Bison 5 Invicta Dynamos 3
22/12/18
Last night’s
game proved to be one which both goaltenders will wish to forget. Dan “The
Beast” Weller–Evans played well in the Bison net but, due to hideousness on the
D, was left exposed on several occasions and saw his save percentage
undersevedly gurgling down the plug hole. The Mos brought with them Conor
Morris, one of several Scottish netminders in the NIHL, to guard their pipes.
By the end of the evening the Caledonian pipes protector, also let down by his
D, had become a disconsolate figure with a broken stick and a melancholy
demeanour. His team had fallen like a factory chimney demolished by Fred Dibnah.
Much to
everyone’s surprise it was the Mos who drew first blood, thankfully not
literally. Jake Stedman set up Owen Dell with a tap in after his shot had been
saved by the pad of Dan “The Beast”. Time stood still and the crowd watched in
Prozac popping anguish as the puck hit the netman’s pad and then trickled in a
tantalisingly slow manner across the goal line towards the back stick. Dell dealt
the final blow and poked the biscuit over the aforesaid line. With a heavy
heart Honest Pete illuminated his goal light. 1-0 Invicta.
On 9:40 parity
was restored. Tom “Wreck-it” Ralph sent George “Gordon” Norcliffe away. He
hammered forward faster than the Wells Fargo stagecoach from Deadwood with its
team of horses at full gallop and Calamity Jane riding shotgun. He then
unleashed one. Morris got a piece of it, but, alas for the kilted custodian, it
was a piece not large enough and the biscuit slid slowly across the line. It
was Gordon’s 4th goal in 3 games. He has a hot stick at the moment. 1-1.
Bison surged
into the lead on 16:42, but in a manner most unpreferable as it resulted in an
injury to goaltender Morris, who remained down and damaged for several minutes
after Pilot Officer Paul Petts had shaken off his bandits and propelled the
puck over the line from a rebounded saved shot by Morris from Oscar Evans. With
no back up goalie the Mos were desperate for their Caledonian shot stopper to
recover. Finally he did just that and, as he got to his feet, he was greeted by
generous applause from the home fans, unlike at certain other rinks, which
shall remain nameless, where injured players are greeted with jeers and shouts
of “CHEAT!” But hey! Let’s not get too heavy here. We will move on from the discussion on generosity
of spirit. Thankfully Morris was able to continue to the end of the period,
although looking a little shaky, and seemed to be back to rude health
thereafter. Oh yes I forgot to mention Coach Ashley Tait was awarded an assist
for the goal. 2-1 Bison.
P1 closed and P2
opened and it was to prove a pernicious period provoking pulsating petulance,
peevishness and pique in the camp of the home team. They laid siege to the Mos’
goal, but to no avail. Lester Gillis aka Baby Face Nelson (that’s him below) was
a notorious bank robber and murderer, who was drilled full of slugs in a shoot
out with the FBI on 27th November 1934 and, perhaps unsurprisingly,
kicked the bucket as a result. Not even he, firing a Tommy gun from the hip, could
have made a better job of peppering the visitors’ goal. Bison blasted away at
the Kentish net with no fewer than 22 shots in the period, but Morris proved
equal to all of them. Things were not such a bowl of cherries at the other end,
however, where 2 hideous lapses on the D gave the Mos 2 goals and had
goaltender Dan “The Beast” furiously scribbling names off his Christmas card
list.
The first
chunderous error on the Bison D occurred on 28:42. Slack defending saw Mos work
a smart move between Anthony Leone and Ondrej Zosiak, which resulted in the
finding of, not the lost city of Atlantis, nor Captain Kidd’s treasure nor even
the Ark of the Covenant, but instead a spare man in front of goal, namely Owen
Dell, scorer of the 1st Kentish goal. The Bison D treated him like
they were a bunch of rabbis and he was a ham sandwich at a bar mitzvah. No-one
touched him. He rifled the puck past Dan “The Beast”, who had no chance, no
hope and no salvation. 2-2.
“OK so they have
equalised. They won’t get another,” may have been the thoughts of some of the
Bison backers at this point. However, a minute and a half later their confident
assessment was to plunge into the ravine of doom as a chunderous giveaway saw
Brandon Miles in the clear. He charged forward from the neutral zone. He
couldn’t have moved forward faster than if he had been Postman Pat being
pursued by the hound of the Baskervilles. He rifled the biscuit past a hung out
to dry Dan “The Beast” and it was 2-3 Invicta. Lewis English (son of Johnny?) was
awarded an assist for the goal.
From a Bison
perspective, to fall behind was as undesirable as the scrapings from the bottom
of Tutenkhamun’s sarcophagus. At once Coach Tosh Redmond called a time out. He
may have said to the assembled players, “Shape up on the D, ya wee beasties, d’
ye ken? Ye dinna want me ta skelp yer
wee banoochies, eh?” I will refrain from giving a translation as I would not
wish to be responsible for an outpouring of public outrage. However, you may
Google a Scottish to English translator if you wish.
During the
interval between P2 and P3 the Che Guevara impersonator offered the opinion
that surely the Mos would tire with only 13 skaters. The Man with 3 Ear-rings,
wallowing in a cess pool of pessimism, said “I’ve got some more straws for you
to clutch at here.” But, as it transpired, the Argentinian revolutionary (Che wasn't Cuban you know) was right
(perhaps he does know something about hockey after all) as the 3rd
belonged all to Bison. A 2-3 deficit was turned around into a 5-3 win, so pray
read on, dear reader, as, if you are a Bison backer currently drowning in a sea
of dejection, having read the pervious paragraphs, the remainder of this humble
report will lift your spirits.
P3 opened. On
41:50 Jake Stedman was thrown in the can for slashing. A mere 10 seconds into
the power play there was a levelling score. The puck was cycled round to Adam
Jones, who cracked an Ooo Mr. Rigsby slapshot towards goal. Morris was equal to
it, but, much to his very grave chagrin, the rebounded biscuit went straight to
Michal Klenja, who had an empty net to aim at. The wedding scene in the 1967
musical film “Half a Sixpence” featured the song “Flash, Bang, Wallop!”, which
included the lyrics “flash, bang, wallop, what a picture, what a photograph,
poor old soul, blimey what a joke, hat blown off in a cloud of smoke”. Part of
this is what we then saw i.e. the flash, bang, wallop of Klejna’s clapper, if
not the smoke or the blowing off of Morris’s hat. 3-3.
Not content with
being on level terms, Bison bagged a go ahead goal shortly after – on 45:43 to
be precise. It was a move of mammoth-esque purpleness finished by a shot of
spanking spectacularity. Doc Cowley passed to Coach Tait. He advanced forward
up the right wing across the blue line and whipped a pass inside to Klejna.
Remember Hot Lips Houlihan from “MASH”? That's her below of course. Well I can pass no opinion as to
whether or not Klejna has hot lips, but he most definitely does have a hot
stick, which he used to whip a sizzling top shelf wrist shot past a by now despairing
Morris. 4-3 Bison.
On 49:50 Bison
put the boot in and bagged another. It wasn’t dissimilar to their 3rd
goal. On this occasion Alex Sampford set up Oscar Evans for the shot. His
clapper was saved by Morris, but alas for him the puck dropped at the feet of
Dangling Dick Bordowski. He didn’t bother with a dithering dangle or deke or a
pussyfooting poke or prod or even a wavering waffle or whack, but instead rose
to the occasion and clappered a humdinger into the wide open net. 5-3 Bison.
But the Mos were
not done yet and were desperately seeking ways of getting past the Bison D, now
recovered from their ineptitude of P2, and firing in shots on Dan “The Beast”.
Their aspirations in this regard were dealt a body blow on 55:09 when robust
D-man Arran Strawson, proved he is no man of straw by over robustly slashing
and ending up having his collar felt. On his re-emergence into civilised
society 2 minutes later, doubtless feeling pain, embarrassment and contrition
for his misdemeanour, less than 3 minutes remained on the clock and it wasn’t
looking good for the undynamic Dymanos. By now the Mos’ chances of winning the
game, which, at the end of P2, had looked semi-rosy to those unaware of the Bison’s
propensity to record come from behind wins, were falling like that factory chimney
demolished by Fred Dibnah (see above). With only 13 skaters they were visibly done in and a
comeback from this losing position seemed as unlikely as Fatty Arbuckle riding
a dray horse to victory in the Grand National. That dietarily challenged gentleman is
illustrated below.
The final buzzer
sounded and the Mos had lost, but by a respectable score it has to be said. Top
bananas were elected. 2 goal Owen Dell was adjudged to have been the best Mo
and 2 goal Michal Klejna went forward with his characteristic kneeling twirl to
receive the beers for his team
As we waited for
the final formalities to be formalised netman Morris broke his stick. I was
looking elsewhere at the time and cannot confirm whether it was a deliberate
act carried out in a fit of uncontrollable rage or whether by leaning heavily
on the stick he had uncovered a previously unknown flaw and the stick had given
way. Suffice it to say that he looked as miserable as sin on the skate past the
fans, surely not a sore loser, but probably feeling the pain of the loss of his favourite stick.
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