Wonder Goals From Karpov and Long Sink the Cats

Bison 5 Swindon Wildcats 0

12/2/16

Last night’s visitors to Planet ice were the Swindon Wildcats entertaining high hopes of improving on their previous visit to Basingstoke this season when they suffered a 5-1 reverse. As it turned out there was an improvement, but, alas for the visiting fans, not from the Cats. Bison sent their corpuscular red clad opponents home without so much as a goal, but with a 5 goal deficit this time. 2 of those goals were wonder goals, as I shall relate, dear reader, so pray read on.

The first period was played out goal-less, penalty-less and with only 7 shots apiece on goal. The best opportunity to break the deadlock fell to the normally lethal Aaron Nell late in the period. Nell gave the Bison D the slip, making them look as laggardly as a load of lolling, lounge lizard like, leaden legged, lumbering and lascivious libertines as they lazily and leisurely loitered, loafed and lingered which led to their lack of lustre liquidating their labour. Never mind that, Nell was in on goal, but his shot was saved by Tomas Hiadlovsky and the “1” figure below “visitors” on the scoreboard remained unilluminated. Soon after the period ended.

P2 belonged all to Bison as they stepped up a gear and, outshooting the Cats by 15-3 and bagging 3 goals in the process. The first was scored on 24 minutes. Dan Lackey took the puck around the boards behind the goal and found Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov, whose killer centring pass was smacked past goaltender Jordan Hedley by Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack by way of an unstoppable one timer. 1-0 Bison.

3 minutes later it was 2-0. Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds sent in a slap shot from the slot, which Hedley saved. Alas for the hapless netman his failure to freeze the puck led to a pandemonic goalmouth situation most chaotic and confused, disorganised and disordered, turbulent and tumultulous. First Aaron “Billy” Connolly took a stab, but Hedley saved again. The Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt was in the process of shouting “it’s loose as a goose”, but so quickly was René Jarolin onto the rebound that he had time only to shout “it’s loose” before the man on the Milton Keynes wish list put it over the line. 2-0 Bison.

Things were not going well for the visitors. They were finding the well drilled Bison D a hard nut to crack. They were not even carving out opportunities to get in shots on the net and, as a result, were becoming as frustrated as a referee with no pea in his whistle. Things were beginning to look hopeless for the hapless and helpless Cats and they were about to get worse, as I shall shortly relate.

On 36 minutes we were treated to the first wonder goal of the evening. This one scored by Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov. Stuart “The Cat” Mogg took a slap shot from the slot, but his effort was blocked by a Cats’ stick and the puck flew high into the air. Gravity kicked in and the puck began to fall like an Isaac Newton apple to earth. Underneath it was Karpov. Like a professor of ballistics he tracked the flight of the puck and then as it was landing he cracked it into the net with the accuracy of a Agincourt archer’s arrow past an astonished and astounded Hedley. The Mexican in Block M shouted “Holy guacamole” and the Indian in Block I “Blistering biryanis”. They wondered if they had actually seen what they had thought they had seen. Yes they had. It was a masterpiece of hand/eye co-ordination and on the mark shooting, the type of which Annie Oakley would have been proud. 3-0 Bison.

The buzzer sounded to indicate a cessation of hostilities at 40 minutes. At 3-0 to the good Bison looked comfortable. The Cats had managed only 10 shots on goal over the 2 periods and Hiadlovsky was looking sharp. Could the Cats step up a gear in the final period and turn things around? To achieve this they had to break open the Bison defense. They needed the services of Murphy. Eddie Murphy? Spud Murphy? No. Fingers Murphy, legendary safe cracker. But he wasn’t icing. Nevertheless, the Cats did find another gear and managed to test Hiadlovsky on 9 occasions in the 3^rd. Alas for them the stoney Slovak stopper stood solid and blanked the visitors to record a shut out. But I jump ahead.

Into P3 we moved and an incident early in the period disproved the theory of “what goes up must come down” as the puck deflected high into the air and slipped inside the sagging Bacofoil-esque lining of the arena roof never to be seen again. A new puck was pressed into service and very soon it was to find its way into the Cats’ net.

Goal no. 4 for Bison arrived on 47:31. And what a goal it was. Words such as sublime, magnificent, splendiferous and transcendental spring to mind when attempting to describe the goal. Karpov found Long Ciaron Long in a central position just inside the blue line. Long Ciaron was about to display stick handling technique from the top drawer. He toe dragged the puck and ghosted through the Cats’ D as a Panama hat would pass through the aperture of a wedding ring. Eh? See footnote. Now the hapless Hedley was horribly, hideously and heinously denuded of cover. His D had peeled leaving him revealed and from a position wide to the goaltender’s left Long Ciaron whipped in a wrist shot which beat Hedley blocker side and was past him before he could say “Zippity-zackity-zaramango”, although why he would want to say that I have no idea. It truly was a Jumping Jehosophat on a pogo stick goal which had the Bison crowd open mouthed in amazement. The Che Guevara impersonator lit up his usual Cuban cigar in celebration and phoned his friend the Fidel Castro impersonator to tell him the good news – it was now 4-0 Bison and surely game over.

On 54 minutes the referee blew up. Perhaps I should rephrase that. It wasn’t a Mr. Creosote moment (Youtube him if you don’t know what I am talking about). He merely blew his whistle. It was the first penalty call of the night, this on Connolly for high sticks. Now was the Cats’ best chance of breaking their duck. Were they about to cook the Bison goose? Could they ruffle the homesters’ feathers and give their fans something to crow about? In the end they couldn’t feather their nest and ended up with egg on their faces. Goals were becoming as rare as hen’s teeth for them.

No sooner had Connolly re-emerged from the penal institution which is the Barracuda Networks penalty box than he was involved in the setting up of the final goal of the evening. He took the puck into the Cats’ defensive zone, almost lost it but recovered and then found Jarolin who put in Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack. Lack’s first shot was blocked, but he hammered in the rebound to give his sister, lino Amy Lack, a warm glow inside whilst doubtless stifling her natural desire to execute a series of cartwheels across the ice in celebration. 5-0 Bison and surely game over with less than 3 minutes to go and an impossible deficit for the Cats to haul back. Could they come back from this seemingly hopeless position? If any of the Cats faithful thought they could, those thoughts were surely unfounded and ungrounded, illusory and illogical, delusional and deceptive. And so it proved. The clock ran down, the final buzzer buzzed and the points and the pints were Bison’s.

Top bananas were Jan Kostal for the Cats and Dan Lackey with a no nonsense, never say die, Connolly-eque performance and a goal assist for Bison. Man of the Match should have been Bavy for his voluminous pink wigged bedecked dad dancing performance in the box. If you didn’t see it don’t ask me to describe it – it was indescribable.

Footnote : One of the most extraordinary pieces of millinery known to man is the Panama hat, the finest examples of which have 3,000 weaves per square inch and can be rolled up and pulled through an aperture the size of a wedding ring.