Smorgasbord of Defensive Errors Does for the Dumbledores

Bracknell Bees 2 Bison 3

10/11/19

Fo’shizzle the Bees must really hate Bison. They can’t seem to beat them home or away, at the North Pole or on Mars, not that they’ve played at the latter two venues (yet). Last night’s road win for the Basingstoke ice men meant that they have now won 8 games in a row against the Bees. We, the assembled, at least in the Bison blocks, were hoping for a metaphorical smorgasbord (smorgas what? See footnote 1) of purple pulsating plays resulting in a plethora of goals as a result of a cornucopia (Ooo I love that word) of chunderous defensive aberrations, leading to a total demoralisation of the opposition, causing them to reach for a cocktail of Prozac and Valium and to book a team session on the analyst’s couch, as had occurred last time – remember the 9-2 flagellation dished out by Bison on their last visit to Bracknell? (OK the Prozac, Valium and analyst’s couch might be my imagination running wild). Well we didn’t see exactly that. But we did witness a close exciting game, very sadly marred by an opprobrious incident at the death (and it nearly did result in death) involving violence of the most outrageous variety and the spilling of more blood than went down the shower plug hole when Vivienne Leigh was stabbed by Anthony Perkins in Psycho (see below and see footnote 2). The unsavoury particulars of this abominable contretemps will be given at the end of this report.

Suffice it to say that P1 opened and closed with no scoring, so let us move onto P2 to avoid the wastage of paper. It was the Bees who finally broke the deadlock on 25:22. Adam Harding was hooked into the box for a hook and whilst he was giving solemn thought to his misdemeanour, experiencing profound feelings of penitence and contrition as he formulated a plan of good deed doing which would enable him to reach a state of retrospective exculpation, the Bees scored and cut short his meditation. Harvey Stead passed from the slot to wide left and there was Brendon Baird advancing across the circle to whip a wristy past Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans. Robin Kovar with the second assist. 1-0 Bees.

This was an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs for Bison. They had to get back on level terms and they were presented with an opportunity which couldn’t have been more golden than if it had been Tutankhamun’s death mask (see below).

First of all Joe Baird had his collar felt on 30:24 for a cross check, such check being delivered while he was cross no doubt. If he wasn’t, the referee certainly was cross and checked him into the glasshouse for a 2 minuter. 21 seconds later Roman Malinik was elbowed into the box for an elbowing offence. 1 minute 39 seconds of 5 on 3 await the inept Bees D. Could they hold out Alamo style or would they fall like a 50 storey skyscraper built on porridge. The answer is …... it was skyscraper not Alamo. The move began with Adam “Oh no not Jonesy” Jones squaring an Ooo Mr. Rigsby pass to Coach Tait, D to D style. Tait then sent a diagonal pass to Michal Klejna at the back door. He had Stuart “The Cat” Mogg between him and the goal. The Slovak chap bypassed Moggie with a pass to the slot and there in between the other two D-men exercising centimeter, nay millimeter, perfect spatial awareness, a quality which bumbling D-men did not share with him, was Alex Sampford. He laid lumber on rubber and the biscuit flew past a despairing Adam Goss into the stringbag behind him, causing the hapless netman to experience feelings of great sadness. Well it had been a moment of immense ghastliness for him after all. 1-1.

One evening in the Summer of 1980 a taxi driver entered the public bar of the Jubilee Tavern in Southsea. He spoke to the barman, who then made an announcement “Taxi for Mr. Sour.” There was no response. He upped the decibels and shouted “TAXI FOR MR. SOUR!” Again no response until a wit shouted back, “He’s gone off.” (True story). Well on 41:16 the Bees’ D did exactly the same thing that Mr. Sour had done that evening. They went off, perhaps in search of Mr. Sour. Who knows? Well that’s not quite accurate. The Bees’ D was there but only in body and not in mind. They proved totally ineffectual as Liam “Square Sausage” Morris received a pass from Bayley Harewood and from the point he drifted effortlessly past one D-man as elusively as a solitary strand of linguini drizzled in olive oil would slip through the prongs of a fork (OK I’ve used that one before). He was now one on one with netman Goss. Morris shot, but Goss saved and deflected the puck off his pads at an angle of 125˚ (OK it could have been 124˚) to the opposite boards where Klejna picked it up. He had 2 D-men between himself and the goal. The first simply got out of the way. The second just allowed Klejna to move past him as he stood as statuesquely as Lot’s wife had been. Goss had failed to mind the gap and through that gap Klejna stroked the puck at an impossible angle. Well not actually impossible clearly, as he did it. On went the beacon behind the goal. A positively beastly moment for the netman. 2-1 Bison.

But the Bees were not dead yet. On 46:09 Roman Malinik stole the puck and drifted across goal before unleashing a speculative lob shot, which bounced in off the glove of Weller-Evans. Bad luck Dan “The Beast”. A bit Ooo Betty that one. 2-2.

Back to parity then for the Bees. Could they go on and win the game? If they were to do this they needed to prove as tough on the D as a plug of chewing tobacco bought in some wild west general store. As it proved they were as soft as a wobbly blancmange sliced in half by a razor sharp Samurai sword forged from the finest tempered steel and honed to perfection. They ended up in dire straits, but not of the Mark Knopfler variety. It took them only 3 minutes for them to fall like a dead parrot dropping off its perch. And once again it was the result of bumbling, incompetent, floundering ineptitude on the part of the out to lunch Bees’ D. Sampford played a drop pass to Harding. He, the latter named chap, drifted past one D-man as if he wasn’t there (perhaps his mind was on other things such as the whereabouts of Mr. Sour instead of thinking about providing a worthy challenge). Harding, the aforementioned latter named, shot, but Goss was equal to it. Unfortunately for the hapless chappie and much to his very grave chagrin, he proved a trifle rubberoid and the puck bounced off him and ended up in front of the crease. Even though there were 2 Bees D-men and only 1 Bison forward on hand, it was the Bison man, namely Marek Malinsky, who was first to the spilled biscuit and he fired home to put the Bees’ out of their misery – they surely knew they were going to lose, as they had on the previous 7 occasions, but now their minds had been put at rest as an 8^th successive subjugation loomed large. Back in 1930 Walter Vinson (that’s the geezer below) wrote and recorded a song with his band the Mississippi Sheiks which was to become a blues standard. It was subsequently recorded by numerous artists including Ray Charles, Chet Atkins, Howlin’ Wolf,  Bob Dylan, the White Stripes and Cream (also see below). That song was entitled “Sittin’ on Top of the World.” And that is what the Bison backers were doing, but metaphorically only as they were all standing at this juncture. As for netminder Goss on top of the world was the last pace he was sitting. 3-2 Bison.

But a Bison victory wasn’t a certainty. On no, Matron, not yet. There were still nearly 11 minutes to play. Could the Bees step up a gear and produce at least one play of purple spectacularity which would give them a second equalising score? Actually no they couldn’t. And as the clock ticked down it became last chance saloon stuff for the dumbledores (that is actually a word you know – it is an old English word meaning bumble bee – now you know). With 1:11 remaining Coach Sheppard gambled by pulling Goss from the net, metaphorically speaking of course – I don’t mean he actually came onto the ice and dragged the goaltender away. Now that would have been an entertaining sight. Goss received the bench signal to vacate his domain. This was not the time for the netman to take 5, hang loose or shill-shally. He raced towards the bench in a bat-out-of-Hell-esque fashion, which would have impressed even Meatloaf, to enable a 6th skater to take to the ice. But Bison proved defensively capable and the Bees offensively incapable in this 1 minute 11 seconds. The threat was snuffed out and the buzzer sounded to signal a cessation of hostilities and a Bison win. But not before ….

With seconds remaining the puck found its way into the corner and a veritable do or die skirmish ensued. Alas I and all around me (and presumably all 4 officials as nothing was called) had their eyes on the scrap and did not see what caused Ollie Stone to fall flat on his face in front of goal and gushing so much blood it took the stewards several minutes to scrape it up. I can tell you that James Galazzi was jostling with him. Was it a butt end to the face, a punch or an elbow? Was it on purpose or accidental? Does Galazzi ever injure an opponent accidentally? I can throw no light on it, so I will have to leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Top bananas were elected. Roman Malinik was thought to be the best dumbledore and Bayley Harewood earned the beers he is not old enough to drink (legally).

Footnote 1 : Smorgasbord is a word which is used to describe an extensive array of something, but an actual Smörgåsbord is a Swedish buffet-style meal, served with multiple hot and cold dishes on a table, sometimes with friendly chefs in attendance, like this …...

Footnote 2 : Interesting fact about the famous Psycho shower scene, which was of course filmed in black and white. The blood washing down the plughole was actually chocolate sauce as the fake blood they initially used didn't look right.

Tait’s Overtime Winner – Hang it in the Tate

Bison 5 Telford Tigers 4 (OT)

9/11/19

On the back of a 4 point weekend last time out Bison entertained the nearly table topping Telford Tigers, having already despatched them 7-5 in their first encounter this season. Goals were to rain like men rained, according to the Weather Girls, but not as many as before, but enough to allow Bison to squeeze past their feline opponent with a skin of the teeth overtime winner, as I shall relate, dear reader.

The game had a brisk opening. Very brisk indeed. After only 24 seconds a goal-less parity became history as the Tigers were caught with their trousers well and truly down – Oooo matron. Adam Harding battled for the puck on the boards. He won it and squared to Marek Mailinsky. Many years ago the Caribbean island of Hispaniola ceased to exist. I don’t mean someone pulled out the plug and it sank. The island split into two, not by seismic fissure of course, but by someone drawing a line on a map, and separated into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Well it appeared that, like Hispaniola, the Tigers’ D had also ceased to exist as the Czech chap had no-one within a country mile of him. Louis Armstrong (that's the geezer below) once sang “We have all the time in the world.” And that is what Malinsky had. He picked his spot and wanged home a wrist shot. It was one shot one goal and Bradley Day’s day had started badly with a save percentage of zero. Assists to Harding and Bayley Harewood. 1-0 Bison.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Day’s day was to get initially better and then immediately worse on 2:01. Gordon “George” Norcliffe set up Alex Sampford for a shot. This Day saved and saw his save percentage climb to the lofty heights of 50%, which must have filled him with a warm glow inside. Alas for the hapless custodian the puck spilled from his rubberoid form and fell invitingly for Alex Sampford on the doorstep. It was a perfectly ghastly situation that Day now found himself in and the outcome for him was positively beastly. Sampford hammered home and in the process caused Day’s save percentage to spiral downwards to 33.33%. 2-0 Bison after 2 minutes (OK and one second). 3 shots, 2 goals. Not even Nostradamus could have predicted this, but then why would he have bothered? He had more important prophecies to make, such as the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution and the rise of Hitler.

Perhaps this was the jolt Telford needed to shake themselves into a competitive hockey team rather than a bunch of  dawdling dummkopfs. And this they did. They played much better and tested Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans in the Bison net on 13 occasions during the period, but Dan “The Beast” proved equal to all of them (except one) and they could not find a way to occasion the appearance of Referee Brooks’s flat hand pointing netwardsly until 5 seconds before the end of the period (I jump ahead). At the other end Bison were having a similar lack of success in getting the biscuit past Day, whose save percentage was climbing all the time making him look less Swiss cheese-esque and more Berlin wall-esque. However, as the clock ticked to 18:47 the homesters engineered another frightfully ghastly moment for the inept custodian. Liam “Square Sausage” Morris, playing as a D-man, set Gordon “George” Norcliffe on a journey around the back of the goal. When the puck emerged to Alex Sampford in front there seemed to be one vast expanse of open net. What had happened to Day? He had been as slow to get across goal as a narcotically impaired slug crawling towards a lettuce leaf. Even an L.S Lowry stick man (there’s one below) would have provided more obstruction to the goal than Day. Sampford put twig to biscuit and the puck flew into the empty net. 3-0 Bison.

Things were looking grim for the Tigers and their netman as they lurched towards the first interval 3-0 to the bad. However, they did manage to bag a score just before the end of the period. Bison failed to clear their lines and Dominik Florian fired in a cracking shot past Dan “The Beast” with a loose stick on the ice in front of him providing a distraction. Assists to Brandon Whistle and Scott McKenzie. 3-1 Bison.

P2 opened and it was to prove an opening 6 minutes of great purpleness for the visitors. On 22:46 they scored a goal of great spectacularity as a shot from Florian was batted out of the air past the head of Dan “The Beast”by Scott McKenzie. Nicholas Oliver also with an assist. 3-2 Bison.

And then on 25:45 Florian bagged his second in somewhat controversial circumstances. Josh Kelly was taken out, but the myopic officials allowed play to continue. The Tigers swept forward and Florian fired home from in front of goal. McKenzie and Andrew McKinney assisted. An explosion of acrimony, led by the Howling Man and the Bespectacled Youth, erupted from the Bison backers at the lack of a referee’s whistle for the Kelly assassination. Some hit the roof, others hit the person next to them. It was enough to make you hit the bottle or even the road. Had the Man from MI5 been present he would have wanted to invoke his license to kill and despatch the referees, probably with his poison tipped umbrella. When it all simmered down it was 3-3 and all to play for.

The concession of the goal was very bad news for Bison. Cruising at 3-0 to the good, they now found themselves level and being outplayed. Back in 1933 Ethel Waters (that’s her below) sang what was to become an all time classic song for the first time in the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York, not to be confused with Haarlem in Holland where there is no Cotton Club. It was of course “Stormy Weather”. This is what Bison were experiencing now. For them the words of Ethel Waters rang true – “Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky”. However, they managed to weather the storm and by the end of the period they had made the sun come back out. On 34:08 Ross Kennedy slashed Michal Klejna on the wrist. At last up went the referee’s arm, but not before Hallam Wilson had decided to confront Kennedy. 2 minutes choky for each, which seemed a trifle inequitable. After all Kennedy had tried to do to Klejna what they used to do to thieves in Baghdad and all Wilson had done was make it know to him, in a polite but robust manner I am sure, what he thought of his conduct. So 4 on 4. Then Whistle ended up in the slammer for unsportsmanlike conduct, although on what this may have constituted I can throw no light. Who cares? It was now 4 on 3.

It took Bison only 8 seconds of the power play to send Day’s save percentage spiraling down once more. Klejna and Adam “Oh no not Jonesy” Jones worked the puck around to Coach Tait sitting, well not literally of course, in the slot. He sent a wrist shot with pinpoint accuracy under the glove of Day. What an absolutely spiffing score. For Tait - bally well done, old bean. For Day - dashed hard cheddar, old fruit. Have some Prozac. 4-3 Bison.

There was no more scoring in P2, which closed with the clock on 0:00 – well why wouldn’t it? P3 opened and we were treated to a veritable cornucopia of puzzling refereeing decisions or rather lack of them and the opposite of a plethora of pulsating purple plays. Both teams won prizes for misplaced passes, coughing up of pucks and less than desirable dangling and it looked as if Bison were going to hold out for a scoreless period and a win. However, fate was to vomit on the best suit of the homesters as the Tigers levelled it with 5 minutes remaining, as the Caledonian McKenzie, assisted by Whistle and Silverthorn, stabbed in at the back door. 4-4.

The period played out with no further scoring and so into the dreaded overtime period we passed. Last week Bison toppled Milton Keynes Lightning with an overtime winner. Could they inflict the same punishment on the Tigers? Well yes, matron, they could and did. And it was settled with a goal scored with panache, aplomb, flamboyance, style, swagger, verve and élan. Coach Tait received a pass from Ryan Sutton and moved menacingly towards the Tigers’ goal. Day may have had a sense of foreboding as he had already been beaten by Tait from a similar range. Could he block the goal as effectively as Fatty Arbuckle might have. Well no actually he couldn’t. Tait put lumber to rubber and sniped top ched. He did what? OK he fired a wrist shot into the top corner of the goal. 5-4 Bison, fat lady singing, goodnight Vienna and skiddly-eye-dye-di-deedle-di-dye.

Top bananas were elected and it was to prove an all Caledonian affair with Scott McKenzie for the Tigers and Liam “Square Sausage” for Bison.

Harding's Overitme Winner Enables Bison to Scrape Past MKL

Bison 3 Milton Keynes Lightning 2 (OT)

2/11/19

This was not a game for the purist, the aficianado, the lover of purple sporting spectacularity. Indeed no. So, if you choose to read further, dear reader, do not expect an account of Ooo Matron hockey, deeds of derring-do, occurrences of edge of seat excitement. This was a gritty struggle, which resulted in a win for Bison - just.

P1 opened and the visitors had much the better of the opening 10 minutes, much to the surprise of many if not all. But it was no surprise, at least to some if not others, when they took the lead on 11:12. Tom Carlon picked up the puck from Rio Grinell-Parke and snapped a close range snipe through the slightest of gaps between the post and Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans. 1-0 Lightning.

This was an unsatisfactory state of affairs for the homesters. But a levelling score soon after would send the crowd into a Krakatoa-esque celebration. On 12:38 Logan Prince’s conduct fell short of what was expected. “I’m not having that,” said Ref Matthews. He blew his whistle and signalled a holding offence. It turned out to be a very unwise course of action for the fellow, the player that is not the referee, as his team were to slide into the slippery pit of disaster and lose their lead. On 14:28 a tipped shot was blocked by Brandon Stones, but not engulfed or covered by him, resulting in a scene most unseemly and unsightly in the space in front of the goal. It was a veritable lawless turmoil, an unruly mob situation, a disorganised free-for-all and an anarchic rat’s nest all rolled into one as two sets of players became committed to sending the puck in opposite directions. Alex Sampford prevailed and put the puck in a place which occasioned the appearance of the referee’s flat and netwardsly pointing flat hand. It was a goal. The assistants were identified as Marek Malinsky and Liam “Square Sausage” Morris. 1-1.

The scoring of the goal injected a new vigour into the homesters and the pendulum began to swing away from MK and towards Bison. The clock ran down and it appeared that the period would finish all square. But no matron. With only 7 seconds remaining Sampford, set up by Adam Harding, had a crack. The puck flew towards Stones, who saved, but alas he proved once more to be somewhat rubberoid and the puck deflected to Gordon “George” Norcliffe. In making the save Stones had gone to ground and he was now down and out, not in Paris and London as was George Orwell (eh? See footnote 1 and below for a picture of said literary gent), but down in the blue paint and out of contention to make a save. Norcliffe drove the puck into the vacated net. Blistering biriyanis it was 2-1 Bison.

P2 opened, but not before P1 had ended of course. It was to be a period of no goals, but instead a succession of penalties on MK. First to do porridge was Lewis Christie. He went down the steps for tripping. Then Jordon Stokes had his collar felt for hooking. Shortly after Lewis Christie, having come up the steps a couple of minutes earlier, now went down them again for tripping. Then Ross Green was banged up for boarding, whilst from the same mȇlée, Tom Carlon was thrown in the can for roughing. Lightning players were spending more time in the penalty box than Ronnie Biggs spent in Wandsworth Prison. (Ronnie who? See footnote 2). However, despite the numerous power play opportunities occasioned by these multifarious felonies including a full 2 minutes 5 on 3, Bison could not breach the Stones pipes. And so P2 ended without further scoring. 2-1 Bison it remained.

Into P3 we passed and Bison needed to step up their game as they had not been the better team, as expected, with the shot count for the two periods being approximately even, even though Bison had enjoyed 7 power plays to MK’s 3. As the period ground on it became increasingly frustrating for the home fans and players alike. There was a sense of foreboding. The dastardly pessimists began to fear the worst and indeed the worst happened to prove the dastardly pessimists right to have been pessimistic. MK levelled it. The goal was a masterpiece of set up. The player in question took possession of the puck, skated behind the goal line and out the other side. As he skated forward, even the opposing fans’ most disparaging partisan, suffering from a paucity in the magnanimous generosity department (mean and biased if you prefer), surely couldn’t help but admire the way his fleet of footness skating and clever stick handling enabled him to race along the boards looking for the killer pass. Suddenly he rifled a sideways pass to the umlaut bearing Ari Nȁrhi, who lurked in front of the crease. Back in 1975 Eric Carmen released a song entitled “All by Myself”. This was revived by various artists including Cheryl Crowe and Celine Dion. Well all by himself was exactly what Nȁrhi was now. Oh dear. The Bison D had been caught out, caught napping, caught on the hop, caught with their trousers down and caught a cold as a result. The goaltender’s goose, had he been carrying one, would have been well and truly cooked. Dan the Beast had been hung out to dry. From that position Nȁrhi would have had to have been an incompetent dummkopf wallowing in a quagmire of maladroitness to miss. He wasn’t and didn’t. Who was the set up man? Well alas and alack he was a Bison man. I know who he was, but I shall spare his blushes and he will remain unidentified, at least by me. 2-2.

So we had 10 minutes left to play. Could either side break the deadlock? Well no they couldn’t and so into overtime the game passed. 1:49 into the aforementioned period of additional play the deadlock was indeed broken. Coach Tait and Malinsky set Harding on his way towards goal. His movement forward was velocious, elegant and admirable and his stick handling far removed from maladroitness, ineptitude and bungling as he closed in on the MK goal to test mettle of the Lightning custodian. Annie Oakley could shoot a playing card in half, edge on, firing her Winchester rifle backwards over her shoulder using a mirror to sight it. That’s her below doing that very thing.  Davy Crockett, legendary frontiersman, could split a musket ball shooting at the edge of an axe. Could Harding match that degree of shooting accuracy? Of course he could. He whipped a wrist shot past a despairing Stones and it was Goodnight Vienna. 3-2 Bison and game over.

The time arrived for the election of the Top Bananas. Unsurprisingly both goaltenders, Brandon Stones and Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans with save percentages of 90.6 and 93.1 respectively took the laurels.

Footnote 1: “Down and Out in Paris and London” Published in 1933  is an autobiographical account of George Orwell’s time as a struggling writer among the desperately poor and destitute in London and Paris.

Footnote 2: Ronnie Biggs was one of the Great Train robbers, who achieved notoriety by escaping from Wandsworth Prison in 1965 less than 2 years into his sentence and lived for 36 years on the run in Brazil safe from extradition. Contrary to popular opinion he wasn’t one of the masterminds of the robbery. He was merely a small time petty crook. That's the geezer below.