Tigers Fail to Trash Bison Title Tilt

Bison 3 Telford Tigers 1

27/2/16

The Telford Tigers paid their final visit of the season to Planet Ice. Was it going to prove the cakewalk that the Tigers’ last visit proved when they slumped to a defeat most ignominious, atrabilious and opprobrious by a score of 7-0? Well not this time. They put up a much more robust competitive performance, but were overpowered by a determined Bison, who seem to grow in confidence week on week as they arrow in towards that thing beginning with “T” which I shouldn’t mention.  

The game opened in spectacular fashion for Bison. What the Tigers fans wanted from their team was teeth – the teeth of a tiger. What they got was gums like those of an octogenarian granny who had taken her dentures out, as the Basingstoke icemen surged into a 2-0 lead before the 9^th minute had ended. It certainly looked as if Bison were on a course to infinity and beyond, but the Tigers had other ideas, put their dentures in and showed a bit of bite. However, I jump ahead.

The first goal arrived in the 3^rd minute and was put away in spectacular style by Bison skipper, Aaron “Billy” Connolly. In the Tigers’ D there was a scene of misinterpretation, misapprehension, misdadventure and miscalculation and the result was a massive muddle of monumental magnitude which allowed Long Ciaron Long to take possession of the puck and carry it into the Tigers’ defensive zone. Just inside the blue line Long Ciaron shaped to slap one towards the Tigers’ net, but changed his mind and charged forward instead. His netward path was blocked, but Connolly was steaming up on Long’s left in support. To stop him the Tigers’ D-men would have to be present in both body and spirit. They may have satisfied the latter criterion, but were woefully lacking in the former as an all alone Billy received a cross ice pass from Long Ciaron and sent an unstoppable wrist shot high into the net over the shoulder of a shocked and indeed hapless Tom Murdy in the Tigers’ net. 1-0 Bison.

Hardly any time was allowed for the goal celebrations to die away before Bison had bagged their second and once again it was Connolly who scored it. On 7:28 the referee noticed a hooking incident. In order to stop the players from continuing their robust but honest endeavours, he brought play to a halt with a shrill blast on his Acme Thunderer. OK it could have been another make of whistle – I couldn’t see the maker’s name from Row F. But let’s not split hairs. The offender was Peter Szabo, once of the fearsome sounding team the Landshut Cannibals. Ref Pickett didn’t have the authority to impose a sentence of 5 years in the Bastille, which some in the Bison blocks thought the offense deserved, so the former cannibal went to the penalty box for 2 minutes instead. Alas for Szabo his 2 minute rest was brought to an abrupt end just under a minute later. René Jarolin passed to Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer, who I am told is known as “Sodding” Balmer in some Peterborough Phantoms supporting circles. He cut inside and fired in a slapshot, which “Billy” Connolly tipped past a startled Murdy. 2-0 Bison. The goal made those in the away block adopt a somewhat Dr. Gachet-esque demeanor. Dr. who? Why Van Gogh’s physician of course (see below).

The Tigers had to tighten up and show their teeth and claws or all would be lost before the game was half played and this they did. There were no more goals in the 1^st and indeed the entire 2^nd period was played out with scoreboard remaining on 2-0. P2 was characterised by a succession of penalty calls, 4 against Bison, 3 against the Tigers, but neither team could take advantage of their power plays. The most bizarre call was made in the 28^th minute when there was a confrontation between Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov and former Bison Joe Miller, not to be confused with any of the other 7 x Joe Millers  and indeed 2 x Joel Millers who play in world hockey. Joe threw off his gloves and the two stood toe to toe without so much as a blow, a push or even a grab. In steamed the officials and doled out a roughing penalty to each. As far as Karpov is concerned, it would appear that “roughing” can involve merely looking at a player standing in front of you. Perhaps I missed something – well that wouldn’t be for the first time.

And so into the final period we moved. Bison looked comfortable, but chickens were not being counted amongst the Bison backers. Marcus Maynard copped a 2 + 10 penalty for checking from behind as he shoved Matt Towalski into the goal frame and netminder Murdy, leaving the latter two in an unsightly pile on the ice. Fortunately neither was seriously injured, but Maynard suffered the ignominy of having his liberty revoked for virtually the rest of the game. The Tigers managed to kill the power play, but on the stroke of the 2 minute penalty expiring, namely on 51:30, they succumbed for a 3^rd time in the game. Ryan “You What” Watt set up Stuart “The Cat” Mogg for a shot, which was saved by Murdy. Alas for the hapless netman he could do no better than give up a rebound, which was stabbed in by a loitering René Jarolin. “Goldfinger. He’s the man, the man with the golden touch.” So sang Shirley Bassey. Well Jaro may not be Goldfinger, but he certainly does have the golden touch. This was his 22^nd goal and 41^st point in 27 games for Bison. Why ever did Milton Keynes let him go? Coach Russell are you reading this? 3-0 Bison.

An unfortunate incident occurred sometime after involving the somewhat corpulent linesman Mr Gipps. Minding his own business on the boards he, presenting a rather large target, was hit by the puck. A shout of “Eat less pies and be more agile” was heard emanating from Block C. Perhaps the dietarily challenged Mr Gipps heard it and will take the advice proferred. Perhaps not. We shall be in a position to judge when he visits Planet Ice for the first time next season.

Things were now looking fairly terminal for the Tigers. If they were to have even a Mars bar’s chance in the pocket of a chocaholic they had to get back in the game and prevent Tomas Hiadlovsky from recording a second successive home shut out against them. Well someone must have mentioned the “S” word, as within a minute the Hiadlovsky’s pipes were penetrated and the hypothetical Mars bar looked as if it had an outside chance of remaining uneaten. A shot from Blahoslav Novak was saved by Hiadlovsky, but alas for the Slovak custodian, the rebound fell perfectly to Dan Davies who slotted into an open net. Macaulay Heywood was award the second assist. 3-1 Bison.

The game rumbled towards termination, but the drama had not concluded. With 3:37 remaining Hiadlovsky was unlucky to shoot a puck clearance over the glass. Accidental it may have been, but rules is rules and the hapless netman was called for delay of game. The Tigers spent 1:21 of the consequent 5 on 4 trying to crack open the Bison defence but failed to do so. It was time to throw caution to the wind. A time out was called and Murdy was pulled for a 6 on 4 empty net assault. The Tigers had to keep their discipline at all costs. To lose it would have been as undesirable as the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A returning home to find his eccentric butler feeding a feast of caviar, smoked salmon, foie gras and quail’s eggs to his iguana. But that was precisely what happened. The former not the latter that is. At the precise moment that the puck went wide from an empty net attempt along the full length of the ice Novak became embroiled in an unwise altercation with Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird. Most of us missed the lead up, so bound up were we in following the puck down the ice and wide of the post and letting out our “Ooos” and Ahs”, that, when we turned round, there was a prostrate Joe Baird with Novak standing over him grasping his shirt. Into the box went Novak, back came Murdy and the Tigers’ chances of winning were now as dead a man from the KGB who had been eliminated by the Man from MI5 using his poison tipped umbrella. The game was played out to its conclusion and 2 more points passed into the ever bulging Bison bag.

All that remained was to appoint and indeed anoint Sam Zajac and “Billy” Connolly Top Bananas for their respective teams. Off home went the Bison backers to enter the result (and the Phantoms’ overtime loss to Milton Keynes) into their spreadheets, pie charts, bar charts, line charts, tree charts, bubble charts, predictor models and other “Can Bison win the title” mathematical aids. The basic maths of the all is that Bison need 6 points from their remaining 3 home and 2 road games to win the thing beginning with “T” which I shouldn’t really mention (oh dear I just did). And that is assuming that either the Phantoms or the Flames win all their remaining games (7 each), which is surely unlikely, particularly as these two have to face each other next week in the 2 legged EPL Cup final in addition. Nevertheless, the champagne had better remain un-uncorked and the silver polish unbought for now.

Dogs Downed and Bison March On

Bison 4 Sheffield Steeldogs 1

20/2/16

The Sheffield Steeldogs’ previous visit to Planet Ice was a bad tempered affair which was creditable for one thing only – the emergence of Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans as a pugilist of the highest order as he pummelled the Dogs’ back up goaltender, Thomas Barkworth, to a pulp. Thankfully we saw a proper hockey game this time and, in contrast to last time, the undesirable oik who is Barkworth behaved himself and avoided a repeat of his ignominious subjugation at the hands of Dan the beast.

P1 started in a lively fashion with Bison surging ahead in the 5^th minute. Don’t ask me to describe the goal. Why not? Well a shot (from Long Ciaron Long I think) hit the side netting. The Bespectacled Youth jumped up from his seat celebrating a phantom (not of the Peterborough variety) goal. At the same time someone’s lid came off. I must confess, dear reader, that I was so distracted by these two simultaneously occurring events that I didn’t see Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov squeezing the puck in. I was told by the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A that it was a disaster for Dalibor Sedlar in the Dogs’ net, the puck moving across the line rather slowly without Sedlar realising. When he turned round to see it on the wrong side of the line he must have wanted to clasp his hands to his head in an Edward Munch-esque manner. 1-0 Bison. Assists to Long and Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba.

Then disaster struck for Bison. Only 15 seconds after the goal Cuddly Joe Greener was called for high sticks and Mr Thompson threw him out of the game. Not literally of course, which is a shame as that would have been a sight to behold. Joe went off to the locker room and Bison now had a 5 minute power play to defend. The ease with which this was achieved must have embarrassed the Dogs like a man whose hair piece is sucked off his head and into the hoover.

On 32 minutes the Dogs thought they had equalised. When I say “The Dogs” I don’t mean their supporters, coaches, players, coach drivers, camp followers, hangers on etc. I mean one Dogs player, namely Stanislav Lascek. He tried a cheeky wraparound. Tomas Hiadlovsky got down low to block the shot with his pad and the puck was then cleared away from the crease. Meanwhile Lascek wheeled away with arms aloft in celebration of his “goal”, and at the same time was probably muttering “Som vyrovnal. Je tu ešte jedna v oku pre vás Bison” (see footnote). But the goal light remained unilluminated and the referee Thompson’s hand continued to be unpointing towards the net. Ref Thompson shook his head, quite vigourously I thought, when Lascek looked back, perhaps not in anger but certainly in anguish. The failure of the puck to cross the goal line had been not only abundantly obvious, but also clearly manifest and indeed distinctly noticeable not to mention unequivocally visible and, without wishing to labour the point, unambiguously apparent to all but Stan, the phantom scorer. No goal. 1-0 it remained.

At this stage things were not looking great for Bison. At the time of the Lascek goal which never was they hadn’t scored for 27 minutes and had Stan’s effort been a goal instead of not a goal it would have been 1-1, thus illustrating that a one goal lead is as fragile as a 16^th century Ming vase when you hit it with a sledgehammer. Bison needed a second goal and prove they could be more than just an annoying flea on the Dogs’ back. Well they went one better with 2 goals in less than 2 minutes. The first was a power play goal, Lewis Bell having had his collar felt for hoking on 35:10. Bison took full advantage. The puck cycled from Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird to Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba. The latter not the former, the second named not the first, the aforesaid second not hitherto referred to the first supplied a pass to Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson. One could tell by his raised stick he intended to go for it. He fired a cracker of a clapper goalwards.  Had Dalibor Sedlar possessed the bulk of Mr. Blobby he might have blocked the goal completely and stopped the shot, but unfortunately for Sedlar he is significantly inferior in terms of bulk to the aforementioend pink polka-dotted gent and doesn’t wear a polka-dotted jersey, for which Sedlar is thankful I would imagine. Quite simply the Czech chap doesn’t have the goal blocking volume of Mr Blobby and the puck flew past his shoulder before he could react. 2-0 Bison and at last they were back on course. Had the Archbishop of Canterbury been present and a Bison fan he may have ascribed the goal to divine intervention. But he wasn’t, isn’t and didn’t.

In between the 2 Bison goals the Dogs did manage to find the net, but in the form of Lee Haywood, not the puck, so it wasn’t a goal. The goal siren did sound, however – you naughty man Bavy.

The second of Bison’s goal blast came less than 2 minutes later and what a goal it was. I enthused about the quality of the goal scored last week by Long Ciaron Long, if you recall. Well he did it again this week, scoring a very different but equally astonishing goal. Here’s how it happened. The puck was played forward to Long Ciaron by René Jarolin, who had received a pass from Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds. Long pulled it back from behind the goal line and then at point blank range lifted it by way of a back hander past Sedlar and in off the angle of the goal. A sonorous clunk followed by an illuminated goal light told us it was 3-0 Bison. The Dogs defending on this occasion had been poor as there was no-one guarding the goal. It was a gift and Long Ciaron may have said “Thank you”. It was such a gift that he should have said “Thank you with a cherry on top.” However it has to be said, so I will, that the skill he displayed to get the puck past Sedlar was amazing.

The period ended and it had been a totally dominant period for Bison with 2 goals without reply and a shot count of 15-7 in their favour. Was it to be more of the same in P3 or were the Dogs going to show their teeth. Were they going to “goon it up” and they did last time at Planet Ice? Was the apology for a civilised human being known as Tomas Barkworth going to take on the Bison back up Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans, as he did last time only to receive a damned good hiding? He didn’t seem to want to make the same mistake twice and the two stood side by side on the bench like two long lost friends. The odious youth wisely kept his mouth shut.

In the interval between P2 and P3 came the news that Bison’s closest rivals the Peterborough Phantoms had suffered a regulation time 4-3 defeat at the hands of the Swindon Wildcats. Bison backers were overjoyed. Some shouted “Wacko-the-diddle-o”, others “Hot-diggity-dynamite” and others still “Zippity-zackity-zaramango” in celebration, as they wallowed in reflected glory.

The Dogs pulled one back with 10 minutes of P3 gone. A pass from Lascek behind the goal found Lubomir Korhon in front. He juggled with the puck, got it under control and rifled it past Hiadlovsky. 3-1 Bison.

The Dogs were playing a lot better and at only 2 goals to the good Bison were by no means safe. An opprobrious incident occurred on 54 minutes. Aaron “Billy” Connolly skated past the Dogs’ bench and, as he did so, Korhon reached over the boards and grabbed the Bison skipper in a loving embrace. What on earth was he thinking? I have no idea. But ref Thompson had seen it and sent a blast of air through his Acme Thunderer. It may not have been as serious as murder most foul, but it was a foul and flagrant infringement of the rules. 2 minutes in the box for the wayward Czech chap with piecing eyes (have you sen his scary profile picture on the Dogs’ website?)

The clock ran down and the Dogs’ chances of winning the game seemed to be receding as quickly as the hairline of Marvellous Miroslav Vantroba. It was time to throw caution to the wind, as opposed to the towel in. Sedlar was withdrawn and an extra skater came on to make it 6 on 5. 30 seconds later the plan backfired when the Dogs lost possession and Connolly broke forward with Long in support on his right. By the time the Bison skipper’s pass found Long Ciaron he had a clear sight of the empty net. It wasn’t so much a case of “I expect you to die, Mr. Bond”, but rather a case of “I expect you to score, Mr. Long”. And that is exactly what happened. 4-1 Bison and game over.

In the aftermath, Stan Lascek lost it big time with an explosion of outrage. It was real throbbing purple vein in the temple stuff as the Czech chap detonated a protest, probably about being dispossessed unfairly. As he protested he climbed the glass. Was he trying to get out of the rink? Ref Thompson jabbed his fists into his hips indicating a 10 minute misconduct. It was the end of a bad night for Stan and soon after it was the end of a bad night for the Dogs. The final buzzer sounded and the points were in the bag for Bison (does anyone know where this bag full of points might be kept?). Top bananas were Karpov and Arnoldas Bosas.

Footnote : Som vyrovnal. Je tu ešte jedna v oku pre vás Bison

I have equalised. There's one in the eye for you Bison.