Bison 7 Hull Pirates 1
11/2/17
Only 2 weeks ago
the Hull Pirates found themselves on the end of 6-1 flagellation at Planet Ice.
They returned last night hoping to do better. They failed. It was a 7-1 trousers down
caning, due in no small measure to the failings of their hapless goaltender
Vlastimil Lakosil. All he had to do was stop 28 on target shots and the Pirates
would have plundered the points. Alas he could stop only 21 of them and the
Pirates subsided like a skyscraper built on porridge (is there such a building?)
to an ignominious 7-1 defeat, which included a 4 goal haul to the Antonov
twins, 2 shorted handed goals, a Bison
EPL points record for Long Ciaron Long and a 0+4 night for Desperate Dan
Davies. In the end the only desperate man on the ice was Lakosil with a save
percentage of 75% and looking to have more holes in him than in Blackburn,
Lancashire, in which, according to John Lennon, there were 4,000.
P1 opened and Bison
scored with their first on target shot of the game. It came on 4:20. Set up by Long,
Davies carried the puck forward on the left wing and cracked a shot across
goal. There at the back door were the Antonov twins and one of them (I am not
sure if it was Ivan or Vanya) squeezed the puck through the small gap between
goaltender and post. Fortunately Referee Szuchs didn’t spot both the Antonovs
or he may have disallowed the goal and called Bison for too many men on the
ice. 1-0 Bison.
On 16:41 Matt
Towalski did something with his stick which may have impressed Captain Hook,
but not Referee Szuchs. “I’m not having that,” said the latter. He blew his
whistle and signalled a hooking offence. In the ensuing power play the Pirates
could make no impression on the Bison goal and, worse than that, they were
caught with trousers down on 18:08 and conceded a short handed goal. The
defending was as bad as if they had entrusted it to a load of intoxicated
giggling flibbertigibbets. (Flibberti whats? “Oh come on,” I hear you say.
“You’ve made that word up”. Actually no – it’s a real word. Look it up). Well
they might just as well have drafted in the flibbertigibbets because, despite
having a 5 on 4 advantage they found themselves defending a 2 on 1 with Long
and Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov marauding forward like a pair of rampaging
stoats. Long thwacked a cross ice pass to take out both D-man and goaltender
and Karpov hammered it home. 2-0 Bison.
The period ended
with the Pirates having outshot Bison by 10-7, yet trailing by 2-0. P2 opened
and soon after they thought their evening was about to get a whole lot better.
On 23:57 during a melée in front of the piratical net Towalski had his collar
felt for spearing. Spear is defined as “a shoot, slender stalk, or blade, as of
grass, asparagus, or broccoli or an acrospire of grain”. Clearly that’s not
what we saw on this occasion, although I concede we may have seen an
“acrospire”, but, as I have no idea what one of those is, I can only assume
that Mr. Szuchs saw Towalski using his stick like it was “a weapon consisting
of a long shaft with a sharp pointed end of metal, stone, or wood that may be
thrown or thrust”. He may have thought that 10 years hard labour on Devil’s
Island would have been an appropriate punishment for Towalski, but he did not
have the power to impose such a punishment. Instead he doled out a match
penalty.
Now the Pirates
went on a 5 minute power play. Surely they would be able to reduce the arrears?
Well no. And worse still, chunderous defending saw them concede their second
shortie of the game. Never mind Blackburn, Lancashire on 26:58 the Pirates’
defence looked like it had more holes in it than in Switzerland’s entire yearly
production of Emmenthal cheese as Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird speared a forward
pass and there was Dangerous Derek Roehl all alone between the red line, which
we can’t see, of course, and the Pirates’ blue line, which we can see - just.
The marauding Michiganian (yes that’s a real term) needed no further invitation
and charged forward far faster than a hyperactive tortoise could, outdeked the
hapless Lakosil, who was probably wishing that Roehl was only a tortoise, and
slid a backhander across the line, much to the Czech chap’s chagrin. 3-0 Bison.
The 5 minute
penalty expired and the Pirates had no plunder. However, on 30:01 they finally managed
to swing on board the Bison galleon as a Jonathon Kirk shot was tipped over a
prone Tomas Hiadlovsky by Josh Gent. Second assist to Jordan Fisher. 3-1 Bison
and hope for the Pirates, albeit not for long, as I shall relate, dear reader.
Bison restored
their 3 goal advantage on 33:09. Baird to Davies to Antonov, who was in on
goal, deked and scored as Lakosil was being knocked over and, as a consequence,
knocked the net off its moorings. He bellyached, bemoaned and bewailed to Mr
Szuchs, but it had been one of his own hapless D-men who had bundled into him
and anyway the puck was already across the line before the net came off. His
chunterings mattered not a jot as Mr. Szuchs’s hand remained flat and pointy in
the direction of the net. 4-1 Bison.
On 39:33 Stuart
“The Cat” Mogg sent Long Ciaron away up the right wing. A pinpoint diagonal
pass found the Antonovs wide to the goaltender’s left and all on their own as
if no-one wanted to come near them because they had the bubonic plague.
However, I heard no-one ringing a bell and shouting “Unclean! Unclean!” And in
any case the Antonovs didn’t look ill. They outdeked the by now suicidal
Lakosil, who must have been enraged that he had once again been left denuded of
cover by his chunderous defence, and once again backhanded across the line. It
was a hat-trick for Ivan and Vanya – the twins had scored 3 goals between them
and it was 5-1 Bison.
There were no
more goals in the period. It had been an Ooo Matron first two periods for Bison
and an Ooo Betty couple for the Pirates and their infelicitous (look that one
up Bavy) netminder. Lakosil had faced 18 on target shots and let in 5 – a
woeful save percentage of 68.4%. Had a school report been issued it might have
said “Could do better. Perhaps an alternative career should be considered”.
P3 began and it
was to be a period littered with penalty calls which rather made us wonder
whether the stop/start game would be finished before midnight. In the 49th
minute an unsavoury embroilment of the most unseemly variety broke out in front
of the Bison bench. It may have been kicked off by a cross check by Andrej
Themar on Dangerous Derek Roehl. Too much went on for me to give a full account
of the opprobrious proceedings, but I did see Roehl trying to crack Themar’s
head open on the wall like a squirrel cracking a nut. Fortunately he failed and
off to the glasshouse went Roehl and Themar as well as Boothroyd and Balmer to
join those already in the box for earlier offences. There was now standing room
only in the two boxes.
On 55:36 Lee
Bonner received a double penalty for cross checking and slashing. There wasn’t
much else he could have done with his stick. Well actually there was - he could
have gone for a full set with butt ending, spearing and hooking all thrown in,
but that would have required a lot of majorette style stick twirling and he
clearly didn’t have time. For the Pirates Bonner’s double penalty turned out to
be a bigger disaster than the Wall Street Crash, the eruption of Krakatoa and
the influenza pandemic of 1919 all rolled into one as Bison piled on the agony
with 2 power play goals. Firstly, Antonov set up Davies to shoot. He shot (not
himself fortunately), but Lakosil saved. Alas for the wretched netman the puck
rebounded straight to Jarolin who slotted home. 6-1 Bison. Then, set up by
Davies (his 4th assist on the night), Long Ciaron shot from the
point. If Lakosil thought, “I’m saving this,” his hopes were to be cruelly
dashed like surf upon the rocks as one of the Antonovs dangled his lumber and
the puck was redirected past an alternative career considering Lakosil. 7-1
Bison.
Yes it was 7-1.
Could the Pirates come back and score 7 goals in 2 minutes to win the game? As
you read this after the event, dear reader, you may be seized by a fit of uncontrollable
maniacal laughter that this could have been even considered a vague possibility
at the time. However, there may have been some deprecating, hand wringing
sceptics amongst the Bison faithful, who might have thought so. If so, such
individuals were to be exposed as nothing other than dastardly pessimists wallowing in their own
quagmire-esque cess pit of doubt and uncertainty. And so it proved soon after
as the buzzer sounded to signal an end to the game and Lakosil’s night of
torture. Josh Gent was considered the gent most deserving of the Pirates’ most
swashbuckling player award and, once again, the Antonovs had to share the Bison
Top Banana award.
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