a new brand of entertainment to the proceedings soon after. When hit by Long Ciaron Long he launched himself into what can only be described as an expressive dance before collapsing in an embarrassing pile to the ice, which made even him smile. I can’t wait to see that one on Bison TV.

And so to the goal which decided the encounter. It was scored in the 51^st minute by Matt Towe, not to be confused with Matt Towlaski, as I have mentioned before. There are some incredible ancient ruins in the world – the Parthenon in Athens, the Colosseum in Rome, Machu Picchu in Peru, to name but three. Well last night there was also a ruin at Planet Ice, albeit not an ancient one. It was the Bison D. A mid ice turnover resulted in a charge on goal by Towe. The covering D-man was Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer, who held off and allowed Towe to fire his shot in. To be fair to Balmer he probably thought there might be another Flame behind him so he was covering the back door, but there was not so much as a flicker at the back door. On nine other occasions Jonny “Shut-em-out” Baston would have saved the shot but not on this occasion and it was 1-0 Flames. There were no voting forms involved. It was not an election, but a dictatorial declaration by the referee that Bison old boy, Andy “Machine Gun” Melachrino, should be awarded an assist for the goal.

“It ain’t over till it’s over.” A famous phrase reputedly coined by Yogi Berra, one of the greatest Major League Baseball players of all time and inspiration for the cartoon character Yogi Bear. I’ve told you about him before, so you already know that, apart from his sporting achievements, he was famous for his utterances, called Yogi-isms. For more see the footnote below. The game entered its final stages. To break down the Flames D Bison had to show a combination of power and subtlety like a sumo wrestler doing origami. However nothing was coming off. There was plenty of power, but no origami. On 60 minutes the buzzer sounded and even Yogi Berra would have had to admitted it was over. Bison had been blanked. Kristoffersson and Shaun “The Sheep!” Thompson were elected Men of the Match. So off we go to Guildford next Wednesday with all to play for. Can Bison overturn the Flames’ slender lead. We shall see.

Footnote : Yogi-ism 1 “When you come to a fork in the road, take it”. Yogi-ism 2 – “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours”. Yogi-ism 3 - “If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else”. Yogi-ism 4 - “I never said most of the things I said”.