Melodramatic Misfortune Mars Marr’s Merriment

Bison 4 Swindon Wildcats 0

24/2/18

We have reached the stage of the league season where every game is a must win, if Bison are to snatch the NIHL Britton Division champions’ pennant. Last night’s game was won in what proved a power play paradise for the homesters who bagged 3 goals in 5 power plays, compared with 0 for 7 for the visitors. It was a night of bizarre officiating including an icing call against Bison on a power play kill. Eh? The less said about all that the better. Let’s just celebrate a good performance and a good win against one of the better teams in the league and a potential title chasing banana skin unslipped up on. How will the title race unfold? We will see.

The game opened. We will not dwell long in P1, except to say that the Cats had the better of it with Bison playing short handed on three occasions and the period being littered with a plethora of myopic officiating.

Let us move into P2. On 22:55 up went the Referee Matthews’s hands and adopted a position which made it look as if he was performing the Indian rope trick (see below). But he wasn’t. He was merely indicating that Neil Liddiard was guilty of a high stick crime. Up the river went Liddiard for what he thought was to be a 2 minute stretch in the penalty box. But his expectations proved a soupçon wide of the mark, as I shall relate, dear reader.

Within 5 seconds of the commencement of the Liddiard porridge, Bison surged into the lead. I thought it was 4 seconds actually, but when I sought to consult the game sheet posted on the EIHA web site I accidentally left out the “I” from my Google search and ended up on the European Hermatology Association web site, where unsurprisingly I could find no mention of the game. 4 seconds, 5 seconds – we’re splitting hairs here. What happened? Desperate Dan Davies won the face off and the puck fell to Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird. His shot was deflected up into the air by goaltender Renny Marr, who had no idea where the puck had gone and rapidly turned his head left and right in a desperate attempt to locate the biscuit. Where he didn’t look, however, was up. This proved to be his undoing, because the puck was indeed up and then came down, as all thing which go up must do (Sir Isaac Newton will confirm that if you have any doubts), and there on the doorstep was Aaron “Billy” Connolly to squeeze the puck past the astonished netman. 1-0 Bison.

After a nervous P1, during which Bison were outshot by 12-3, it was clear that the goal had given the players a pile of confidence with a cherry on top. At 1-0 to the bad the Cats had to keep it tight and avoid errors. They failed. The aforementioned villain of the piece, Liddiard, a crowd favourite pantomime villain wherever he plays, was at fault when he gave away the puck to Ryan Sutton, which, bearing in mind Sutton’s growing reputation as a clutch player having bagged 3 goals last weekend including a minute to go winner against the Raiders last Sunday, could be considered a trifle unwise and certainly an action which most would wish to avoid at all costs, which Liddiard didn’t. Sutton received the gift, which might just as well have been tied with a ribbon with a pretty bow on top and a tag saying “To Ryan from Neil”, and set off in a netwards direction. His forward movement could not be described as tardy, unhurried or plodding, but more as animated, mercurial and sprightly. The dispossessed Liddiard could pursue him only with the speed and grace of an incontinent kangaroo and had no hope of catching him. Sutton bore done on Marr and then unleashed one of his characteristic lethal wrist shots across the face of the hapless goaltender towards the far corner. Marr extended his glove down low and shut it. He thought he had scooped up the puck. However, he was wallowing in a sea of misplaced misconception. The “save” remained something which hadn’t happened. The puck slid across the line in a manner most velocious. 2-0 Bison.

Bison had not finished. They surged into a 3-0 lead with yet another power play goal on 30:14. Floyd Taylor, not to be confused with Pretty Boy Floyd or Dennis Taylor, who are personages completely different, was thrown in the can for a hook. The Bison backers were ever hopeful. Their team’s last power play opportunity has yielded a score within 5 seconds, a fact which members of the European Hermatology Association will remain blissfully unaware. The assembled Bisoneers had to wait 11 seconds this time, which, by comparison, seemed as long as long as it would take to read “War and Peace”. The Antonov twins set up Tomas Karpov for a shot, which was saved by Marr only for an all alone at the back door Desperate Dan Davies to slot home the rebounded rubber. 3-0 Bison.

That was it. Coach Nell had seen enough. Marr had faced 5 on goal shots in the period and 3 of them had gone in. The hapless goaltender was dragged kicking and screaming form the net, departing from the ice with a chunderous save percentage of 62.5% for the game and an even worse one of 40% for the period. Ooo Betty. His replacement was Matt Smital. Alas for the Cats the goaltender change prove to be too smital too late.

There were no more goals in P2 and the period ending buzzer blared forth with the clock showing 0:00 in time and 3-0 in score. It had been a most satisfactory period for the homesters prosperously profiting from pulsating purple power plays. 2 successful 5 on 4s and 3 goals from 8 shots, not to mention forcing the departure of the starting netminder in a swirling quagmire of embarrassment for the poor fellow. But he will return reinvigorated and imbued with fresh confidence to fight another day I am sure.

Into P3 we passed and the Cats needed to elevate their game, stay out of the box or, if not able to do so, make sure they snuffed out the Bison power play. They certainly played better than in P2, but, much to the chagrin of the visiting fans, they fell short of what was required to satisfy the other requirements outlined in the previous sentence. Eh? They conceded another power play goal and at 0-4 to the bad it was not a case of “Good morning Vietnam”, but more one of “Goodnight Vienna”. On 53:11 Floyd Taylor was called for tripping and had his collar felt. This was his second penalty of the game. He seemed to be spending more time in the slammer than Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs spent in Wandsworth Prison (that's it below). His first incarceration cost his team a goal and so did his second. Dashed bad luck I’d say.

On this occasion Bison looked like slackers. It has taken them 5 and 11 seconds respectively to score their previous power play goals. On this 5 on 4 it took a comparatively monumentally lengthy 44 seconds to advance the score board. Sutton set up Malinik for a wrist shot from away to the goaltender’s right. Smital saved the shot, but, when the puck deflected to General Grant Rounding at the back door, he, the aforementioned netman, was so far out of his goal facing Malinikwards, that he had left an open net as empty as the chicken ‘fridge at a KFC outlet. Rounding rounded off the move. It was an easy tap in for the biltong chewing South African. 4-0 Bison.

The Cats’ chances of winning the game now seemed as dead as Reinhardt Schwimmer on February 14th 1929. (Who? See footnote). And so it proved. There was no more scoring in the game and the final buzzer sounded to confirm it was game over.

All that remained was the election of the Top Bananas. Cats’ Chris Jones carried off the Cats’ accolade and Dean Skinns with his 5^th league shut out of the season was elected top Bison.

Footnote : Reinhardt Schwimmer was an unfortunate optician who happened to be hanging around with 6 members of the Bugs Moran gang when Al Capone’s hitmen, dressed as police officers, marched in and machine gunned the lot of them. It was the St Valentine’s Day Massacre, of course. Schwimmer had done his last eye test.