Shell-shocked Goaltender Lakosil Lacks the Will to Live

Bison 6 Hull Pirates 1

28/1/17

All the way from the Hungarian MOL Liga came the curiously named Czech goaltender Vlastimil Lakosil to keep net for the famed Hull Pirates. Little did he realise that he would be playing behind a defence composed entirely of invisible men. Last night at Planet Ice the homesters racked up an astonishing 70 shots on goal and by the end of the evening the wretched netman must have wanted to rush off to the nearest psychiatrist’s couch, so jangled were his nerves.

P1 opened and Bison were on the offensive straight away. However, despite their dominance, they had to wait until the last minute of the period before they set the scoreboard clicking. Having shut the homesters out for 19:36, what the Pirates did not need was a chunderous defensive lapse. Instead of iron-curtain-esque defending, what we saw was wet-paper-bag-esque defending as Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds put in Long Ciaron Long. Long Ciaron was in on goal and slid the puck past Lakosil. 1-0 Bison.

Shortly after the interval buzzer sounded. It had been a zim-zam-zaramango period for Bison in terms of dominance of play, which was illustrated by the shot count of 23-5 in their favour. However, a solitary goal advantage can be overturned as quickly as you can say Jack Robinson (does anybody actually say “Jack Robinson”?) and they needed to hammer home their advantage in P2. This they did, as I shall relate, dear reader.

During the first interval the ice was Zambonied by a man in a suit and tie, which I found a trifle curious I must say. Someone had clearly forgotten to appraise him of the appropriate dress code for such a task. It mattered not a jot as he got the job done. P2 opened and we didn’t have long to wait before Bison surged into a 2-0 lead. Last week we saw a very rare short handed penalty shot goal. This time we saw an equally rare delayed penalty short handed goal. Let’s go back to 1:04 into the period. Without warning a sonorous blast was heard. It had emanated from Referee Matthews’s Acme Thunderer. “You’re going down the steps, matey,” he said to a holding Dan Scott and indeed down the steps (or more accurately up one step) went the miscreant. On 21:53 with Referee Matthews’s hand raised aloft against the Pirates, Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov was put in by Long Ciaron Long. The Czech chap whipped in a superbly placed wrist shot from wide to the goaltender’s right. The shot flew across the unfortunate netman and past his glove on its way to the top corner of the net for a DP/SH goal. Further assist to Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer. 2-0 Bison.

Bison continued to rain shots down onto the head of the hapless Lakosil, who might have begun to think it was personal. Surely one was bound to go in sooner or later and indeed it did. With Lee Haywood having his collar felt for boarding, Bison went on the power play. Shortly after it was announced that the penalty was for holding not boarding. It mattered not a jot as Heywood remained in the slammer, from where he was able to observe one of the finest screened wrist shot goals you are ever likely to see. Long set up Karpov just inside the blue line (or at least where the blue line used to be). The Pirates might just as well have had Ray Charles in the net. The luckless Lakosil could see nothing except a screen of players in front of him as Karpov unleashed a perfectly placed wrist shot. The puck flew past the unsighted netman like an angry cranefly (I'm not sure cranefly get angry actually) and into the top corner of the net. Balmer with a further assist. 3-0 Bison.

 There were no more goals in the period and the buzzer sounded to call a halt to proceeding at 40:00. The interval saw the Bison backers lost in meditation. All except a moaning Bespectacled Youth and a hungry Che Guevara impersonator who had the challenging task of sharing an uncut pizza. This they messily achieved by tearing off ragged sections of the culinary delight like a pair of carnivorous cavemen ripping flesh from a slain animal. It was quite a spectacle.

P2 had been a bonzer session for Bison. The Pirates were going down under like a jolly swagman drowning in a billabong. They needed a goal to get back into the game or it would be g’day to their hopes of winning. But a piratical win seemed like a load of sheepdip as Bison sheared away at the hapless Lakosil once more. Nevertheless, the improbable did, in fact, occur in the 48^th minute. The Pirates bagged a goal. I, in common with most others, have no idea how it went in, but it did. Way back in 1960 the Shadows had a hit with “Man of Mystery”. This title could have been used to describe the scorer of the goal, as far as I was concerned, as I had no idea who he was until he was identified as Tommi Laine from Lee Bonner over the tannoy. However, this proved to be a tissue of lies and the scorer was later changed to Andrej Themar from Laine and Bonner. Never mind. It was 3-1 and the Pirates had a straw to clutch at.

But alas things were about to go pear shaped for the visitors. (Strange expression that – pear shaped. What’s wrong with the shape of a pear?) Let’s just say their chances of winning the game went from possible to improbable then to unimaginable and finally to you ‘avin’ a laugh, mate? in the space of 4 minutes as Bison slammed 3 more goals past the hapless Lakosil and in doing so squeezed the last drop of joy from the wretched netman’s being.

The scoreboard clicked to 4-1 on 54:22, but not before an unsavoury incident involving Declan Balmer and Dominic Osman (not to be confused with Donny Osmond who is someone completely different of course). The lack of a referee’s call incensed the Howling Man, who cranked up to full volume with his bald patch turning to the “most angry” shade of dark cerise as he bellowed “ELBOW TO THE HEAD, MATTHEWS!” But Mr. Matthews, clearly in a tribute to Mister Magoo, had seen nothing and play continued. It mattered not a jot as, shortly after, Bison hammered that 4^th goal. Desperate Dan Davies fed Karpov, who passed inside. The puck sizzled across the ice like an egg on a hot griddle right into the path of Jarolin and the bespectacled Slovak hammered it past the infelicitous Lakosil. 4-1 Bison.

Lakosil’s night was about to get worse. Within a minute it was 5-1. On this occasion the brains of the Pirates’ D-men, although presumably present, were clearly not in use, as their poor positioning and lack of awareness of the danger clearly illustrated disengagement in the thought process department. Rabbits’ Foot Joe Baird passed up the boards to Jarolin. He passed inside to Long Ciaron Long, who was in on goal with no Pirate to challenge him. He deked and roofed a backhander. 5-1 Bison.

Lakosil must have been pretty shell-shocked by this time. Not even Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson firing Tommy guns from the hip could have made a better job of peppering the goal than Bison had, but, despite conceding 5 goals, Lakosil had kept out 60 of the 65 shots rained upon him. He would have liked to have kept out the 66^th. He failed. On 58:26 Bison completed the scoring, which was just as well as by now the biro of the score sheet scribbler was running out of ink. Put in by a combination of Dan Scott and Dangerous Derek Roehl, Jarolin cut through the Pirates’ D like a Samurai sword slicing through a slab of tofu and whipped a wrist shot past the despairing net minder, who for the 6^th time had failed to mind his net. 6-1 Bison and for the Pirates it was now a lost cause. They had lost their composure, lost their bearings, lost their resilience and poor Lakosil had lost his marbles. It was a lost cause. The game and indeed everything was lost. The final buzzer sounded and it was all over.

Top Bananas were Tommi Laine for the Pirates and Tomas Karpov for Bison. Maybe Lakosil should have bagged the visitors’ beers. Even though he had a wretched night he still manged to clock a save percentage of 91.43%. He is unlikely to have a more active evening.