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 18th 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 115th 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.”
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