Bison 5 Streatham Redhawks 2 (Aggregate 10-4)
2nd
leg Southern playoff quarter finals
24/3/19
The Redhawks came
to Planet Ice with a beat up Bison tactic looking to overturn a 2-5 deficit
from the previous evening’s first leg. They failed, as I shall relate, dear
reader.
The visitors knew
they couldn’t pussyfoot around, tarry awhile, dilly-dally or dawdle. And indeed
they did none of those things, but came out fast and went for the Bison
jugular. Alas for them they could not turn early pressure into a goal. As the period
wore, on it looked more likely that Bison would score. And indeed they did on
16:15. Don’t read here for a detailed description of the goal – it was a mess,
a veritable blue paint scramble, a maniacal mêlée of gargantuan proportions.
Eventually there was Dangling Dick Bordowski. He didn’t waste time dangling the
puck. No indeed. He poked it over the line. A sonorous blast from Referee
Pickett’s Acme Thunderer was heard and behind the goal Roxanne put on her red
light, even though Sting told her she didn’t have to. It was a goal and
Referee’s flat pointy hand confirmed that. 1-0 Bison. Doc Cowley with the
solitary assist.
The Redhawks had
no intention of throwing in the towel, even though they were 4 goals to the bad
on aggregate. Perhaps they didn’t have a towel to throw in. The fat lady wasn’t
singing yet and on 17:49, the visitors dragged themselves back into the tie
with a goal. It was a set up from behind the goal line with Alex Roberts
feeding Rupert Quiney, who really does need to get his hair cut, in the slot
and unchallenged. He smacked in a one timer. 1-1.
The period ended
and into the 2nd epoch we passed. The Redhawks took only 4:37 to bag
another goal. Ben Russell and Andreas Siagris combined to set up Thomas Soar,
who made Bison heads sore as he shot through a crowd of players and in 1-2
Redhawks. Ooo Betty for Bison.
Never mind. Events
were soon to occur that would burst the bounds of credulity and propel
credence, with or without the Clearwater revival, to infinity and beyond. A
team should never concede a short handed goal. It’s as bad as losing to a team
of one armed men. To let in two on the same power play and within 10 seconds of
each other – OK there may be inaccuracies in Hockeybloke reports (no I hear you
say), but this double shortie thing actually happened. Let’s go back to 31:59.
Alex Roberts thrust his stick into the ribs of Liam “Square Sausage” Morris.
Rather than give him a Glasgow kiss, Morris grabbed the aforementioned twig and
thrust it away in disdain. A shrill blast from the Pickett Acme Thunderer
halted proceedings. 2 minutes to Roberts? No. Mister Magoo style myopia had set
in. 2 minutes for holding the stick to Morris. Ok he did, but….
“Now’s our
chance,” thought the Redhawks. “2-1 up – we could go 3-1 up on this PP and
bring the tie back to a 1 goal affair”. As long ago as 1871, Edward Lear told
us that the owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. (What
was he on when he wrote that poem? Probably the same stuff that John Lennon was
on when he sang about semolina pilchards climbing up the Eiffel Tower). Well
there appeared to be a similarity between the antics of the owl and the
pussycat and the Redhawks’ D. Although they didn’t have a pea green boat, the
Redhawks did manage to be all at sea 1:05 into the 5 on 4. Doc Cowley cleared
out of defense. Coach Tait gave chase and collected the puck without a
challenge. I am not sure whether the defending on this occasion was more
sinking ship than lead balloon. Suffice it to say it, like both of those, it
went down, not down to the bottom of the sea nor down to earth, but down the
pan, as Tait bypassed the solitary D-man who had bothered to track back, albeit
in a somewhat lack lustre fashion, leaving his 4 colleagues up ice. Steaming in
like the 9:15 to Waterloo was an unmolested Michal Klejna. He cracked the
biscuit past a static Damien King in the net. Clouds of steam exited from the
mask of the hapless goaltender who had been left cruelly exposed and with his
trousers well and truly down by his inept D. 2-2.
“OK, that was a
bit of a disaster, but we’ve still got nearly a minute on the PP to snatch back
the lead.” If indeed these were the thoughts of Coach Cornish, he must have
been driven to a state of advanced funereal perturbation, a maniacal, disillusioned
and incredulous observer of the hideous scene which was about to unfold before
his very eyes. Oh yes, dear reader, events turned into a ghastly nightmare 10
seconds of play later for the despairing coach. The Redhawks’ defending was once
again a failure, a flop, a fiasco and a farce, not to mention mismanaged,
mishandled, miscalculated and miscarried. Bison won the restart face off and
Adam Harding from wide left slewed the biscuit to the same spot in the slot
where Klejna had just cracked in his goal. It was not only déjà vu, but, even
worse, déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said. This time the solitary
unchallenged Johnny-on-the-spot was Dangling Dick Bordowski. The Czech chap clappered
the biscuit into the stringbag past a startled King. It was enough to make
Edvard Munch scream and Coach Cornish to reach for his probably by now empty bottle
of Prozac. 3-2 Bison, for whom the last
10 seconds of play had propelled the Bison crowd to a state of Ooo Matron ecstasy.
Chunderous, blunderous, blooperish and bunglesome are words which could be used
to describe the Redhawks’ fouled up, loused up and screwed up efforts to gain
an advantage from the power play. Their fans, every one of whom seemed to have
a drum beating out that monotonous BOOM boom boom boom, BOOM boom boom boom, BOOM
boom boom boom rhythm, must have been hurled headlong over the precipice and into
the ravine of Ooo Betty doom, gloom and despondency.
That was it as
far as scoring was concerned. P2 ended and the Redhawks found themselves with a
4 goal deficit to pull back in P3.
P3 opened and on
53:04 Danny Ingoldsby, scorer of 2 goals in the first leg, hammered a final
nail into the blokes from the Smoke’s coffin. He seized on a misplaced pass and
precipitated forward in a curry-in-a-hurry fashion before unleashing a cayenne
pepper hot wrist shot. Blistering biriyanis! King may have stopped a stale
samosa fired at him at pace, but he could not stop the puck. He was so taken by
surprise that he failed to do anything other than just stand there, hoping that
he was of sufficient size to block the goal completely. Alas not even any one
of Fatty Foulke, Fatty Arbuckle (see below) and Giant Haystacks nor even all three of them
standing side by side, could have done that and Ingoldsby’s shot flew from the
tape of his twig with the speed of a javelin launched by Fatima Whitbread and through
the hapless custodian into the net. Danny’s cheeks flushed with pride as he cellied
with his linies. (He did what? He celebrated with his line mates of course. Don’t
you know any hockey slang?)
So at 9-4 on
aggregate things were looking a trifle undesirable for the blokes from the
Smoke. Their chances of winning the tie (and I’m not talking about that piece
of cloth which dangles from your neck and over which you spill you lunch)
seemed as dead as Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury on October 26th
1881. (Who? Come on – I’ve told you about them before. If you’ve forgotten, you’ll
have to Google Wyatt Earp and the gunfight at the OK Coral). And so it proved.
But Bison weren’t done yet and with 1:09 left in the game they bagged another
to ensure that the Redhawks’ hopes were pushing up the daisies alongside
Clanton and the McLaurys on Boot Hill. If you want to know how read on, dear
reader.
Re-enter
Dangling Dick with a piece of sorcery that would have rendered Gandalf, Dumledore
and Tommy Cooper open mouthed with admiration. Receiving a pass from Jay King, the
Czech chap collected the puck on the boards in the Bison half and precipitated
forward. As Shakespeare might have said…. “that much admir’d fellow didst
moveth f'rward with the elusivity of a slipp'ry eel.” Shakespeare was right.
No-one seemed capable of dispossessing him or even stopping his forward motion.
He slewed an inch perfect pass across the face of the goal to the stick tape of
George “Gordon” Norcliffe, who clappered it home for a score of great
spectacularity and one which would have delighted Shakespeare himself. 5-2
Bison and end of story, goodnight Vienna and Auf Weidersen Pet for the
Redhawks.
However, before
the proceedings were brought to a close an incident, which could hardly be
described as a malodourous dispute of the most disreputable type resulting in virulent
violence of the most disgraceful variety broke out. Josh Condren (don’t
mis-spell his surname please) decided to teach Adam Harding a lesson. Off came
the gloves and the two came together. Harding hit Condren once. The latter then
collapsed to the ice like a sack of spuds, humiliatingly vanquished. Not much
of a lesson really. And not much of a punch up either. The blood lust of the Bison crowd remained
unfulfilled.
A bizarre
confrontation occurred after the final buzzer. Leigh Jamieson went over to the
Bavy bunker and, reliable sources inform me, told Bavy, who had made one or two
mildly provocative remarks (What? Who? Bavy?) in no uncertain terms that he
should have some respect, jabbing his finger, Kevin Keegan “I’d love it if we
beat them, love it” style (see below) to emphasise his point. Clearly Bavy misunderstood
the situation and thought that Jamieson was making a music request, namely “Respect”
by Aretha Franklin and by jabbing his finger towards the lap top, he was
indicating where Bavy might find the soundfile. Never one to refuse a request (“Misirlou”
by Dick Dale and the Del-tones at the next game please Bavy) on came “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”
which I am sure was enjoyed by all including Jamieson.
Top bananas were
elected. Roberts was thought to be the best Redhawk and Morris took the Bison
beers. The crowd drifted away. Next up the Phantoms in the semi-final. “We won’t
beat them,” said the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt, but what does he know
about hockey? Even less than the Che Guevara impersonator I am told.
No comments:
Post a Comment