Bison 2 Bracknell Bees 5
30/10/2017
If you’re reading
this you must be a Bison backer. The sort who, if your head was cut off (let’s
hope it isn’t), would have Basingstoke Bison running through you like a stick
of rock has Skegness running through it. And also you must be one of my regular
readers. Who else could bring him or herself to read about the dire game we had
to sit through last night? I can picture you now. You sit there in a state of
funereal depression, wearing your black armband and with Handel’s funeral march
blaring from your sound system. So the last thing you want to read is a
description of how bad Bison played in losing to the dumbledores (yes that is a
real word – it’s an old English word for bumblebee). This would
drive you into an even lower state of mental ill-being, completely lacking in
felicity, cheerfulness and exuberance. You want something a bit light hearted.
OK I’ll do my best.
P1 opened. There
were no goals. P1 closed. So far so good for Bison. Let’s move on.
Now the good
bit. P2 opened and the game continued to ebb and flow. Finally the deadlock was
broken on 28:59. Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds speared a long pass right up the centre
from defense. The accuracy of the pass would have impressed Annie Oakley. It
found Aaron “Billy” Connolly just red line side of the blue line and all alone.
If there are any children reading this, please don’t read the next sentence.
The Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist. Similarly the Bees’ D didn’t exist at this
moment. Billy collected the puck and set off towards the Bracknell net. He
hammered forward faster than the Wells Fargo stage from Dodge City with its
team of horses at full gallop, deked the jockstrap off Alex Mettam in the Bees’
net (not literally of course) and scored. It was a delayed penalty goal with
Luke Jackson declared as having been called for slashing. 1-0 Bison.
In 1988 Yazz and
the Plastic Population told us “The only way is up”. Had they been present at
Planet Ice last night they might have enunciated that sentiment to the Bracknell
Bees. Little did we realise at the time, but not only were the Bees going to go
up, but they were bound for infinity and beyond, as I shall relate in this
humble offering, dear reader.
A mere 1:09
later it was all square once more. I am not quite sure how it got there but the
puck trickled across the line and out came Referee Thompson’s goalwardsly
pointing flat hand. Had the biscuit crossed the line or was it sitting on the
ice touching the line? Some said the former, but Honest Pete, goal judge extraordinaire, said the latter. The Thompson hand
said it all. It was a goal. Steven Osman was declared as the scorer, but there
were no assistants. 1-1.
If there was
controversy about the Bees’ equalising score, there was none cloaking their go
ahead goal, scored with only another minute on the clock. Set up by Jared
Lane, Jan Bendik unleashed a long range wrist shot from just inside the blue
line. With a veritable gaggle of players between him and the shooter,
goaltender Dean Skinns could see as much as Mister Magoo. The Bendik shot
hurtled past the hapless netman faster than Rosa “Zazel” Richter in full
flight. (Who? In 1877 she became the first human to be fired from a cannon. I've told you about her before, but, if you've forgotten, see below).
2-1 Bees.
There were no
more goals in P2 and so we entered the final period with all to play for. The
stage was set for a storming Bison comeback surely? Alas a frustrated Bison seemed
to run of ideas and effectiveness and eventually became as deflated as a space
hopper shot by a high velocity round. Instead of elevating their performance to
great heights and pulling off a rip-roaring revival, they subsided as surely as
would a blancmange put in the oven at Gas Mark 6. The Dumbledores piled on the
agony with 3 more goals, as I shall relate, dear reader.
On 46:03 a shot
from Tom Avery rebounded into the slot where Shaun Thompson lurked. He fired home. The goal, scored by an ex Bison
player who would have made such a difference to the current team were he still
a Bison, was kickass as far as the Bees’ backers were concerned and a kick in
the unmentionables as far as the Bison fans were concerned. 3-1 Bees.
On 48:22 with
Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky, surging forward a bench minor was called. The generously
proportioned Mr Lalonde was seen holding up his left hand with 4 fingers and a
thumb outspread and a solitary digit, namely his thumb, on his right hand. It
could have been the other way around. “Too many men on the ice” was the call
and off to the box went Ryan Sutton (I think) to serve what should have been a
2 minute stretch, which actually turned out to be a depressingly short 3
seconds. Thompson won the face off and the puck slewed to Frankie Bakrlik in
the slot. He lifted his stick in preparation for delivering a clapper. Deano knew
what was coming, but stopping it was another matter entirely. With the puck
screaming towards him at a speed of 90 m.p.h. plus, he had no chance of
reacting - he just had to make himself as large as possible. He stood as
stationary as Lot’s wife after she had turned to a pillar of salt (I mentioned her
last week – remember?), as the puck flew past his head and into the net. It had
taken a much shorter time to score the goal than it has taken you to read my
humble description of it. How funereally depressing! 4-1 Bees and worse to
come.
On 57:49 Harvey
Stead found himself on the wrong end of the law. The Bison crowd may have considered
that his hooking of Grant Rounding was a deed so malodorous and malevolent that
10 years on Devil’s Island would have been an appropriate punishment. However,
the referee had not the authority to impose such a sentence of penal servitude
and instead slapped a 2 minute minor on Stead. It turned out very well for the
Bees, as it transpired. A short handed goal finally sealed the homesters’ fate.
You should never concede a short handed goal. It’s almost as bad as conceding
an even handed goal to a team of one armed men. However, that is exactly what
Bison did. On 58:53 Bakrilk was sent clear by Josh Martin. His deked was a work
of art and ended with him lifting a backhanded lob over Skinns’s shoulder. Thompson
with the second assist. 5-1 Bees.
Just as
certainly as yellow mellow custard dripped from a dead dog’s eye (well
according to John Lennon it did), Bison were doomed to lose the game. But the
excitement wasn’t over. With Stead still serving his penalty, James Galazzi was
called for elbows. It was now a 5 on 3 for Bison and they took advantage. A
shot from Ashley Jackson was met by the stick of Ryan Sutton and the puck raced
through the Colossus of Rhodes-esque yawning chasm that was Alex Mettam’s 5-hole.
5-2 Bees. Better than 5-1, but only marginally. It was still an ignominious
defeat, which confirmed Bison’s exit from the National Cup, which, as I told
you before, is probably a gaudy pot, badly crafted and not big enough to hold a
boiled egg, so not worth winning. However, the nature of the defeat made many enunciate their wrath.
All that
remained was to appoint the Top Bananas. They were Steve Osman for the Bees and
ex Bee Josh Smith for Bison.
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