Bison 4 Guildford Flames 2
4/3/17
A cracking
competitive encounter punctuated by unmentionable, uncontainable, uncontrollable
and indeed uncondonable violence of the most virulent variety marked what could
well be the last competitive game between old rivals the Bison and the Flames. With
the Flames rising to the lofty heights of the Elite League next season, albeit
not quite in a “cream rising to the top” manner, 8 years of robust EPL rivalry
came to an end last night. There was something for everyone here – the purist,
the admirer of fine skating and movement and, of course, the blood lust
brigade. If this was indeed the last competitive Bison v Flames game, what
better way to finish that rivalry.
P1 opened and Bison
surged into the lead on 4:33 with an unassisted goal from Lumberjack Joe Rand. It
was the equivalent of a card trick, but in this case achieved with skate and
stick. Blocking a pass out of defence on the blue line, Rand muscled his way
through the Flames’ defense as easily as Mike Tyson would push through a crowd
of 7 stone weaklings. In doing so he moved away from the boards to a position
in front of the crease, bamboozled Dean Skinns in the Flames’ net and
backhanded across the line. A superb unassisted goal created and scored on the
back of “never say die” determination. 1-0 Bison.
There were no
more goals in a very even period, but we had a taste of pugilistic things to
come when there was a bundle behind the net, the result of which was Kurt “The Scissors”
Reynolds and Tuomas Santavuori having 2 minutes roughing penalties slapped on
them.
And so we passed
into P2, which proved highly eventful, but not as eventful as the occurrences
at the end of P3. But I jump ahead, dear reader, so let us return to P2. It
wasn’t long before the Flames found themselves on level terms with a short
handed goal, gift wrapped, tired with a ribbon and with a cherry on top. With
Kari Sihvonen in the bag for cross checking, Tomas Hiadlovsky came out of his
goal to harvest a wayward puck in the corner. He then attempted one of his characteristic
long passes out of defence, but, much to his very grave chagrin, the puck went straight
to Michal Satek. By the time the Slovak had got the puck properly under control
a D-man was back to cover the empty net. Had that D-man been as voluminous as
Fatty Foulke, former Chelsea and England goalkeeper (a serious professional
athlete of his time - see below) he could have blocked the goal completely. But
he wasn’t and Satek was able to pick his spot and rifle the puck home. Hiadlo
must have been as embarrassed as a man whose his hair piece is sucked up into a
vacuum cleaner in front of his girlfriend. 1-1.
Things were on
the up for the combustible visitors and they were soon to take the lead. With
Dangerous Derek Roehl and Marek Maslonka already banged up, Joe Rand joined
them in the slammer for high sticks on 26:53. In the ensuing 4 on 3 Jens Eriksen
finished a round and round the garden move with a wrist shot past Hiadlovsky.
Tuomas Santavouri and Danny Meyers, as opposed to Dan Meyer (who? See footnote)
bagged assists for the goal 1-2 Flames.
But the Flames
couldn’t hang on and 5 minutes later it was all square once more. Set up by Towalski,
who sounds like a Russian but isn’t, and Reynolds, who doesn’t and also isn’t, Aaron
“Billy” Connolly caught the puck and then appeared to skate several strides
forward before throwing the puck out in front of him. It didn’t seem within the
rules, but on this occasion the Bison backers were glad that Referee Cloutman
seemed to be as visually impaired as Ray Charles. It was a 2 on 1 with René
Jarolin in support. Had William Shakespeare been writing a match report he
might have said of Connolly, “the much admir’d fellow didst speedeth artfully
onward and f’rward towards the netmind'r with det'rmination to breach his
def’nces”. And breach Deano’s def’nses he did, whipping a vicious wrist shot
high past the hapless goaltender glove side. 2-2.
Bison tails were
up and it didn’t take long for them to resnatch the lead. On 33:06 Marek
Maslonka had his collar felt for cross checking. During the ensuing power play
Jarolin ground the puck out from the boards, but it went straight to Kevin
Phillips. Now was the time for the Flames to gift Bison a goal. Phillips, who
must have had a sudden moment of hiatus in the area of his brain which deals
with hand/eye co-ordination, passed straight to Desperate Dan Davies in front
of goal. He outdeked Skinns and slid the puck home 5-hole. A red light came on
behind the goal either. Who had illuminated it? Was it the goal judge or a lady
of ill repute looking for business. The referee clearly realised it was the
former as he signalled a goal rather than ask “how much?” 3-2 Bison.
And so ended the
period, but not before some afters involving Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer and Andy
McKinney. The two came together in a confrontational manner rather similar to
the central figures in Lowry’s 1935 painting “A Fight” :
However I didn’t
see McKinney trying to pull Balmer’s helmet down over his ears. Neither did I
see any matchstalk dogs on the ice.
P3 opened and we
saw a highly competitive period with the Flames pressing forward for a
levelling score. On one occasion Phillips, having overcome his aforementioned
hiatus, rang the pipes and then Santavuori, himself suffering a similar hiatus,
inexplicably missed an empty net back door chance. The game moved into its
final phase. It was going to be a nerve wracking final 2 or 3 minutes for the
Bison backers. Or so we thought. Then the Flames blew everything. Maslonka
tripped Roehl, the latter didn’t like it and decided to make his views known to
the former, a few punches were thrown before the two were separated. Suddenly
over the wall came Jez Lundin and expressed his disapproval of Roehl in a
physical manner. It was 2 roughing for
Roehl, 2 tripping and 2 roughing for Maslonka and a 2 + 2 + game for Lundin for
leaving the bench. With all those penalties it should have ended up with a
Bison 5 on 3, but, as his name suggests, Mr Cloutman is the “man with the
clout”, and he deemed a 5 on 4 restart appropriate. It mattered not a jot as
Bison bagged the game clinching goal power play a minute later. Long Ciaron
Long set up Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov for a shot from the slot. As the shot
came in Rand thrust his lumber into the path of the biscuit and redirected the rubber
disc past Deano for 4-2 Bison. "I believe in miracles." So sang the
late Errol Brown of Hot Chocolate. Had he been at Planet Ice last night he
would have recognised it was going to take a miracle for the Flames to come
back from this. They didn’t.
The
entertainment was far from over, not that I would condone violence of course. Within
seconds of the restart General Grant Rounding was flattened and left a
prostrate and forlorn figure in front of the net. This led to a most
opprobrious outbreak of violence of the most virulent variety. 10 players
crowded into an angry scrum behind the Bison goal. Players postured, jostled, pushed,
shoved, mouthed off and waved handbags until then it all broke loose
with Balmer taking on Phillips, who then resisted the officials trying to break
them apart. It cooled down, but not for long. Suddenly Balmer was fighting Sivhonen
as Dan “The Specs” Lackey took on Sam Godfrey. In the meantime Dean Skinns,
feeling rather lonely at the other end, skated forward over the red line to
engage in a friendly conversation with his opposite number, Hiadlovsky. No I’m
not being sarcastic – that’s exactly what happened. However, for crossing the
red line Deano should have been chucked out of the game, but Referee Cloutman
either let him off or was back in Ray Charles mode and Deano escaped censure. Then it all died down, the blood lust of the
crowd satisfied. 12 PIMs for Bison and 32 to the Flames including a game
misconduct for Phillips.
10 seconds of
play later and it was all over. David Savage and Lumberjack Joe Rand were
appointed Top Bananas for their respective teams. And what about the Flames? They
will be going up into the Elite League for 2017-8. Alas with an unconvincing
mid table season and on last night’s performance they will need more or less an
entirely new roster and there will be an large number of ex Flames and indeed
ex Milton Keynes Lightning British players waving P45s and looking for jobs
with one of only 7 of the current EPL teams remaining. We may admire the Flames’
ambition, but we should feel sorry for the players who will not be good enough to play at the higher level.
Footnote : Dan Meyer, not Danny Meyers, is a world champion sword
swallower. He holds 39 world records and once swallowed a solid steel 30” sword
while submerged 15 feet underwater in an 85,000 gallons tank filled with live
sharks and stingrays at Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He
is clearly not the man who assisted in the Flames’ second goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment