Jarolin Pokes Coach Russell in the Eye Once Again

Bison 3 Milton Keynes Lightning 1

19/11/16

In a radio broadcast in 1939 Winston Churchill used the expression “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. You don’t have to look far to find a myriad of unsolved mysteries. Who was Jack the Ripper? How are crop circles formed? Where is the lost city of Atlantis? But the biggest mystery of all must be why did MK’s Coach Russell give the old heave-ho to René Jarolin at around this time last season? Not for the first time since his departure from the Lightning roster did the Slovak sniper give Russell cause to regret his decision. Last night his rubbing salt into the wounds action was to score a late game clinching short handed goal on the breakaway. But I jump ahead, dear reader. There is much to relate about an exciting and competitive game which saw Bison emerge worthy winners.

The opening 10 minutes of the game saw a series of penalties but no power plays as players went into the box in pairs like animals boarding Noah’s ark. Eventually Bison snatched a go ahead goal in the 14^th minute. Desperate Dan Davies and Dangerous Derek Roehl combined to put Long Ciaron Long away. A long journey towards the MK net awaited the hirsute forward as he skated from the Bison half of the ice. He cut inside from the left wing with Roehl in support to the goaltender’s left, but the services of the robust (ask Frankie Bakrlik how robust) American were not required. In 1897 on the island of Hawaii the very last greater koa finch was located by a man called Palmer, hereinafter referred to as "the bastard". Why? Because he shot the bird and, in doing so, extinguished the species. I told you he was a bastard. On this occasion Long Ciaron showed a similar talent for accurate shooting as he sent a wicked wrist shot past goaltender Przemyslaw Odrobny’s head. We heard a clunk. The net bulged and on came the goal light. The puck had gone in bar Mexico. 1-0 Bison.

There was no further scoring in the period and the buzzer sounded with Mk having outshot Bison by 12-9, but having nothing to show for their efforts. However, P2 turned out to be MK’s period. Although outshot 15-11, they managed to square the game. The goal came in the 27^th minute on the power play with Roehl in the box for high sticks. It has always been a mystery to me why they call it high sticks when a player only has one stick unless of course he has picked up a discarded stick from the ice, in which case, if he touches the puck, he could be called for playing with too many sticks – yes that’s a real infraction I can assure you. Never mind all that it was a power play to MK. A minute or so later either Bobby Chamberlain or Jordan Cownie (I am not sure which) fired in a goal bound shot. Tomas Hiadlovsky raised his catcher to collect the biscuit, but, much to the chagrin of the Slovak stopper, Milan Baranyk got his twig in the way and redirected the puck into the net. 1-1 it was and 1-1 the period ended.

And so into P3 we moved and it wouldn’t be long before Bison snatched their second go ahead goal of the game. As a former member of the Peewit Patrol of the 16th Epping Forest Scout Troop, I can confidently tell you that the motto of the Boy Scout movement is “Be Prepared”. Alas none of the MK defence showed any sign of preparedness (yes that is a real word), as Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov skated across the front of goal and was allowed 2 shots on the net, the first on the forehand, the second a lifted backhander, which bounced off Odrobny’s blocker to a totally free and unmarked Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson. Tommo executed a cricket style shot from an acute angle and batted the puck out of the air and into the net past a startled Obrobny. 2-1 Bison with 44:35 on the clock – well at least on one of the scoreboards. Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds with the 2^nd assist.

The period wore on with no sign of MK getting back on level terms. On December 16th, 1916 Grigori Rasputin, the mad Russian monk (see above), was murdered, albeit with difficulty. First he was poisoned, then shot. Later he was shot again (twice) and finally bound up and thrown into a river. Breaking through the D seemed more difficult than even murdering Rasputin. Eventually Coach Russell had seen enough and called a time out. I have no idea what he said but the message was clear as we saw him become animated in the extreme. We observed pulsating, gyrating, jerking, finger wagging and other indications that he wasn’t happy with his players’ performance. The reprimand seemed to work as MK upped a gear and pressed hard for an equalising score. But still Rasputin would not die and Bison continued to hold out. They got a lucky break on 55:04 when Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds was given a 2 + 10 for checking to the head. Eh? Not from where I was sitting it wasn’t. But referee Szuchs sucked on this occasion and off to the box went Bison’s best D-man, leaving Bison short on the blue line with Rabbit's Foot Joe Baird already missing with an injury. And then to make matters even worse for Bison Jan “The Man” Jarabek was called for delay of game as he scooped the puck over the plexi. That left Bison with only 2 D-men, namely Stuart “The Cat” Mogg and Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer, and a power play to defend.

Before the game could restart we saw Odrobny skate out of his goal towards the bench and for what seemed an inordinately long period of time he stood there shouting and waving his stick. Delay of game surely? No. Referee Szuchs sucked once again and didn’t call it. The quick thinking Pole was indicating that, if he was pulled and Jordan Hedley put in the net in his place, his team could field an extra import on the power play. This they did. Alas poor Hedley. He had only one thing to do. He failed, as I shall relate.

MK pressed hard, but Bison stood firm and with 12 seconds of the power play remaining Balmer grabbed possession of the puck and slewed a centre ice pass forward to Jarolin, who found himself free of the encumbrance of defencemen. He skated forward at breakneck speed. Not even Ernie, who drove the fastest milk cart in the west, could have caught him. This was Hedley’s big moment. He had to stop the marauding Slovak from scoring. Jarolin whipped a wrist shot goalwards and, as the puck sailed past Hedley’s head and into the net and he heard the Krakatoa-esque explosion of celebration from the Bison blocks, the hapless goaltender must have thought “Oh bother” or words to that effect. It was his worst nightmare. One shot, one goal and a save percentage of 0 or, as it said on the game sheet, N/A. How beastly for the poor fellow.

Following on with my theme of extinct birds (see above), I regret to inform you that the very last Dodo was hideously murdered on the island of Mauritius in 1681. Whether that deed was committed by a sailor, a rat or a monkey we know not and I have to admit that my description of the murder as "hideous" is a piece of artistic license. However, what we are certain of is that thus the species was extinguished, which gave rise to the expression "as dead as a Dodo". Notwithstanding that there may still be one hiding in a cave somewhere today, only the most belligerent of antagonists would cast doubts on the validity of that expression and so, dear reader, if on a scale of life we were to put you at one end and the Dodo (see below) at the other, you could say without fear of contradiction that with Bison now 3-1 ahead and with only 27 seconds left to play, Lightning’s chances of winning the game were now most decidedly at the Dodo end of said scale. And so it proved. The final buzzer sounded and Bison had bagged the points. Top Bananas were Tom Carlon for the visitors and the Antonov twins for Bison.

Frail Fumbling Phoenix Falter Fail and Fall

Bison 5 Manchester Phoenix 2

12/11/16

These days the Manchester Phoenix are a shadow of the title winning team of yesteryear. With a short bench and no home of their own they roam from Blackpool to the far reaches of the English Premier League clinging to a rocky financial existence. Last night at Planet Ice they gifted 4 goals out of 5 and a host of other opportunities to Bison in a game of defensive nightmares as they slumped like a wet cob wall (see below) to their 16^th defeat in 19 games. It was not the sort of thing those of us who want to see a strong competitive EPL would take pleasure from. But there we go. You can’t have everything and, although the game lacked edge of the seat excitement, it was a welcome win for the Bison backers.

It was all Bison at the start of P1. In fact it was 7 minutes into the game before Phoenix had a shot on goal. Bison eventually took the lead in the 14^th minute. A scrimmage behind the Phoenix goal saw Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov gain the puck and send it out front. There in front of the net to fire a wrist shot past hapless netman Stephen Fone were the Antonovs – Ivan and Vanya. Luckily the referee didn’t see both of them or he would have called Bison for too many men on the ice. 1-0 Bison. Karpov and Long Ciaron Long with the assists.

There was no more scoring in P1, so allow me to move into P2 to continue my narrative, dear reader. Bison opened the 2^nd period in fine style, hitting the goal frame twice within the first 2 minutes and then again 3 minutes later. First Long rang the pipes with a back hander after being given the puck gift wrapped and tied with a ribbon by the Phoenix D. Then René Jarolin did the same after a suicidal pass with a cherry on top had found him unmarked. He had been ignored as surely as would a bacon sandwich at a Bar-Mitzvah. Then Dan “The Specs” Lackey hit the post whilst attempting an empty netter. You would be mistaken if you thought that goaltender Fone had been pulled from the net on this occasion. He had left the net of his own accord. As he dawdled with the puck behind the net Lackey raced from the penalty box at the end of his 2 minutes high sticks incarceration and caught the hapless netman with his trousers down. Lackey took the puck in front of the net, but alas for the Bison backers, could only hit the base of the post with his shot from an acute angle. A let off for Fone, who must have been as embarrassed as a man whose hair piece is carried off by a marauding golden eagle on a crowded beach. Has that ever happened? Maybe.

As the period wore on to the halfway mark things were not looking good for either team. The Phoenix were having their attacks broken up by stalwart Bison defending as well as their own wayward passing and their shots on goal could be counted on the fingers of 2 hands. For Bison to be only 1-0 up against the bottom team in the league was frustrating. It was not turning out to be the flagellation many expected.

However, Phoenix resistance was to crumble on 33:02. Credit to Referee Dave Cloutman for spotting too many imports on the ice on 32:29. Clearly he had been to Specsavers. Bench minor to the Phoenix. 33 seconds later a screened wrist shot from Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer flew past an unsighted Fone and into the net. At that very moment a deafening noise was heard. Was it Kim Jong-Un carrying out another nuclear test?  No it was the explosion of celebration amongst the Bison backers. 2-0 Bison, a goal for Balmer and an assist for Karpov.

On 35:38 Bison bagged another to move into a commanding lead. Jan “The Man” Jarabek speared a long pass forward over the Phoenix blue line. Karpov gave chase in a volacious  (yes that is a real word) manner and was in on goal. Django Reinhardt (see below) was a Belgian Romani jazz guitarist, famous in the 30s and 40s. With only two usable fingers on his left hand, following a caravan fire when he was 18, his fretboard dexterity was nothing short of incredible. Had Django been present last night he would have been impressed with Karpov’s dexterity of stickmanship (is that a real word? It is now). He tied Fone up in knots as he skated across goal and back handed the puck across the line past a befuddled netman. It was a perfectly beastly moment for the goaltender and an absolutely spiffing one for the Czech chap. 3-0 Bison. The second assist for the goal went to goaltender Hiadlovsky.

Shortly after Bison’s 3rd violence of the most disgraceful kind broke out following a dangerous check from behind by Greg Pick on General Grant Rounding. In jumped Declan “Barack-O” Balmer to exact revenge on Pick. Off came helmets and gloves and the two former team mates at Peterborough circled round like a pair of vultures. The crowd bayed for blood. An unfettered orgy of blood and guts violence was what they wanted to satisfy their unnatural craving. For Pick and Blamer this was not a time for reconciliation. The two may have wished to bury the hatchet, but only in each other’s heads. The two came together and meatily hammered into each other. This was a proper fight, not a pushing and shoving handbags type encounter. They eventually ground to a halt and in stepped the officials. 2 + 2 roughing for each and nothing whatsoever to Pick for the original check – very strange.

Comfortable then at 3-0 to the good Bison moved into P3 with hopes of further reward. Their endeavours were rewarded with 2 goals in the space of a minute. On 44:23 an unchallenged Karpov banged home a rebounded shot for his second with Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson and General Grant Rounding elected assistants for the goal. And then another gift of a poorly placed pass out of defence by Phoenix found Dangerous Derek Roehl in front of goal without a challenger. The remains of Richard III went missing for centuries until they were discovered under the concrete of a car park in Leicester in 2012, as we all know. Similarly on this occasion the Phoenix D went missing, albeit not for 5 centuries, but for long enough for Roehl to score. His first shot was saved, but the rebounded puck slid agonisingly past the committed net minder (have you ever wondered why you can have a goal tender and a net minder but never a goal minder or a net tender?) By now Roehl was on his knees, possibly praying to the hockey Gods for another opportunity. He got it. The puck was in reach and he slid it over the line. 5-0 Bison.

With just under 15 minutes to play and 0-5 to the bad, the Phoenix now found themselves in a chunderous position. Could they come back from here to win the game? There seemed as much chance of that as Donald Trump being elected President of the United States. Oh hang on a minute that did happen didn’t it? The latter not the former that is. However, the visitors did manage to score 2 goals without reply to finish the game only 3 goals to the bad. Firstly, on 48:39 some smart work on the boards and a centring pass into the middle by Roman Malinik found Gareth O’Flaherty (is he Welsh, is he Irish?) in front of goal. He snapped the puck past Hiadlovsky and it was 5-1. Greg Pick was declared second assistant for the goal. Then on 54:26 Joni Tuominen whipped a wrist shot past Hiadlovsky for 5-2 with Marek Indra and Vaclav Meidl declared the Finn’s confederates.

Phoenix now looked a different team as, having previously not looked like scoring, they had come back with 2 goals and they only needed another 3 to take the game into overtime. They failed to get them, however, and the final buzzer sounded on 60 minutes with a 5-2 scoreline. Top Bananas were James Neil for the Phoenix and Balmer with a goal and a punch up to his name, but no assist to register a Gordie Howe hat-trick alas, for Bison.