Bison 3
Peterborough Phantoms 2 (O/T)
14/9/19
At last. Summer officially over. Hockey is back. Last
night we bore witness to the first leg of the Billy Glover Memorial Trophy. The
visitors were the Peterborough Phantoms, who finished a solitary point above
Bison in last season’s NIHL South. So, without significant roster changes to
either team, this looked like a potentially even contest. And so it proved,
dear reader, as I shall relate.
P1 opened and it didn’t take long for a blast to emanate
from the whistle of Referee Jarvie. Was he sporting an Acme Thunderer or a Fox
40 Sonik Blast? I could not identify it from the shrill tone emitted, but
frankly who cares? Up went the Jarvie arm, well one of them anyway, and into
the box for charging went Phantom Tom Norton. Had the game been taking place in
Calcutta in 1756, he may have had to serve his sentence in the infamous Black
Hole for his misdemeanor, but it wasn’t. Power play to Bison.
Bison had their chances, but Jordan Marr stood firm in
the ghostly net. It looked as if it was going to be a PP kill for the Phantoms,
but with only 2 seconds of Norton’s incarceration remaining, Bison broke the
deadlock with a clapper of Ooo matron spectacularity. Coach Ashley Tait slewed
a cross ice pass to the slot, where Michal Klejna awaited, with a shout of “Oi
Geezer! Slap your twig on that”. OK he probably didn’t actually say that, but
that was the sentiment. All we need to know is that “slap his twig on that” was
exactly what Klejna did. The biscuit flew into the net with the speed a hamburger
disappearing down Wimpy’s throat. (Who? See footnote 1). 1-0 Bison.
Just before the
period terminated, there was nearly but not quite a fight. Liam “Square Sausage”
Morris received a cross check from Norton and was very cross that he had been
checked, so the grabbed the aforementioned assailant with the intention of knocking
his bally block off. However, despite Morris’s wish to exact his revenge in a
manner most violent and virulent, Norton decided he didn’t want to be on the
end of all this so he hung on for dear life and prevented the Scottish would-be
combatant from throwing any meaty punches, quite an achievement in its own
right I have to say. The officials stepped in and broke up the unsavoury fracas.
The miscreants each received 2+ 2 penalties for fighting, which was a bit of a
misnomer as pushing, showing and grabbing without punching isn’t really
fighting is it? But there isn’t a penalty for “handbags”, so fighting it was
classified as.
There was
surprisingly no more scoring in the period, which had been dominated by Bison
with a shot count of 20-6. A solitary
goal lead in hockey, however, is as slender as a Rizla fag paper or an After 8
mint or shaving from a wood turner’s lathe and can be lost in the blink of an
eye or an utterance of Jack Robinson or the flap of a humming bird’s wing, as
we know and that is what exactly happened in P3. Eh? What happened to the
account of the P2 action? I’m not going to bother. No goals. Nothing to say. So
there.
The P3 equalising score came on 47:26. It was a
scrappy affair involving Glen Billing, Joe Gretton, a last season whipping boy suffering
the ignominy of playing for the hapless, helpless and hopeless Nottingham Lions
(incidentally don’t spell his name Gratin as this is something completely
different – see footnote 2), and James Ferrara, the last named gentleman
popping in the loose puck at point blank range with the other two earning
apples. 1-1 and all to play for.
Bison needed to surge forward and cut the head off the
dragon. But on 48:47 that task became more difficult when Klejna was called for
a trip and a trip to the house of correction he had to make. The apparitional
visitors took full advantage and worked a man over at the back door. The Johnny
on the spot was Ferrara and he squeezed it in after his initial attempt was saved.
1-2 Phantoms and Ooo Betty for Bison.
The clock ticked down and into the last minute we
moved. 30 seconds, 20 seconds to go. That was surely it. But no. A moment of
purple spectacularity awaited us. Bison launched a last chance saloon attack.
It was do or die, stand or fall, Nirvana or Prozac for the homesters. Alex
Sampford battled through centre ice and slewed a pass wide right to Coach Tait.
The ghostly D failed to dispossess the coach and he suddenly whipped a pass
inside to the aforementioned Sampford, who had continued his advance towards the
spectral net. It happened quick as a flash, but not the type which involved a
raincoat. Oh no matron. Before anyone could say “Jack Robinson” (not him again) or Jack
anything else for that matter, Sampford whipped an exquisite forehanded snap
shot, which caught Marr with his trousers down, thankfully not literally, and
the biscuit flew past him short side with only 17 seconds remaining. As he
skated past, Sampford may have said to Marr, “Dashed hard cheddar, old bean”.
If he didn’t, he should have done as that is exactly what it was. Back in 1959
Ray Charles (that's the geezer below) sang, “See the girl with the diamond ring, she knows how to shake
that thing. Alright. Hey hey”. There were clearly an awful lot of people
amongst the Bison crowd who also knew how to “shake that thing”,
notwithstanding that Mr. Charles’s lyric had a somewhat inuendous meaning, as
wild dancing erupted in the stands to give physical from to the emotions of the moment. 2-2.
The final buzzer sounded. The crowd relaxed. The
players started shaking hands. They thought it was all over – just as they had
at Wembley in 1966 when the crowd began spilling onto the pitch moments before Geoff
Hurst hammered the ball (see below) into the net to complete a 4-2 World Cup win over the
Germans. (I said all that without mentioning the war). But it wasn’t over. Oh
no, matron. A conflab between coaches was taking place and it was decided that
we would have overtime just for the hell of it.
So into the additional period of 3 on 3 opened and it was the usual cagey affair. At the point when only 19 seconds remained, Dangling Dick Bordowski began a charge forward. Surely Bison couldn’t undo the Phantoms again with such short time to go? Well yes they could. Bordo moved forward as rapidly as he could manage not with the style of a drayman’s cart horse, but with the speed of a thoroughbred racehorse. The covering D-man (I know not whom) held his ground and thought he had forced Bordo wide and behind the goal, but suddenly from a tight angle, the left handed sniper, whipped in a last gasp shot. There was no need to bother with Pythagoras’s theorem (squares and hypotenuses didn’t enter his mind I am sure) – he got the angle just right. The puck flew through the gap between Marr and post and into the net behind, causing the hapless netminder, who had failed to mind, and the covering D-man, who had failed to cover, to adopt feelings of deep discontent. 3-2 Bison and game over.
It befell him, her
or those appointed to decide who were the Top Bananas for each team to discharge
that very duty. James Ferrara with both Phantom goals, took the incorporeal
beings’ award and Coach Tait bagged the beers for the homesters.
Footnote 1 : Wimpy was a character in Popeye.
He was always hungry and sadly very impecunious, having to resort to empty
promises to procure hamburgers from Rough House the owner of the diner, his
famous catchphrase being, "I'll
gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”.
Footnote 2 : Gratin is a
widespread culinary technique in which an ingredient is topped with a browned
crust, often using breadcrumbs, grated cheese, egg or butter. Gratin originated
in French cuisine and is usually prepared in a shallow dish of some kind. Now
you know.
Dear readers! I shall be missing the next 3 games, so no reports alas (or maybe it's rather Hurrah!) This is what happens when you let your wife organise holiday dates. My apologies, but you will have to look elsewhere for accounts of deeds of great spectacularity and purpleness.
