Bison 2 Peterborough Phantoms 3
6/2/16
Who was it who
said that the dividing line between winning and losing was as thin as an After
Eight mint? Probably me. Well that’s not correct. It’s thinner than that –
maybe the width of a Rizla fag paper. And that’s what we saw last night. A top
of the table clash between two very evenly match teams. It could have gone
either way, but didn’t. It was the Phantoms who enjoyed the rub of the green (see
footnote for anorakish factoid about the origins of this expression) and edged
it to remain in the title race. Now the Phantoms are 4 points behind Bison with
a game in hand it’s all to play for. And don’t rule out Milton Keynes.
P1 opened and Bison
didn’t hang around. With only 29 seconds gone it was 1-0. Aaron “Billy”
Connolly won a battle on the boards, took the puck around the back of the goal
and squared it across the slot to Stuart “The Cat” Mogg. The Phantoms D had
been caught and on a downer, down and out, down in the mouth and down and dirty
with their guard down and their trousers down. It was as if Moggie had a highly
contagious disease because none of the Phantoms D came near him. He took his
time, picked his spot and fired in a wrist shot. In Block B the Basingstoke
Bison Backers (Bombay branch) bellowed “Blistering biryanis” and the bellicose
builders from Bromley-by-Bow bawled “Bleeding brick bats”. OK I admit it. I
made them up. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity for a bit of alliteration. Oh yes and René
Jarolin was awarded the second assist.
The period was
played out with no further scoring, but with a number of opportunities for both
teams. By the end Bison had outshot the Phantoms by 12-7 and looked well worth
their 1-0 lead, but, as we know, a prince can be transformed into an ugly frog in
the blink of an eye and similarly a lead of 1-0 or 2-0 or sometimes even 3-0 in
hockey can be lost in a similar measure of time. And so it proved in P2, as I
shall relate, dear reader.
The Phantoms
took only 1:29 of the 2nd to level it. From the goaltender’s left,
Lloyd Gibson fired in a shot which was brilliantly saved by Jon “Shut-em-out”
Baston in the Bison goal. Alas the puck flew wide to his right into the path of
Deadly Darius Pliskauskas, who proved as sharp as the sharpest of sharp
dressers in his sharpest sharp suit. He backhanded past a prone Baston and it
was 1-1.
As I have
already mentioned, Bison had outshot the Phantoms by 12-7 in the 1st,
but all that counted for nothing. It said 1-1 on the scoreboard. Bison needed
to snatch back the initiative. This they did in the 25 minute. On 24:41 James
Ferrara was adjudged guilty of interference. As a result he had his collar felt
and was sent down the steps and up the river to be thrown in the can to do a
stretch of porridge without remission in the cooler behind bars. Bison had to
make the power play count. This they did. With just over a minute of the power
play played they powered back into the lead. Cuddly Joe Greener set up René
Jarolin. His shot from the goaltender’s left was tipped in by Bison skipper
Aaron “Billy” Connolly. It was a classic redirect. The puck slid agonisingly
over the line, well agonising only if you were a Phantoms’ fan. On came the
goal light and out came the referee’s flat pointy hand indicating a goal. The
goal caused the Bison crowd to erupt Krakatoa style. The aristocrat in Block A
shouted “Top drawer! A capital goal! Wacko-the diddle-o! What?” OK he doesn't exist either. Who cares? It was 2-1 Bison.
On 35 minutes
the Phantoms restored parity to the score. The goal could be described as
bizarre, weird, freakish and outlandish. I am not sure exactly how it went in
but I did see the puck bouncing in the crease and sneaking over the line rather
slowly with a jostling scrum of players in attendance in front of goal. It was
a classic rub of the green goal. The scorer was an unassisted Will Weldon whose
helmet came off in the melée. Had he
touched the puck after the loss of his lid? If so then the goal should be
disallowed for “improper equipment” or had the head and helmet separated after.
The Bison backers clung to the gossamer thread of hope, but alas it was a mere
straw they were clutching at. The stripily attired official who is referee Cloutman declared it to be a black and
white issue. Goal allowed. 2-2. The Phantoms faithful threw their hats in the
air. The Bison backers threw their hats to the floor. Weldon put his hat back
on his head.
So into P3 we
passed and all to play for. From the Phantoms’ perspective a regulation time win
would suit them down to the ground as it would bring them within 4 points of
Bison in the table with a game in hand, but even an overtime win would be
gratefully received I am sure. For Bison a win would maybe not bang the final
nail in the coffin of the Phantoms’ challenge, but it would certainly have had
a funereal impact on their quest for the title. Who would be calling the
undertaker with the final 20 minutes played out? It proved not to be the ghostly
visitors.
After a fairly
frantic P2 with 13 Bison and 11 Phantom shots on goal, the mood of the final
period was seen to change quite significantly with neither side wishing to lose
the game, especially are tiredness set in. There were half the number of shots
on goal compared to the previous period and the atmosphere became increasingly
edgy. Bison presented the Phantoms with their best chance of winning the game
to date with slack defending in the 55th minute when Deadly Darius
broke forward unchallenged over the blue line. The spectre of Pliskauskas was away.
He had passed through the Bison D as easily as an apparition would pass through
a brick wall. The Bison D were more likely to catch a cold than catch the revenant
Phantom. But the wraith which is Jon Baston signalled the death knell of the
ghostly Lithuanian’s scoring attempt as he blocked the shot and 2-2 it remained.
Was that the
Phantoms’ best chance of winning wasted? As it proved no because they snatched
the lead only a minute later on the power play with Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer
banged up for slashing. The aforementioned lethal Lithuanian Deadly Darius
slewed a cross ice pass to Tom Norton who was in on goal at the back door
without a challenge. Let’s mix our metaphors and say the Bison D were up a gum
tree without a paddle, although what use a paddle could be to someone stranded
up a gum tree I cannot say. Baston stood up to face the challenge as he had
done so effectively against Pliskauskas a minute before. Let’s not forget that
an early butterfly leaves the top of the net wide open, but goalies always risk
being beaten 5-hole. And that’s what happened. Norton went 5-hole and it was
3-2 Phantoms.
The naysayers,
the ne’er-do-wells and even the nincompoops in the Bison crowd (some may have qualified
as all three) thought it was game over. But it wasn’t. Bison had a great chance
when Greener robbed possession and broke free. His slap shot was saved, but
rebounded straight to Jarolin whose shot missed the target. In a final hurrah
Coach Sheppard pulled Baston for the last minute of play, but the best chance
during this period fell to the Phantoms. Craig Scott’s empty net attempt was
blocked on the line by Long Ciaron Long, an incident which had all shouting “Great
scott!” But that was it. The final buzzer sounder and it was rub of the green
and 2 points to the Phantoms. Stuart “The Cat” Mogg and Tom Norton were voted Top
Bananas for their respective teams.
Footnote : We all know what rub of the green means,
but where did the expression originate? Scholars reckon it was from the game of bowls,
which is of course played on a green, with a rub being defined as “inequality
of the ground which hinders the motion of the bowl”. Golfers may claim it to be
their own expression. In The Rules of
Golf (1812 edition) it states “Whatever happens to a Ball by accident, must be
reckoned a Rub of the green”. But bowls is a more ancient game, dating to Roman
Times they believe. The oldest bowling green in the world in on our doorstep in
Southampton – the “Old Bowling Green” first used in 1299. Now you know.
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