Essex Men Fail to Raid the Bison Larder

Bison 5 London/Romford Raiders 2

29/9/18

Holy guacamole what a feisty encounter. The Raiders, who were once the Romford Raiders, then the London Raiders and now just the Raiders, captained by ex-Bison hero Aaron “Billy” Connolly, came to Planet Ice seeking to get the Bison league programme off to a disappointing start. They failed, despite a robust attempt, as you, dear reader, will learn, albeit without any guarantee of accuracy, if you read the following humble account of the night’s proceedings.

So without further preambulation, let us journey to the 12th minute of P1. Basses can be double. So can cream, entendres, jeopardy and trouble (just ask the Clash about that last one). So it would seem can be hooking or at least in the eyes of Referee Evans, who would end the evening a discredited figure in certain spectatorial circles. On 12:27 a shrill blast from Mr. Evans’s Acme Thunderer called proceedings to a halt. Dr Russ Cowley and Blahoslav Novak had ended up in an untidy heap on the ice. (By the way is Doc Cowley a medical doctor or a PhD. Does anyone know? If it’s the latter I won’t ask him about my gammy knee). 2 minutes hooking to each.

Play continued and just before the expiry of the penalties Coach Tait found himself in possession of the puck behind the goal line. He could find no-one in front of the net to receive his killer pass until….. the doors of the penalty boxes opened and out came Cowley and Novak. The latter rejoined the play like a laggardly sluggard, whereas the former skated back into action like a cheetah on speed and as if his life depended on it. Perhaps he thought it did. Tait found the pass and the Doc, having left Novak floundering in his wake like a beached whale, sent a wrist shot arrowing into the net. 1-0 Bison and 14:35 on the clock.

3 minutes later it was 2-0. Liam “Square Sausage” Morris, whose father Frank Morris escaped from Alcatraz in 1962 (see footnote), skated in and then out in front of goal before backhandedly jabbing the puck past a startled Michael Gray, hapless custodian of the Raiders’ cage. Adam Jones and Sam Smith were declared assistants for the goal. Jones? Smith? Sounds like a pair of pseudonyms to me.

And without further scoring the period ended. 2-0 to Bison and a shot count of 19-6 in their favour. What could possibly go wrong?

P2 opened and on 24:57 something did go wrong. George Norcliffe caught Dangerous Dan Scott with a high stick. The Raiders fans, in front of whom the incident had occurred, may have considered that this was a deed so malodorous and malevolent that 10 years on Devil’s Island would have been an appropriate punishment, as they observed with horror corpuscular material gushing from the side of Scott’s face. Would he even live? Of course – we are talking about Dan Scott who would require nothing more than an Elastoplast for a broken leg. Up went the referee’s hands. Was he trying to climb an imaginary rope? No. High sticks 5 + match for Norcliffe.

Here was the Raiders’ opportunity – a 5 minute power play. Well they couldn’t even get a worthwhile shot on goal during the first 3 minutes of the PP and very nearly conceded a shortie as an in on goal Dangling Dick Bordowski forced a save from Gray. But then the Bison house came tumbling down like a 20 storey sky scraper built over a sinkhole. In 18 seconds of play the score went from 2-0 to 2-2. Ooo Betty. First Aaron “Billy” Connolly cut in from the right wing and unleashed a wrist shot for 2-1. Liam Chong and Dan Scott were the assistants (it was an all Bison old boys goal). Then a neat move through the middle of the Bison D ended with Jake Sylvester smashing home. Connolly and Scott were the assistants. Damn those Bison alumni.

Things were in the ascendancy for the Raiders, but not for long. Their hopes of reaching infinity and beyond stayed as unfulfilled as those of Buzz Lightyear. Slash has many meanings, one of which is “to make slits in a garment to show an underlying fabric”. That’s not what happened on 31:21. It was more a case of “to lay about someone with sharp, sweeping strokes”. And that is what Referee Evans adjudged Brandon Ayliffe to have done. “It’s a stretch of solitary for you, me old China,” said Mr. Evans. And off to the box went Aycliffe to reflect on the consequences of his appalling conduct, albeit not for long as within 8 seconds of play the Gray pipes had been breached once more, plunging the hapless goaltender and possibly also Ayliffe into a state of funereal perturbation. Coach Tait fired in a pass from the left wing to Alex Sampford in front of goal. On August 11^th 1911 the most audacious heist in the history of art took place when Vincenzo Perugia stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre (see footnote 2). Just as the Mona Lisa had gone missing on that day in August 1911, so the Raiders D also went missing on 31:29 of P2, leaving Alex Sampford to backhand the puck past Gray. Opinions varied as to whether the puck had gone in through a hole in the side netting. Certainly there was a hole, just as there were 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, according to the Beatles, which had to be subsequently repaired, but the Evans hand remained flat and netwardsly pointing. “It was a good goal”, declared Mr Evans. He would have staked his life on it, but was not called to do so. An assist also to Danny Ingoldsby. 3-2 Bison.

Repairs to the net were made by Lino Strain, who I presume must have learned knot tie-ing in the Scouts. Was it a sheepshank, a clove hitch or a reef knot that he expertly executed with his piece of string? I can throw no light on that, but I can say that the net held for the rest of the game.

P2 ended and P3 opened. The final epoch was to be one littered with penalties, strange refereeing decisions and a fight. Before I relate the disgraceful and indeed malevolent affair of the most violent variety which was the fight, I will tell you that a Bison goal was scored on 46:06 or rather it wasn’t. A Jay King shot came in. It hit the goaltender, looped up and there on the doorstep was Dangling Dick Bordowski, who dangled his twig and put it in. However, although the goal was initially given, it was chalked off, marked off, struck off, washed off, scrubbed off, rubbed out, wiped out, weeded out, crossed out, abolished, annulled, deleted, erased, cancelled, voided, eliminated and called “no”, not to mention purged, obliterated and expunged from the records or at least it would have been had it been recorded at all. Why? Who can tell?

On to the fight, which occurred in the 51^st minute. I was looking elsewhere at the time, but I was assured by the Man with 3 Ear-rings that Callum Wells attempted to cut down Adam Jones like a lumberjack felling a tree by wildly swinging his stick into the back of the innocent D-man. Perhaps he should have shouted “TIMBER!” whilst doing so. Down went sticks, off came gloves and hats. The pugilists squared up to each other as in the picture below. The crowd bayed for blood. Was it going to be like a scene from Django Unchained? Nothing short of an unfettered orgy of blood and guts violence was what they needed to satisfy their unnatural animalistic craving. Alas no. The pugilistic encounter was over very quickly with Wells the victor, leaving the Bison crowd wallowing in a cesspool of unfulfilled blood lust. 2 + 2 for fighting each.

Things were getting angry. Tempers were fraying, just like the string of the goal nets. What would happen next? The answer is that Bison sealed the victory with 2 quickfire goals in 34 seconds in the 53^rd minute. In a 4 on 4 on 53:16 Coach Tait assisted by Doc Cowley brought down his lumber and leathered the rubber into the stringbag via the metalwork. The net had stood firm. We expected it to disintegrate sending showers of perished string scattering to the ice, but this did not occur. 4-2 Bison.

The 5^th goal was kickass as far as Bison were concerned fo’shizzle and a kick in the unmentionables as far as the Raiders were concerned. It was all but over. And so it proved with the game proceeding to a conclusion without further scoring. Back to Essex went the Raiders, having failed to raid. Top Bananas were elected – Connolly for the Raiders and Sampford for Bison.

Footnote 1 : In 1962 Frank Morris (that's him below) and the Anglin brothers executed an audacious escape from island prison Alcatraz in inflatable rubber dinghies made of glued together raincoats. They were never seen again. OK that Frank Morris wasn’t Liam’s dad. He was another Frank Morris.

Footnote 2 : Theft of the Mona Lisa. On August 11th 1911 Vincenzo Perugia (that’s him below) hid in the Louvre until it closed for the night. He then removed the Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, from its frame. When the gallery reopened he simply walked out with the painting under his smock, attracting no attention. He was caught and the painting recovered 2 years later when he contacted a Florence art dealer in attempt to claim a 500,000 lire reward for returning the Mona Lisa to Italy.