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.
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