Bison 3 Milton Keynes Lightning 2
1/4/17
Bison clinched
their playoff place with a win over MK last night at Planet Ice. With 3 wins
out of 4, they needed a solitary point to be sure of a trip to Coventry. MK
will also be there, having qualified by winning their game 4 in midweek. Hero
and villain for the Lightning last night was goaltender Przemyslaw Odrobny. Although
resembling a homeless man (in fact I am and sure I have seen him in Winchester
selling “The Big Issue”), he has proved a top import goaltender this season
with a save percentage is 93.3%. He won MK’s MoM award last night, but I am
sure he will not be happy about any of the three goals he allowed. But, as
usual, I jump ahead, dear reader, so let us return to the beginning of the
game.
P1 opened in
frantic fashion with both goaltenders pulling off several saves each in the
opening 3 or 4 minutes. The best chance fell to MK’s Antti Hölli, who rippled
the net with a wrist shot. He thought he had scored, as did the travelling MK
fans. They all suddenly became elevated into a previously unattained level of
nirvana, but alas their ecstasy was to be short lived and indeed proved misplaced, as was Hölli’s
shot. It had passed outside the post and disturbed the side of the net. No
goal.
The game
progressed with chances at both ends and goaltenders Hiadlovsky and Odrobny
proving no slouches. The latter seemed to be giving up so many rebounds we
wondered if he had turned into the India rubber man, subject of the famous poem.
Hiadlovsky was proving more effective with his amoebic engulfment of the puck
technique. It would be MK, however, who would find a way past Hiadlovsky
first. This occurred on 17:07. Set up by Martin Baranyk and Lewis Christie,
Blaz Emersic picked his spot and whipped a wrist shot in at Hiadlo’s left hand
post. The Bison netman was furious. Perhaps not as furious as Furious Pete Czerwinski
(Who? See footnote) and pursued Referee Matthews complaining that there was an
MK player in the crease. He felt that even Stevie Wonder could have seen that,
but Mr Matthews had not and the goal stood. 1-0 MK.
There were no
more goals in the period. P2 opened and it was to prove a steamrollering period
for Bison, who surged into a 3-1 lead. The first and equalising score came on
22:57. A mazy, surging burst forward by one of the Antonov twins (Vanya I think or
was it Ivan?) took him behind the net. He fired the puck netwards as he skated
past. The puck deflected off the rubber Odrobny and there on the doorstep was
Shoeless Joe Miller. On this occasion the MK defending was mismanaged,
mishandled, miscalculated and miscarried or to put it purely and simply, mucked
up, as there was Miller all alone without a challenge. He slammed the puck past
Odrobny and it was 1-1.
5 minutes later
Odrobny was to suffer embarrassment of the most dreadful variety. His
chunderous attempt to stop Bison’s second goal was a failure, flop, fiasco and
faux pas. Not to put too fine a point on it, he committed an error so cataclysmic
in magnitude that he must have suffered feelings of abject ignominy and chagrinous
mortification. Read on, dear reader and I shall tell you why.
A move involving
Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird and René Jarolin ended up with Joe Miller behind the
goal. Suddenly the goal light went on. I must confess I didn’t see what had
happened. Surely from there Joe’s only option was to stealthily lift the net
and sweep the puck in from the rear, like you would lift he corner of a rug and sweep the
dust under, and hope that his surreptitiousness (yes that is a real word) went
unnoticed by officialdom. But no. That is not what happened. Cake Lady, a close
observer of the incident, said that Joe attempted to rebound the puck in off
the rubber Odrobny. The giant Pole stopped the puck with his giant pole, but
alas he then moved the aforementioned giant pole and sent the puck backwards,
not forwards, a direction Odrobny would have preferred, and across the line,
albeit very slowly, possibly even through the hapless goaltender’s legs. Had he 5-holed himself?
Alas only Bison TV could have confirmed that but, very sadly, we no longer have
that wonderful facility. 2-1 Bison.
Soon after it
was 3-1 Bison and Odbrobny’s latex-esque properties proved to be his undoing.
An MK player (sorry I don’t know who) fired the puck around the boards from
behind the goal. It was stopped on the blue line by (I thought it was Balmer,
but Baird and Reynolds received assists so maybe it wasn’t). He (Balmer, Baird
or Reynolds or maybe it was all of them) whipped a shot goalwards and there was
Lumberjack Joe Rand all alone in front of the net. 17th century chemists, not
of the Boots variety that is, believed that combustible materials contained a
fire like substance called phlogiston. If you Google "Phlogiston",
Amazon claim not only to sell the stuff but also offer low prices on it.
Poppycock! It doesn’t now and never has existed. In a similar vein the MK
defence, although thought to exist, actually didn't and Rand was able to thwack
his shot goalwards without a challenge. The rubberoid (OK that’s not a real
word) Odrobny saved it, but the puck went straight back to Rand who lifted it
over the giant pole waving giant Pole’s shoulder. 3-1 Bison and the concession
of yet another goal must have made the travelling MK contingent feel depressed,
distressed, dejected, disconsolate, dolorous, downcast and even demented. 1-0
to 1-3 was not a scenario likely to elicit joy and happiness in that quarter.
Apologies for gone wrong formatting here......
And so we moved into P3 with MK needing to get back
on track preferably with an early goal. This they failed to achieve, but did
put themselves back in with a shout in the 52nd minute. It started with
Mikolaj Lopuski doing something that Dan Scott considered unsporting. I am not
sure what that was, but it caused Scott to barge into Lopuski with violent
intent. Had he been William Shakespeare
he might have said, “Pepareth to square! I shall heave the gorge on thy living,
thee vile mushrump (Prepare to fight! I will vomit on your possessions, you
vile mushroom!). Lopuski, being Polish, would not have understood a word, of
course. However, he clearly comprehended Scott’s invitation to engage in
pugilistic activities, but decided not to accept it. Had he done so we might
have seen a scene similar to this.
But we didn’t, so it was only Scott who was sent
down the steps for roughing. MK now had 2 minutes (or the time it would
take Furious Pete Czerwinski to eat 17
bananas – see footnote) to bag a goal. They need only 9 seconds (by which time
Furious Pete would have been just finishing his third banana) to bring it back
to a one goal game. Slick passing between Jordan Cownie and James Neil set up Antti
Hölli, as opposed to Buddy Holly, who is someone completely different (see below in case you have never heard off Buddy). He
whipped a wrist shot netwardsly and in it went through a screen of players. 3-2
Bison.
MK frantically pressed forward for an ever elusive
equalising score, but couldn’t find a way past Hiadlovsky. They didn’t even get
the opportunity to pull Odrobny for a final throw of the dice 6 on 5. The final
buzzer sounded and it was curtains MK, but, having already qualified for
Coventry, they were probably not too upset. Odrobny and Miller were appointed
Top Bananas for their respective teams.
Footnote
: Furious Pete Czerwinski is a Canadian competitive eater. He
currently holds nine Guinness world records including that for
eating a whole raw onion in 43.53 seconds, 17 bananas in 2 minutes, 15
hamburgers in 10 minutes, and 17 jaffa cakes in 60 seconds. He once ate 5 hard boiled eggs, 3 pieces of bacon, 2
bananas, and drank a bag of milk all in 51 seconds.
