Sunday, 28 October 2018

Bison Bag the Points but Dynamos Grab the Plaudits


Bison 5 Invicta Dynamos 3
27/10/18

According to Leonard Cohen, there are heroes in the seaweed and Suzanne would show you where to look amongst the garbage and the flowers (Eh? See footnote 1). Well there were heroes at Planet Ice last night also. Bison may have bagged the points, but the short benched Mos (only 12 skaters), coming off the back of a 13-1 annihilation last time out, put in a spirited performance and, despite being outshot by 45-22, came away with a very respectable defeat.

P1 opened and goal no.1 of the evening arrived on 9:52 and it was the result of an odd man rush. An odd what? In case, dear reader, you are unfamiliar with hockey parlance an odd man rush is where the attacking forwards outnumber the D-men of the opposition – in this case 3-2. It is not a surge forward by a peculiar, idiosyncratic individual. I wonder if you have odd woman rushes in ladies hockey. This is all by the by. Let’s us return to the action. The surge forward was executed by the trio of Danny Ingoldsby, Hallum Wilson and George Norcliffe. The former hammered forward and passed inside to the middle named. He fired in a shot which netman Connor Morris saved. Back in 1984 Bananarama told us that Robert de Niro was waiting …. and speaking Italian – a fine example of male multi tasking I’m sure you will agree. As the puck ricocheted off the pad of Morris someone was waiting at the back door. Was it Robert de Niro? No it was the latter named, namely Gordon Norcliffe, not speaking Italian but instead smashing the puck into an empty net. 1-0 Bison. The sole confederate was announced as Ingoldsby with the emphasis on the middle syllable thus InGOLDsby as opposed to INgoldsby, which I always thought it was. Never mind. Strangely enough no assist to Wilson. Why? Who can tell?


On 16:35 it was 2-0 as a result of an Ooo Betty moment for the hapless Morris, who otherwise didn’t put a foot, skate, blocker or catcher wrong all evening. Set up by a combination of Alex Sampford and Hallum Wilson, Danny Ingoldsby (sorry I meant InGOLDsby) cut in towards goal from the left wing. The puck left his stick. Suddenly it was over the line, the red light had come on and Referee Evans’s hand had become flat and pointy in a netwards direction. Close observers confirmed to me that it had hit Morris’s back and gone in. How chunderous for the poor fellow. 2-0 Bison. By the way if you want to know the origin of the word chunder see footnote 2.

P1 ended with Bison in the driving seat, having outshot the Mos by 16-8. But the Kentish visitors had no intention of rolling over and having their tummies tickled. Indeed no. They surged back into contention with a goal on 1:38 of the 2nd. It was a scrappy affair with a Chuckle Brothers “to me to you to me” air about it with Brandon Miles eventually forcing it over the line past Alex “Mittens” Mettam, who made two saves but not a third. Louis Colvin and Matt Foord, who always seems to have one too many Os in his name for my liking, were declared assistants. 2-1.

Bison continued to dominate play, but could not find a way of breaching the Morris pipes for a P2 goal. It was looking like it was going to be the hop pickers’ period. That is until the last minute when a goal threatened to cause a Morris family rift as Liam put one past brother Connor. Set up by Tom “Wreck-it” Ralph, Doc Russ Cowley fired one in. Morris the Younger saved the shot with his pad, but, much to his chagrin, the puck flew wide straight to Morris the Elder. The latter seemed to have all the time in the world as the Mos D was nowhere to be seen. Were they a bunch of Miss Muffetts, who on realising that a spider had sat down beside her, was frightened away? Probably not as I saw no curds, whey or arachnids. Morris the Younger attempted to block the goal. The Dynamos faithful would have preferred him to have possessed the physical attributes of Oliver Hardy over those of Stan Laurel. But he was something in between. In this case that something in between proved inadequate and the goal remained only partially blocked. Morris the Elder’s finish was cool and composed, calm and canny, considered and calculated, but at the same time cruel and crushing for his hapless sibling. It was an over the shoulder number into the top corner. No brotherly consideration had been shown. 3-1 Bison.

 
But the Mos were not down among the dead men yet and shortly after we moved into P3 they pegged it back once more. With Michal Klejna banged up for charging (oh no it wasn’t) Martins Susters, who sounds like an import but isn’t and who also sounds like multiple people with Ss on the end of both his names, but who is actually only one person, combined with Andrew Munro, who is definitely only one person, to set up Edmund (not Blackadder) Piačka, also one person. He fired in a splendid wrist shot. 3-2.

1:27 later Bison restored their 2 goal advantage. Danny InGOLDsby, still retaining the emphasis on the middle syllable of his name, passed from the right wing inside to Doc Cowley, who in turn passed to Wreck-it Ralph. The Mos D had once again been caught with their trousers down as Wreck-it Ralph rifled home and, in doing so, elicited a rumbustious show of approbation from the Bison backers. In fact, the Bison goal celebration was gigantic and titanic, stupendous and tumultuous, enormous and voluminous. Hats were thrown into the air. 4-2 Bison.

A flurry of penalties was soon to feature. On 53:18 Chris Cooke hammered into Brandon Miles, who clearly regarded this as a trifle unsporting and attempted to duff the D-man up. However, the former had by then collapsed face down on the ice like a sack of potatoes and the latter could only stand over him and deliver a couple of half heated thumps into the back of the prostrate form beneath. That was enough for Referee Evans. “Oi you geezers”, he may have shouted. “Porridge for you. Are you going quietly or do I have to get Plod in?” They went quietly.


27seconds into the penalty Callum Best slashed the stick out of Coach Tait’s hands, sending the twig spinning to the ice, but his action wasn’t enough to halt the forward momentum of the Bison attack. Delayed penalty call surely? But no. Mr Evans flew into a wild state of panic and blew his whistle. This premature action must surely have left the hapless official purple with embarrassment as if caught with spinach adhering to his front teeth at a job interview. With Best having his collar felt it was 4 on 3. A re-equipped Coach Tait combined with Klejna to set up Adam Jones for an Ooo Mr Rigsby wrist shot from just inside the blue line.


The puck hurtled past the hapless netman faster than Rosa “Zazel” Richter in full flight. (Who? She was the first human cannon ball in 1877 – I’ve told you that before). 5-2 Bison.


The game moved towards a conclusion, but all was not yet done. With 21 seconds remaining the Mos bagged another. Susters passed out from behind the goal line and the puck was snapped home. Back in the 1958 the Monotones sang “I wonder, wonder who, mmbadoo-ooh, who, who wrote the book of love”. When the Mos scored I was similarly left wondering, not about the book of love, but rather about the identity of the scorer. It turned out to be Piačka with a second assist going to Colvin. 5-3

Time out Mos. Goaltender pulled. 21 seconds of 6 on 5. Could they score twice in 21 seconds? Surely not. As it turned out, no fruit was borne, not even the pip of a fruit. The final buzzer sounded and the fat lady was singing. Top bananas were elected. Colvin with 2 assists grabbed the beers for the Mos and Danny InGOLDsby with a 1+2 evening received the Bison acclamation.

Footnote 1 : Leonard Cohen was a Canadian musician, songwriter and poet, who wrote and recorded a song called Suzanne in 1967. You don’t have to understand the meaning of the words to appreciate it as a work of poetical genius.


Footnote 2 : In multi-decked convict ships transporting the nation’s ne’er-do-wells to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries anyone being sick over the side of the ship would shout a warning of “Watch out under!” in case there might be someone on a lower deck with his head poking out. In time the warning was shortened to “CHUNDER!”

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