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.