Bison Poleaxe Lightning

Bison 4 Milton Keynes Lightning 0

20/10/16

You know how it is when you hear a word or expression and it conveys to you something different to what it actually is? For example, if you heard the words “Elgin Marbles” would you think of this?

If you thought of these glass rolly things that schoolboys and anorakish men play with, both in Elgin and elsewhere, you’d be wrong. The Elgin Marbles are of course a collection of Classical Greek Marble sculptures which were originally part of the temple of the Parthenon in Athens. They were purchased, yes purchased, by Lord Elgin, who brought them to England and they can now be seen in the British Museum. And so, if someone described Milton Keynes Lightning to you as EPL title contenders and Elite League aspirants, you would expect something very different from the team which turned up at Planet Ice last night and were totally run over by a dominant Bison who defended like there was no tomorrow and attacked like there was no day after tomorrow.

Bison opened the 1^st period in rampant mood, going for it, the win, the throat and the jugular all at once. They snatched a well deserved lead in the 5^th minute when Dangerous Derek Roehl went round and round the garden like a teddy bear before setting himself up for a long range shot in front of goal. He sent in a wrist shot arrowing towards the top corner of the net. If their names were anything to go by Fats Waller and Chubby Checker were gentlemen of generous proportions. Had either been present in front of the MK goal there would have been no way through. Alas for the MK faithful their goaltender, Przemyslaw Odrobny, the man with the unpronounceable first name, although 6’4” tall and weighing 208 lbs, is not sufficiently dietrally challenged to block the goal completely and could do nothing as the Roehl shot flew past him and into the net. 1-0 Bison. Assists to Long Ciaron Long and Tomas Hiadlovsky.

There were no more goals in P1. The shot count was 11-8 in Bison’s favour, so fairly even. P2, however, was to prove one of the most one sided periods you are ever likely to see. Bison absolutely dominated play, peppering the Odrobny goal with 22 shots by the end of the period, but up until the 33^rd minute they had nothing to show for their endeavours. They badly needed another goal at least to cement their position. Enter Frankie Bakrlik, every opposition teams' fans’ favourite. On 33:31 was he cross when he checked a Bison player? He must have been as he was called for cross checking. So off to the naughty boy’s step went Bakrlik (by gum he’s been there a few times) and Bison went on the power play. Just over a minute later Bakrlik’s folly cost his team dear. Set up by Roehl, Long hammered a shot goalwards. Odrobny may well have had Long Ciaron’s long shot covered, but there in front of the net was Desperate Dan Davies dangling his twig to redirect the biscuit past a startled netman, whose small size (at least relative to Fats Waller and Chubby Checker) was to prove his undoing as he was unable to block the goal completely. The net bulged, as did Odrobny’s eyes. 2-0 Bison.

Into P3 we passed and if MK wanted to get anything out of the game they had to hope that Bison would do two things. Firstly, go as cold as Paul Weller’s takeaway curry in “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight” and secondly, open up a few gaps at the back. Neither happened. In fact, as the period wore on the Bison D and goaltender Hiadlovsky in particular were looking as impenetrable as Ned Kelly’s body armour - see footnote. And then on 52:10 there came a moment which Odrobny will wish to forget. Will he be able to or will he have recurring nightmares, even when an old man of 90? It was a perfectly ghastly situation that the Polish netman found himself in and the outcome for him was positively beastly. What happened? Roehl broke up a Lightning attack and thwacked the puck forward over the blue line. Long took chase and left the MK defence for dead. The giant Pole decided to use his giant pole to pokecheck the puck away to safety, so he rushed from his goal like a man possessed (perhaps he actually was). His movement forward could be described as brisk, snappy, post-haste and expeditious – yes all of those. And he managed to reach the puck first. Now all he had to do was pokecheck it to safety. Well he did manage a pokecheck, but instead of the puck going to safety it went straight to Long Ciaron, who danced, deked, dangled and deceived a desperately retreating Odrobny. Long held his shot and had the giant Pole flopping all over the place like a fish on the deck of a trawler. He was having his kit dangled off him. The Bespectacled Youth said his jockstrap ended up in Spain. But alas his gyrations, which some may have interpreted as an expressive dance, were to no avail. Long Ciaron inflicted a final humiliation on the wretched netman by driving his shot straight through his 5-hole, which by now was as wide as the Grand Canyon. On came the goal light. 3-0 Bison. Assist to Dangerous Derek Roehl who is racking up the points for Bison and may soon have more points than Imelda Marcos had pairs of shoes.

The good news for MK was that they now had four chances of winning. The bad news was that they were a dog’s chance, a slim chance, a fat chance and a snowball’s chance in hell. With time ticking away and a 3 goal deficit to haul back, they were heading for an ignominious defeat, but it would not be quite an embarrassing flagellation if they could at least score a goal. The game was not destined to peter out in a wimpish hands up surrender type fashion. More excitement was just around the corner, as I shall relate dear reader.

On 55:39 Bison picked up a penalty. René Jarolin was the culprit, allegedly using his stick like some sort of butcher’s meat hook. “2 minutes porridge for you me old china,” said Ref Hogarth and off went Jarolin. A time out was called by MK. Now was the moment for them to throw caution to the wind, as opposed to throw in the towel. It was a last throw of the dice. Odrobny, who so resembles a homeless man (see below) I wanted to give him my spare change, was dragged kicking and screaming from the net and over the wall came an extra skater to make it a 6 on 4. Bison withstood this overwhelming onslaught and then heaped further insult upon the visitors with an empty netter. Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer and Stuart “The Cat” Mogg combined to send Tomas “ Grandmaster” Karpov racing after the puck along the boards. His movement forward could be described as velocious (that’s not a real word is it?) The goal was much nearer than we are to Pluto (and I am not referring to Mickey Mouse's dog), but Karpov had a D-man in between him and the goal. He cut inside, effortlessly slipping past the D-man and stroked the puck into the empty net. 4-0 Bison and no way back for the hapless visitors. Back came Odrobny for a final 2:50. The towel had been finally thrown in.

The final buzzer sounded and the Lightning had received a damned good hiding. Yea a veritable trousers down caning. Thrashed to within an inch of their lives. Their hopes of winning the game flailed and flagellated until red raw. OK I think this analogy has gone far enough. Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A are you reading this? All that remained was for Lewis Hook and Desperate Dan Davies to receive their Top Banana awards and for Odrobny to try to collect enough spare change to travel to Spain in search of his jockstrap.

Footnote : In 1880 during the siege of Glenrowan (Ned Kelly’s last stand) as dawn was breaking, Kelly appeared out of the mist-shrouded bush, clad in armour and wearing a long white coat to shoot it out with the police at point blank range. Bewildered policemen took him to be a ghost. The notorious bush ranger was brought down by shots to his unprotected legs, but, despite being hit several times, the armour remained unpenetrated.

Dogs Bark but Bison Bite

Bison 5 Sheffield Steeldogs 3

22/10/16

3 weeks ago the Steeldogs came to Planet Ice and put in a chunderous poodle–esque performance. Outshot by 53-15 they were sent back to the frozen wastes of the North on the end of a 0-3 scoreline. Had it not been for the Berlin Wall known as James Hadfield in the Dogs’ net there would have been avalanche of goals. Last night we saw a completely different Dogs’ team. They came to Bisontown, gave the hosts a game and were in contention right up until late in the 3^rd period when a Karpov clincher sealed their doom, as I shall relate dear reader, so pray read on.

It took Bison only 2 minutes to snatch the go ahead goal. The follically challenged Matt Towalski, scorer of the clinching goal last week, took the puck away from the boards, delayed his pass to draw the defence, then found Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov, who snapped the puck past Hadfield. 1-0 Bison and not a good start for the canine visitors.

Things were to go from bad to worse 2 minutes later. A sonorous blast from Referee Cloutman’s Acme Thunderer and a raised arm indicated a penalty. Arnoldas Bosas was called for cross checking and sent to the penalty box to reflect on his conduct and hopefully emerge 2 minutes later a repentant and reformed character. In fact his incarceration ended early, but the 36 seconds spent in the box probably did allow Bosas adequate time for reflection and reformation as he did not reoffend for the rest of the game. Alas for the lethal Lithuanian his absence allowed Bison to score a power play goal following the mother of all blue paint scrambles. To say the puck was as loose as a goose in front of the Hadfield net would be an understatement. I would have liked to have seen a diagram showing the path of the puck as it moved here and there, hither and thither, backwards and forwards, from side to side, from stick to pad to skate all in the space of a few seconds. The only thing it didn’t do was move up and down. Eventually it was poked in by Long Ciaron Long and it was 2-0 Bison.

At 0-2 to the bad and only 4:21 on the clock the Dogs were staring an ignominious flagellation in the face. However, they came back into the reckoning on 8 minutes with a goal of their own. A turn over saw Greg Wood charging forward with Liam Charnock in support in a 2 on 1. Wood hammered forward as if his life depended on it. If he was actually thinking that his life was in peril, he must be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He drew D-man and netman and squared a perfect pass to Charnock who hammered the puck past a hung out to dry Tomas Hiadlovsky. 2-1 and all to play for.

Bison weren’t going to take it lying down and on 11:27 made it 3-1 and revive hopes of that flagellation. Karpov moved around the back of the goal, shaking off both a plethora and a myriad of attempts to dispossess him. He then fed the puck out front to Dan “The Specs” Lackey, who lurked menacingly in front of the net. According to Edward Lear the owl and the pussy cat were married by “a turkey who lived on the hill” (3rd verse). In this case it looked as if the whole Dogs’ D were composed of turkeys, not because a marital ceremony was involved, but because they had left Lackey unhindered and free to do his own thing. His own thing turned out to be scoring his first goal for Bison as he stuffed the puck past the hapless Hadfield, who had been left completely unprotected. 3-1 Bison.

The Dogs had to tighten up or a catastrophe akin to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 (see below) would befall them. This they did and indeed went one better with an arrears reducing goal on 17:31. Even the most biased Bison backer could not help but admire the flowing move – a masterpiece of skating, movement, stick handling and shooting which ended with Liam Kirk whipping a vicious wrist shot past Hiadlovsky for 3-2. Arnoldas Bosas and Ben Morgan were adjudged to have been Kirk’s confederates on this occasion. Moments late Pavel Mrna nearly made it 3-3 on the breakaway, but Hiadlovsky proved equal to his effort and blocked the Mrna shot.

 And so into the interval we moved. It had been a very even period and a solitary goal difference is a margin as thin as a Rizla fag paper in hockey terms and so it proved as the Dogs brought it back to 3-3 halfway through P2. Mrna slipped like a slippery eel past 3 Bison players and roofed a shot. Cole Shudra and Lewis Bell were declared Mrna’s accomplices. It has to be said lovely skating and stick handling and an unstoppable finish. Bah!

The clock was ticking down towards the buzzer which would signal an end to the hostilities of P2. Having led 3-1 but now pegged back to parity, Bison must have been keen to get their noses in front by the end of the period if they could. And indeed they did. With 3 minutes remaining some “never say give up the puck” play from the Antonov twins and Karpov culminated in Antonov (not sure if it was Ivan or Vanya) supplying a pass to the blueline when J.J. (not Pitchley but Jan Jarabek) lurked. He had a clear sight of goal and brought his stick down on the biscuit. The puck took flight displaying the aerodynamic qualities of an airborne keema naan thrown at the Chittagong chapatti chucking championships. It came from a long way out and not through a screen, but alas for Hadfield he failed to pick up the flight of the puck and it flew over his shoulder into the net. 4-3 Bison, first Bison goal for Jan “The Man” and an Ooo Betty moment for Hadfield.

There were no more goals in P2 and so the teams left the ice with all to play for in the 3^rd. The game was balanced on a knife edge and one or t’other of the two teams had to grasp the nettle, step up to the plate and grab the spoils. It would be Bison who took up the gauntlet and cracked the whip to leave the Dogs barking up the wrong tree and crying over spilt milk (Ok that’s enough idioms). After a period of domination (16 shots on goal to 6) the clinching goal came late in the game, namely on 55 minutes. Aaron “Billy” Connolly fired a cross ice pass for one of the Antonovs to chase. Was it Ivan Antonov or Vanya Antonov? I am not sure, but what I can tell you is that he dug out the biscuit and gave it to Karpov, who took his time and then fired a shot goalwards. In the meantime Antonov had moved to a positon in front of the net was completely was unmarked. He had been ignored as surely as would be a flasher on a naturist beach. Whichever Antonov he was, he distracted the attention of Hadfield and Karpov’s shot went in. 5-3 Bison, Karpov’s second and another Ooo Betty moment for the hapless Hadfield, who was proving more Emmental cheese than Berlin Wall.

Could the Dogs come back from this 2 goal deficit as they had earlier in the game? There was enough time, but alas for the canine visitors they looked as if the stuffing had been knocked out of them by Bison 5^th goal. Nevertheless, they were handed a Willy Wonka golden ticket with 2:08 left when Bison received a bench minor penalty. So on the power play went the Dogs. They could have pulled Hadfield for a 6 on 4 and given themselves a straw to clutch at, but, because of ill discipline, the straw was to remain unclutched as half a minute later Donatus Kumeliauskas was called for interference and the Dogs’ advantage wilted like a hyacinth in the Sahara. There was now as much chance of a comeback as Morgan Freeman being elected Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. And so it proved. The Dogs lost the game and Mr. Freeman remained unelected. But elections were held shortly after for the Top Banana awards. Mrna was named top Dog and Karpov no. 1 Bison.

 

Towalski’s Late Breakaway Goal Exorcises the Phantoms

Bison 3 Peterborough Phantoms 1

15/10/16

With 2 wins over Bison already this season including the heist of the century (see previous report) on their last visit, the Phantoms may have hoped to pull off another larcenous pilferage of points from an audacious breaking and entering escapade at Planet Ice last night. They damn nearly pulled it off with the final result being in doubt right up until we were inside the final 2 minutes when a breakaway goal scored at lightning speed by Matt Towalski put the result beyond doubt.

Bison had much the better of P1, but it wasn’t until the 18^th minute that they finally put the puck past Adam Long, not to be confused with Ciaron Long, who is someone completely different of course, in the ghostly goal. Ever shopped in Cribb’s Causeway just north of Bristol? Did you know it was named in honour of Tom Cribb, a Bristol sailor and the greatest bare knuckle prize fighter of them all? He was undefeated All England champion from 1809 to 1822. His two epic fights against freed American slave Tom Molyneaux in 1810 and 1811 are stuff of boxing folklore. It was said of Cribb that he never gave up. On occasions he was beaten to a pulp, but he never threw in the towel and always came back to win. Had he been present at Planet Ice last night he would have been impressed by the never-say-die attitude of Dangerous Derek Roehl in scoring the opening goal. He charged forward, nearly lost the puck, nearly lost his feet, nearly lost his stick, nearly lost his marbles, but somehow kept control of puck, stick, himself and retained his sanity as he cut through the Phantoms’ D as decisively as a Samurai sword made of the finest tempered steel and freshly sharpened by an itinerant gypsy knife sharpener would slice though a slab of blancmange. Eventually and despite being tripped, crosschecked, butt ended, speared and slashed (or so it appeared from where I was) in an attempt by the Phantoms' defence to derail the Big-D train, he somehow forced the puck over the line whilst falling to the ice. The Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A likened it more to a snooker shot. In it went past a hapless Adam Long. 1-0 Bison. Assists to René Jarolin and both Antonovs.

P1 ended without any addition to the scoring. P2 opened in spectacular style for Bison. On 20:58 the whistle went. I don’t mean it left the rink. I should say it was blown. James Ferrara was called for high sticks. “It’s a touch of chokey for you, you dastardly miscreant,” said Referee Szuchs. Off to the cooler went Ferrara. The Phantoms defended the power play concretely for 114 seconds. Alas for them they failed to defend concretely in the 115^th second. Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson twisted and tuned this way and that, hither and thither, backwards and forwards and every which way behind the goal line and then fired a pass to Jarolin out wide. He in turn slewed a cross ice pass to Dangerous Derek Roehl and from right on the blue line, he whipped in a wrist shot on goal. Davy Crockett, legendary frontiersman, could split a musket ball shooting at the edge of an axe. Could Roehl match that degree of shooting accuracy? We heard a clunk, we saw the net bulge, we saw the red goal light come on – Roehl had indeed matched the frontiersman’s skill. The speed and direction of the puck had bamboozled goaltender Long and gone in off the goal frame. Did it hit the post or the bar? The Bespectacled Youth said it must have hit the post not the bar or the puck would have gone “bar Mexico”, as he put it, instead of flying into the back of the net. The Che Guevara impersonator, with Physics O-level to his name, thought there was some scientific logic in that and agreed. Who cares what it hit? It was a goal and a jumping Jehosophat goal on a pogo stick at that. 2-0 Bison.

So there the Phantoms had it 0-2 to the bad, outshot at a rate of 2-1 so far and looking overrun most of the time as the Bison onslaught continued. They had to produce a rabbit from a hat or, which would have been of more value than a rabbit, a goal. As we know a 2 goal lead is nothing in hockey. Just ask the Phantoms. Last weekend they managed to lose to the Steeldogs despite being 4-0 up inside the first 5 minutes of the game. All they needed was a score and never mind the rabbit to be back in the hunt. And this they got on 26:06 – a goal that is, not a rabbit. It was a well worked goal with James Archer passing inside to Darius Pliskauskas, who found Ales Padelek as a man over, as opposed to a man overboard. With Tomas Hiadlovsky committed Padelek found the gap between netman and post, which was wider than the gap between Terry Thomas’s front teeth (see below), and reduced the arrears to put the Phantoms back in it.

This was bad news for Bison. Despite dominating play, they were not dominating the scoreboard, which by the way continued to malfunction, but then we wouldn’t hope for anything different at Planet Ice – it’s what contributes to the place’s character. The buzzer to end P2 sounded with Bison outshooting the Phantoms by a massive 25-10 over the first 2 periods, but enjoying a lead as slender as an anorexic super model. This resulted in a rather tense P3 for the Bison backers. The period was much more even on the balance of play as the Phantoms pressed forward in an attempt to pull off another hockey heist. Eventually with the clock ticking down inside the final 2 minutes they were caught with their flies undone and they were indeed undone, as I shall now relate.

Imagine you lived at the top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (the tallest building in the world). The lift is out of order and the fishmonger has just arrived in the lobby with your makerel order. You lower your basket on a string from the 163rd floor, but, as you are hauling up your dinner, the string breaks 10 feet from the top and your fish plummets to an ignominious doom 2,712 feet below. Holy halibut. What a disaster that would be. Well what happened to the Phantoms with 1:14 left was a disaster of equal proportions. Pressing forward for that elusive equalising score, they over committed. Declan Balmer broke up an attack and fed Jarolin, who was clear of the D. It would have been bad enough if it had been a 2 on 1, but it was much worse than this – it was a 2 on 0. Jarolin passed inside to Matt Towalski, the follically challenged Russian import (only one of those is correct), who skated forward in a curry-in-a-hurry fashion. In the net things were about to get vindaloo hot for Adam Long. His defence had proved as brittle as a poppadum hit by a stale samosa. Could he now make amends with a save to keep out the marauding pseudo Russian. No he couldn’t. Towalski, who had skated forward at breakneck speed, dangled, bamboozled the hapless netman and rifled the puck home. 3-1 Bison and the ghostly chances of winning the game were now dead, stone dead, as dead as a do-do, dead in the water and as dead as a drowned drongo.

There was no coming back from this surely, but the Phantoms tried, pulling Long from the net for a 6 on 5 final hurrah, but they couldn’t break though. Right at the death Hiadlovsky made an attempt at the empty net, but his shot was deflected. Then Dangerous Derek had a go, but his shot missed the target just as the final buzzer went. Game over. 3-1 Bison.

All that remained was election of Top Bananas for the game. James Ferrara was appointed the best ghost and, for the second home game in a row, the man with 3 nicknames bagged it – Dangerous Derek “Del Boy” Roehl, the Big-D.

Footnote : Sad News! Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack is leaving us. Sad that we have lost a popular combative player like Alan, but even sadder for me is that I shall never be able to include in a report :“In scoring the goal Lack was not lacking a lackey. Lackey was Lack’s Lackey.”

Roehl Derails the Pirates

Bison 3 Hull Pirates 1

8/10/16

After last Saturday when a bunch of blokes from Sheffield turned up at Planet Ice pretending to be hockey payers and said, “we’ll give you a game”, we were hoping for something a trifle more, shall we say, competitive with the visit of last night’s piratical opponents. After Bison had left the Steeldogs hanging from the highest yardarm last week we expected was a bit more swashbuckle, a bit more buccaneer, a bit more let’s swing on board your ship with cutlasses in our teeth from the Hull Pirates. And that’s exactly what we got, although it didn’t appear so at first with Bison pinning the Pirates down from the first puck drop. In fact, it took two and a half minutes for the Pirates to take the puck across the red line. However, they found their sea legs soon after and by the end of the period had tested Tomas Hiadlovsky in the Bison net on 8 occasions. His counterpart in the piratical net, namely Jordan Marr, kept out 16 shots and was looking increasingly Berlin Wall-esque as he journeyed on a path, not to redemption, but to the Man of the Match award. Bison’s 1^st period efforts can be summed up thus ….. though threatened, they thrashed through the throbbing throng, then, thrillingly, thrust the thing thither – thwack! – thus thoughtfully thwarting those thieving, thunderingly thickheaded thugs, thereafter thoroughly thrown. My best use of alliteration ever. But what does it mean? I have no idea myself. Let’s move on.

P2 opened and Bison thought they had taken the lead soon after. A shot deflected high into the air and then fell to earth like an Isaac Newton apple. On hand was Dangerous Derek Roehl (pronounced rail, not roll, reel, real or royal by the way) to hammer the puck into the net. Alas for Roehl the referee, who was to enjoy a somewhat bizarre game with several odd decisions, only some of which I have time to relate, dear reader, ruled the goal not a goal because of high sticks. So still 0-0.

Bison continues to press and Jordan Marr’s life became more and more charmed as the clock ticked on. During a power play with Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack doing porridge, Bison had more shots on goal than the Pirates and so nearly bagged a shortie when René Jarolin and Desperate Dan Davies bypassed the D-man in a 2 on 1, but the shot was saved, hit the post or went wide – sorry to be so vague. Suffice it to say it didn’t go in. Surely Bison had to score soon. Well actually no – it was the Pirates who bagged a goal in the 32^nd minutes. In the U.S. military “dereliction of duty” is a court martial offence. The first men charged with such during World War II were Lieutenants Sincock and Balides, who mistakenly dropped bombs on Zürich in Switzerland, which was, of course, a neutral country, thinking it was Freiberg in Germany. The actions of the Bison D were nowhere near as serious as bombing Zurich, but it could be said without fear of contradiction that they were guilty of dereliction of duty as Lee Bonner (don’t forget to spell his name with 2 x Ns) and the luxuriantly bearded Jason Hewitt sent Andrej Themar away on a break. He slipped the Bison D-man, cut inside to carve out a 1-on-1 with Hiadlovsky and scored. 1-0 Pirates.

Oh dear. Was this going to be another heist of the century (see previous report)? The position Bison now found themselves in was as undesirable as the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A returning home to find his eccentric butler sweeping up the shattered remains of his 16^th century Ming vase having used it for a wicket in a game of indoor cricket. They had to get back into the game as soon as possible and this they did with an unassisted goal, which actually was assisted. Just over a minute after the piratical opener a shot from the point was tipped in by Aaron “Billy” Connolly in an almost carbon copy of the goal he scored last week against the Dogs. Whoever it was who fired in the shot was worthy of an assist, but no-one, not even Tony Hand, came forward and said “it was me” and so the goal was recorded for all time as unassisted. In 100 years’ time when the game sheet is read the identity of the assistant will still be a mystery. Never mind. It was 1-1 and all to play for.

P2 was proving a much more even period than P1 and it would have been a fair reflection of play for the teams to have returned to the locker rooms with a goal apiece at cessation of P2 hostilities. However, Bison had other ideas and on 38:50 bagged a go ahead goal, which had the artistic qualities of Rodin, Nureyev and Picasso, but thankfully not with Rodin painting, Nureyev sculpting and Picasso doing ballet. Jarolin broke up the left wing and received a pass from Connolly. Jarolin's pass across the face of the goal found Roehl, who cut inside in front of the goal and unleashed a top shelfer past Marr, who was by now screened by his own D-men and couldn't react as the puck sailed past his glove and into the net. There was nothing that the Pirates’ D could have done about it. They might just as well have gone off looking for Captain Kidd’s treasure instead (see footnote). 2-1 Bison.

Soon after the period ended and shortly after that the period between periods ended so into the 3^rd period we passed. Referee Tim Pickett was about to enjoy his finest hour. Ivan or Vanya Antonov (I didn’t see which one) shot, Marr saved, scooped the puck back with his stick, but it hit his pad and went in. The Pickett flat hand pointed emphatically towards the net. The Antonov twins looked surprised. “It was a good goal,” Mr. Pickett must have thought and then “actually no it wasn’t” and washed it off. Eh? He blew his whistle when the puck disappeared under Marr, thinking it to be frozen. But the puck squirted through and over the line. If he blew the whistle to stop play, why did he then indicate a goal? The words “ear” and “pig’s” come to mind. Perhaps his namesake Wilson Pickett could have done a better job. Never mind. Both the Antonovs continued to look surprised.

On 50 minutes, however, we saw the Pickett flat hand once again and this time it was not retracted. Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov won a face off in the Pirates’ defensive zone. The puck came to Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer just inside the blue line. He sent in a wrist shot, which, much to everyone’s surprise, flew unblocked into the goal for 3-1 Bison. One can only assume that Marr was screened as the puck came from a long way out. 3-1 Bison.

Shortly after we were then treated to another rather odd refereeing decision. Rabbits’ Foot Joe Baird lifted the puck into air. It followed a perfect arc as it rose and then fell back to the ice beyond the red line, its trajectory uninterrupted by any part of the Planet Ice structure. A blast from Mr. Pickett’s Acme Thunderer stopped play as, in his view, the puck had hit the ceiling. Piffle! An anguished cry of “Oi Pickett. What are you smokin’?” emanated from Block C. Mr. Pickett didn’t enlighten us. It mattered not. A face off was being signaled.

 

And so we moved into the final 3 minutes of the game. Imagine you are Dr. Hook and you’re talking on the phone to Sylvia’s mother, trying to persuade her to put her daughter on the line. The operator says, “40 cents more for the next 3 minutes.” But you haven’t got 40 cents more. You could describe your situation as desperate. And by now the Pirates were in such a desperate situation. However, with 2:25 remaining the Pirates were thrown a lifeline. Roehl was adjudged to have tripped Thamar. The Bison crowd were outraged. Their blood boiled just as surely as the jolly swagman’s billy boiled by the billabong. Particularly vociferous was the Howling Man in Block C. “What a dive,” was his considered opinion and he proceeded to tell us several times over at full volume, as he turned progressively more purple with every exclamation. However, Referee Pickett rejoiced in a contrary opinion to the Howling Man’s and it was only his opinion which mattered. So off to the house of correction went Dangerous Derek. The 5 on 4 soon became a 6 on 4 as the Pirates pulled their goaltender. It was a case of cheerio Jordan Marr - an early tiffin for you old fruit. Bison held out and even managed several empty net shots, none of which went in.

The final buzzer sounded and the buccaneering boarders had been repelled. Top Bananas were goaltender Marr for the Pirates and Dangerous Derek Roehl for Bison. Well done to both. Referee Pickett did not get an award.

Footnote : Notorious pirate William Kidd was hanged in 1701. He claimed to have buried a huge stash of treasure, but declined to say where. Adventurers have been searching for Captain Kidd’s treasure for 300 years, but it has never been found. Was he having a laugh?