Flames Falter but Bison Don't

Bison 3 Guildford Flames 1

20/3/16

Having clinched the league title one week earlier Bison entertained the Guildford Flames, already assured of 3^rd place in the EPL, for a dead rubber. The game was played in a robust competitive spirit, despite both teams doubtless wishing to avoid injuries going into next weekends’ play off quarter finals. Such a season ending injury occurred the previous evening when Milton Keynes D-man Martti Jarventi perpetrated one of the worst cases of assault on Bison skipper Aaron “Billy” Connolly I have ever seen. Billy sustained a broken cheekbone which will put him out of the playoffs. Jarventie's punishment – just a match penalty. If that had occurred on the street it would have been 5 years for GBH.

On to the game then. On 7 minutes we saw a scoop. The dictionary defines scoop as “a utensil composed of a palm-sized hollow hemisphere attached to a horizontal handle, for dishing out ice cream or other soft foods”. Could Jez Lundin’s stick be thus described? Although no ice cream was involved nor was there a palm sized hollow hemisphere, he did use his stick as a scoop to propel the puck over the plexi, so I would say yes it could. The referee’s whistle blew. “Oi, matey, that’s delay of game and you can’t do that,” Mr. Matthews may have enunciated. Off to the house of penal reform went Lundin. Bison took full advantage and bagged the first goal of the game 37 seconds into the power play. Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack’s slightly wayward pass to Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer saw the puck pass out of the Flames’ defensive zone. Out came the Bison forwards. Balmer skated backwards, took control of the puck and fired the biscuit back across the blue line to Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov. The Flames’ D would have wished Karpov’s movement and motion to be alike and akin to an apathetic apothecary listlessly and languidly reaching for a remedy. But no. The slippery Czech chap skated in on goal and unleashed a wrist shot, which passed through the 5-hole of the hapless goaltender Gregg Rockman. 1-0 Bison.

We had to wait until the 18^th minute to see another goal and, much to the joy and jubilation of the Bison backers, it was another Bison goal. Lack fired in a shot which was wide of the mark. The puck rebounded off the back boarding straight to Karpov. He passed inside to an unchallenged Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson. Tommo took his time (well why not - there was no-one closing him down), picked his spot (well why not – he had the time) and fired past Rockman. 2-0 Bison. The goal caused the Bison backers to enrapture expansively, enunciating ecstatic elation and the visiting supporters to be depressingly disenchanted, disconsolate, despairing and dejected.

And so we came to the end of P1 with no further scoring. Bison must have been content with a 2 goal advantage, an accurate reflection of the play with a shot count of 13-6 in their favour. However, as any hockey will know, such a lead is frail and all it would take would be an early score for the Flames to be back in with a chance. This they bagged in the 25^th minute when Matt Towe, set up by Danny Meyers and Sam Godfrey, burst in on goal.  Nobody could accuse him of being a lazy, indifferent or apathetic devil-may-care. Indeed no. His movement put him more in the category of an energetic, hasty and enthusiastic fleet-of-foot as he raced forward and 5-holed Tomas Hiadlovsky. 2-1.

Could the Flames go on from here and level it? Fie and pish! Their revival hit the buffers only 2 minutes later when Alan Lack scored on the wraparound. He swept around the back of the goal, appeared at the back door and attempted to squeeze the puck in. It was at this point that I lost sight of the puck. The Headbanger, a close observer of the incident, informed me that Rocky made a hash of it. Was he trying to clear it, smother it, shoot it or fall on it. I know not. But what I can tell you is that the goal light came on and it was “Ooo Rocky” as opposed to “Ooo Betty”. Long and Karpov were awarded assists for the goal. The aforementioned Headbanger was moved to celebrate the goal with an utterance of “Musha ring dumb a do dumb a da”. Very few of you, my dear readers, will know why. 3-1 Bison.

The period was played out with no addition to the score. It ended with Bison in control at 3-1 to the good. Another period of dominance for the home team with a P2 shot count of 13-8. The Flames needed to step it up in the 3^rd or all hopes would be lost. They did, but could not find a way past Hiadlovsky. Neither could Bison breach the Flames’ pipes, so I have no more goals to describe. There were, however, a couple of interesting incidents. Firstly, one of Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson’s skate blades came off. (OK I admit I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill out this report). He later reappeared with repaired footwear. The Man with 3 Ear-rings speculated that Jonny “Shut-em-out” Baston had repaired it on his Black and Decker Workmate. What? Yes Jonny was actually seen carrying one at a recent away game. For what purpose we can only speculate. By the way did you know that there are 30 million Workmates in the world? 29,999,999 if you exclude Jonny’s.

The second and only other incident of note occurred when the aforementioned ear-ringed gentleman scooped the 50-50. He immediately acquired a number of new friends including the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs Shirt who asked him if he could “tap him for a monkey”. The Man with 3 Ear-rings had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and the monkey remained untapped.

The final buzzer sounded and all that remained was the final ceremony of presenting the medals to the players and the EPL champions cup to the team and saying a fond farewell to Joe Greener, who is off to coach in the USA. Thank you Joe for 4 great years. The title had been earned with some hard fought wins on the road, but in the final analysis it was Bison’s home form with 24 wins and only 3 losses to their name which had swung it. So regular season over. Now the playoffs. Stay tuned.