It’s Raining Silverware in Bisonland

Bison 2 Peterborough Phantoms 1 (Aggregate 3-2)

Britton Conference playoff final 2^nd leg

1/4/18

Fancy some fake news? The Bison trophy cabinet has been opened to admit a new piece of silverware so often that the hinges are suffering from metal fatigue. That may be balderdash, but what is true is that Bison do have a new trophy. Beating the Peterborough Phantoms 3-2 on aggregate, they lifted the NIHL S1 (Britton Conference) Playoff Final trophy – I wish it had a more racy title. As for the Phantoms, their season seems to be imploding. Their only hope of silverware is now the national playoffs next weekend and, if they fail to win that, their vast stocks of silver polish, purchased at the beginning of an expectant season, may soon be appearing on e-bay. We shall see.

P1 opened and the opening score of the encounter occurred on 10:07 and had the artistic qualities of a Marcel Marceau mime, except that I saw no players wearing top hats with flowers sticking out of them. And indeed it was fitting that the net should come off its moorings with the goal still given after last night’s fiasco at Peterborough where a perfectly good Bison net of moorings goal was washed off and a highly dubious Phantoms net off moorings goal was given, but Heaven forbid I should show any bias. How was it scored? I will tell you exactly. Desperate Dan Scott speared a superb long pass, not through the eye of a needle (and certainly no camels were involved), but instead through the Potty D. He set General Grant Rounding charging forward into the enemy defensive zone with Paul Petts in support. Petts acted as a decoy as he drew the covering D-man away wide right like a fly attracted to a piece of rancid meat. This left space into which Roman Malinik skated. Rounding’s pass onto the stick tape of the Czech chap was as accurate a bullet fired from Annie Oakley’s Winchester rifle. Malinik smashed the puck home as a despairing Euan King kicked the net off its moorings in a scandalous attempt to attract an arms thrown wide gesture from Referee Matthews. But instead out came the Matthews netwardsly pointing flat hand confirming that the goal was good in his opinion and not in need of washing off. 1-0 Bison.

A cataclysmic disaster, worse than the eruption of Krakatoa, the Great Fire of London and the Biblical plague of locusts rolled into one, occurred in the interval. Doris, our beloved but ancient Zamboni, broke down. Some said her hydraulics were shot, others said a puck left on the ice had got sucked up into the workings. Who, except those who attended the stricken mechanical behemoth, can tell us what ailed the unfortunate labouring leviathan. Suffice it to say that Doris’s night was over. After a lengthy period of time, during which Tolstoy could have written “War and Peace” had he been present, alive and not having already written it, out came Bessie, the back up Zamboni. The ancient chariot of ice resurfacing which is Bessie seemed barely able to move and displayed bodywork which would struggle to come anywhere but last in an aesthetics contest. Furthermore, as she had no water to spew out onto the ice, it was an ice cut or nothing. Were we going to get down to the bare concrete? Anything is possible at Planet Ice after all. As the courageous Bessie chugged round, she appeared about to die at any moment, But complete the task she did and it was not necessary for volunteers from the crowd to be enlisted as pushers, although that did look like it would be required on more than one occasion. Bessie and her driver left the ice victoriously to a massive ovation, which threatened to bring the roof of the Basingstoke Arena down. We were ready for a resumption of hostilities.

So at last P2 began. The game ebbed and flowed with Bison looking for a knockout punch and the ghostly visitors looking for a levelling score which would make it all to play for. Yogi Berra (that’s him below) once said that baseball was “90% mental and the other half physical”. The same is true of hockey, even if the maths don’t work. Whoever scored the next goal should get the momentum to go on and win the game – or so we thought. Well it was the Phantoms who bagged that all important goal, but all it gave them was the momentum to go on and lose the game, as I shall relate, dear reader.

The leveller materialised on 31:20. A giveaway enabled the Phantoms to surge forward in a manner most menacing. A shot came in and was saved, but not cleared and so a gaggle of players assembled adjacent to the crease, doubtless to exchange their views on the proceedings. Somehow Ales Padelek managed to squeeze the puck in and it was 1-1. Leigh Jamieson and Edwards Knaggs were declared assistants to the scorer. A mayfly lives for only a day. The Phantoms’ lead lasted a lot shorter than this, as I shall relate at the end of the next rather long paragraph.

Before the ink had dried on the scoresheet further scribbling was required as Bison surged back into the lead with a second go ahead goal. Paul Petts took possession of the puck in the neutral zone. He had a choice of two Bison players lurking on the blue line. This was reduced to a choice of one only as Malinik and a Phantoms’ D-man collided and ended up in an untidy heap. The Czech chap made a monumental effort to keep his right skate over the blue line to prevent an offside as Desperate Dan Davies received Petts’s pass and made his way up the right wing. As he hammered forward at breakneck speed, he became a blur to all, even those who had gone to Specsavers. In the meantime Malinik had not been an idle sluggard. He managed to extract himself from the untidy mess on the blueline, regain his skates and hammer forward with the speed of hyperactive cheetah in the middle of an adrenalin rush. He was in front of goal when Davies’s pass reached him. Allow me a soupçon of a digression. Any former cub scouts reading this? Back in my day in the 8^th Epping Forest South the Grand Howl would open each meeting with the pack shouting “Akela! We'll do our best” at the tops of their voices. The Sixer leading the howl would then shout “DYB-DYB-DYB” (do your best) and the pack would reply “We’ll DOB-DOB-DOB” (do our best). Alas netminder King was unable to replicate this aspiration as he clearly didn’t do his best in keeping the puck out of the net. Malinik was perfectly placed in front of the goal to drive the biscuit straight through the King 5-hole. The goal caused the Bison backers to throw their arms in the air and the Phantoms faithful to throw a tantrum at their D. After working so hard to get back on level terms a mere 1:34 had elapsed between their levelling score and the second go behind goal. Coach Koulikov has no hair to pull out, but he must have felt like a damned good scream. 2-1 Bison and that is how the period ended.

P3 opened after another stellar performance from Bessie, this time vomiting water. Neither side could make a further breakthrough with the excitement continuing all the way to the final couple of minutes. Coach Koulikov dragged King from the net to enable a final desperate 6 on 5. Their attempts to level the game and the tie were to no avail. The final buzzer to confirm a Bison win blared forth and gloves and sticks were hurled Heavenwards as a gift to the hockey gods, who it appeared didn’t want any of them as they all crashed back down to the ice, just as Sir Isaac Newton would have predicted had he been present, but neither he nor Leo Tolstoy were. A seething gaggle of celebrating players mobbed the Bison goaltender Skinns. Coventry here we come.

Footnote 1 : Padelek and Malinik were elected Top Bananas.

Footnote 2 : Beware – the cost of silver polish threatens to bankrupt Planet Ice.