Bees' Old Boys Bash Bracknell

Bison 5 Bracknell Bees 0

21/1/17

Edward Teach was the most notorious pirate of the 18th century. Who? Why Blackbeard of course. He would strike terror into the hearts of merchant seamen whose ships he approached. A big man with a colossal black beard he would be seen standing on the deck of his ship wearing a conspicuous red coat and with two swords hanging from his belt and a bandoleer holding six flintlock pistols across his chest. To accentuate his Devilish image he would weave smouldering tapers into his hair and beard. No wonder most of the merchant vessels he approached gave up without a fight. Well last night we could a similar capitulation as the lowly Bracknell Bees with a season’s record of 7 and 31 and including 0 and 5 against Bison came to the crumbling wreck known as the Basingstoke Arena for their final tilt of the season against their local rivals. Far from being intimidated they gave it a go and almost matched Bison shot for shot. But alas for the Bees they were undone by their former players with 4 of Bison’s 5 being scored by ex Bees as Bison took their chances with clinical precision.

P1 opened and on 8:29 The Bees’ Josh Smith was banged to rights for slashing. Referee Pickett felt his collar and sent him down the steps to the slammer to do 2 minutes’ porridge. He must have hoped that his teams’ penalty kill would snuff out the Bison threat. It didn’t. A minute into the power play René Jarolin skated across from the right wing and unleashed a shot. The diminutive and follically challenged Bees’ netman, Alex Mettam, might have had the shot covered, but it mattered not a jot as Vanya and Ivan Antonov were there to tip it in (I am not sue which one). Luckily Referee Pickett didn’t see both of them or he would have called Bison for too many men on the ice and disallowed the goal. Mettam, appeared to get a piece of it, but not enough of a piece. Had he possessed Hobbit sized feet, similar to Frodo Baggins, he might have been able to stop the shot, but he didn’t and couldn’t. The puck sneaked across the line. The explosion of joy in the Bison backer blocks could be likened to the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24th, 79 A.D., but thankfully no molten lava was involved. 1-0 Bison.

Bison were not content with a solitary goal advantage and doubled their lead less than 3 minutes later. It was short handed penalty shot goal and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those before. The sequence of events began when Matt Towlaski, who sounds like a Russian but isn’t, was sent to the cooler for slashing. With the penalty nearly expired one of the Antonov twins burst through a statuesque Bees’ defence and was in on goal. The covering D-man, who hadn’t lived up to his task title, could not dispossess the flying Russian by fair means and instead impeded him by foul means. Up went Mr. Pickett’s arm. He deliberated for what seemed like an eternity as the crowd bellowed “PENALTY SHOT!” and then crossed his arms above his head to indicate that it was indeed a penalty shot. Vanya and Ivan Antonov discussed between themselves who was going to take the shot and Vanya was elected shooter. He steamed straight up the middle and unleashed a vicious wrist shot, which flew past the hapless Mettam and into the net. 2-0 Bison.

Time ticked by, as it does, and into the final minute of P1 we passed. “That will be it then – a 2-0 interval lead”, said the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt to the Che Guevara impersonator. But what do they know? Bison hadn’t finished yet and with 34 seconds to go they rippled the net once more. And the nature of the goal was very Oooo Betty as far as the Bees were concerned. Jarolin cut across the point from the right wing and made his point by unleashing a shot. Mettam executed a smart save and the puck rebounded far away up the slot. Alas the luxuriantly bearded netman was now out of his goal and, as he attempted to slide across, he was bowled over by one of his own players, losing both his stick, his marbles and his temper all at once. It was Keystone Cops stuff in the Bees’ D. The puck fell perfectly for Matt Towlaski just inside the blue line. He delivered a cracker of a clapper and the puck flew into the empty net with the velocity of a bullet fired from the Lee Enfield .303 of Howard Railton. (Who? See footnote). 3-0 Bison.

Half a minute later the buzzer sounded to bring an end to the proceedings of P1. It had been a purple period for Bison. How purple? Put it this way. Had Prince been present he would have been impressed with the degree of purpleness.

P2 opened, there were no goals, but plenty of incidents, none of which I am going to describe. P2 closed.

The Bees must have been satisfied with their P2 shut out performance. However, their hopes of getting back into the game were cruelly dashed like surf upon the rocks within 2 minutes of the start of the final period, as I shall relate, dear reader. But first …..

In 1852, Elisha Otis introduced the safety elevator, which prevented the fall of the cab if the cable broke. He demonstrated it at an exposition in the Crystal Palace (see above) in a dramatic, death-defying presentation in 1854. His accomplice cut the rope suspending the elevator (see top of picture), but the safety device locked the platform in place and thus prevented Mr. Otis from plunging to a hideous doom. The astonished spectators stood open mouthed in amazement. And in a similar fashion the Bison backers stood astonished, amazed and open mouthed at Bison's 4^th goal which occurred on 41:46 as it was a feat of similar spectacularity (OK I know that’s not a real word). Antonov to Roehl. Dangerous Derek’s shot/pass took to the air (possibly deflected by another stick). The puck bounced in front of Jarolin, who had his back to the goal. Nothing looked on, but suddenly the puck was in the net. Jarolin had scored with a backhander batting the puck out of the air. A truly extraordinary effort. Elisha Otis would have been impressed. 4-0 Bison.

Bison surged further ahead on 43:50. It was a masterpiece of manoeuvring by General Grant Rounding, of which his namesake General Ulysses S. Grant (see below) would have been impressed. Set up by Long and Karpov he sliced through the Bees’ D as if it wasn’t there. You could say that the defending was bungled, botched and bollixed (not that’s not a mis-spelling of a rude word – look it up in the dictionary – it’s a real word). The inept D-men provided no obstacle to Rounding’s progress and, as a consequence, must have adopted feelings of acute embarrassment. The general appeared to have lost the puck, but he hadn’t. He had, in fact, retained possession and slipped the biscuit past Mettam to become the third ex-Bee to score on the night. 5-0 Bison.

Many years ago the last hair fell from the scalp of the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A – it had finally gave up its desperate struggle to remain in its follicle. At 0-5 down the Bees could have capitulated and surrendered to the inevitable in a similar fashion, but they didn’t. They continued to give their all in a desperate attempt to find a way past the rock solid Tomas Hiadlovsky in the bison net. They failed. Hiadlo had his shut out and Bison had the points.

All that remained was to elect the Top Bananas (presentations by Mystic Jo!). Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson copped the Bees’ accolade and the Antonov twins were once again forced to share the prize between them.

Footnote : Howard Railton was the best shot in my school shooting team. He was the top gun at the Essex Shoot in 1971 & 1972. Now you know.