Bison 8 Bracknell Bees 2
18/1/20
Sometimes
things are not what they appear. For example Ma Barker (that’s her above) was
thought to be a ruthless criminal matriarch, the mastermind behind the infamous
Barker-Karpis gang, responsible for a string of murders, robberies and
kidnapping in Midwest America in the 1930s. After she was killed in a shootout
with the FBI in 1935, J. Edgar Hoover described her as "the most vicious,
dangerous, and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade”. It was all
poppycock. She merely travelled with the gang and apparently couldn’t even plan
breakfast let alone a criminal enterprise. And so, as the Bracknell Bees took
to the ice last night they looked like a strong competitive hockey team. Alas
appearances deceived and they turned out to be the poorest team we have seen at
Planet Ice this season and were duly put to the sword by a rampant Bison. Make
no mistake, dear reader, this really was as one sided as an arm wrestling
contest between Mike Tyson and Mr. Burns.
P1 opened. It
was not until 15:54 that Bison took the lead, thus suggesting that it might be end
up a close game. Set up by Michal Klejna, Adam “Oh no not Jonesy” Jones laid
lumber to rubber and sent the biscuit in a netwards direction. It was not quite
an unstoppable Ooo Mr. Rigsby effort from Jones, but the puck seemed to go
through the hapless netminder, Adam Goss, as if he was a ghost possessing
incorporeal form. Back in 1986 Oasis told us not to look back in anger. On this
occasion Goss did look back behind him, not in anger, but in Ooo Betty horror
as the puck evaded his desperate reach back and trickled over the line. 1-0
Bison.
As P1 drew to a
close Bison doubled their lead in a manner most unexpected. With 19:35 on the
clock a maniacal blue paint scrambled in front of Goss developed. The puck
squirted free to Tom “Wreck-it” Ralph in the slot. He chucked in a speculative
lob through a crowd of players. Much to his very grave chagrin screened netman
Goss suddenly became aware of the puck passing over his shoulder and into the
net. How ghastly for the fellow. 2-0 Bison.
The period ended
soon after and we moved into P2. Enter Sam “Turbo” Talbot, not to be confused
with Cam Talbot, the Calgary Flames goaltender. On 27:24 good work on the
boards by Ryan Sutton and Dangling Dick Bordowski resulted in Talbot getting a
sight of goal at the hash marks to the right of Goss’s goal. He flicked his
twig and the biscuit began its journey, not on the road to Damascus, but towards
the Bees’ net. Surely Goss had it covered? He extended his right leg like an
amoeba extending a pseudopodium, but alas his leg wasn’t long enough and the
puck raced through the tiniest of gaps between post and pad and over the line.
It was another moment of great hideousness for the netman. He had failed to
stop 3 stoppable goals and the evening was turning into one of great
beastliness for him. 3-0 Bison.
But all was not
lost for the Dumbledores (that is actually a real word. Look it up – you’ll be
surprised). They clawed one back on 36:58 with an unassisted backhanded snap
shot from Zack Milton 3-1 Bison. And at that score the period closed.
P3 opened and
what we saw was what the dictionary would define as “to break up into pieces,
especially small fragments, to decay or disintegrate”. That word is crumble and
that is exactly what the hapless, hopeless and helpless Bees did, much to the
mortification of their fans, especially the “supporters of hockey” who defected
from Bison to the Bees in the summer of 2018 (sorry to mention them – I have
moved on, really). They must have wished for the plexi in front of them to
steam up so they could be spared the sight of their team falling apart like a
chair whose mortice and tenon joints have been attacked by Death Watch Beetle
and is then sat on by a 40 stone sumo wrestler. Some of their ice heroes played
like incompetent nincompoops, others like bungling dummkopfs and others still
maladroit dullards. Some managed to behave like all 3 at the same time. We were
treated to a 5 goal Bison blast.
On 43:18 we saw
an odd man rush with Alex Sampford and Gordon “George” Norcliffe taking on a
solitary D-man, who took on Sampford and managed to force him wide. But that is
where the success story of the D-man ended as Sampford squeezed a centring pass
past him and there to deflect the puck past a despairing netman was Bees reject
Gordon, who raised his arms in triumph even though no-one else, players,
officials, spectators, coaches, goal judge and food bar serving waifs, realised
it was a goal. Suddenly Referee Jarvie, observing Gordon’s joyous celebration,
noticed that the puck had indeed crossed the line. “Oh. I had better extend my
right arm and point netwardsly with my flat hand,” he must have thought, as
that is exactly what he did. 4-1 Bison.
A mere 37
seconds later Sean Norris, who bears a striking resemblance to Eminem, was set
up by Klejna and Coach Tait at the hash marks away to the goaltender’s right.
The rapper’s lookalike shaped to shoot. Back in 1967 Motown greats Junior
Walker and the All Stars (that’s them below) recorded a song entitled “Shoot
your shot”, which contained the lyrics “I say yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah,
shoot your shot, what I mean, I said yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, shake what
you’ve got” Norris may not have shaken what he had, but he certainly did shoot
his shot. The puck left the ice in a Jumping-Jehosophat-on-a-Pogostick manner
and flew past Goss to bulge the stringbag behind him. The netminder must have
been pleased with this one as it was the only goal of the 5 scored which he
could legitimately claim he couldn’t have stopped. 5-1 Bison. On the subject of
Junior Walker, have you ever wondered if there might be someone in this world
called Senior Walker? Bet there is.
Twice in the
game Michal Klejna had suffered nasty looking injuries, particularly the second
time when he had to be helped from the ice by two team-mates with what looked
like a serious leg injury. The loss of Klejna would have been as cataclysmic a
disaster as the collapse of the suspension bridge over the Takoma Narrows in
1940. Why did it collapse? It was all due to aeroelastic flutter of course. The
bridge distorted and swung like a skipping rope (see below) before collapsing.
But Klejna is made of stern stuff and, not only did he return to the ice, but
he also bagged a couple of goals to go with his couple of assists already
scored. His first goal came on 49:41. But I jump ahead. Let’s return in time to
46:26. We suddenly noticed Josh Ealey-Newman hammering away at a prostrate Liam
“Square Sausage” Morris as he lay prostrate in the blue paint. An undesirable
situation for the former mentioned hapless chap was about to get even worse
when he copped a total of 39 PIMs for slashing, roughing, misconduct and
unsportsmanlike conduct. There were a few other things he could have done but
didn’t e.g. butt ending, hooking and tripping, but his charge sheet did reflect
a veritable cornucopia of villainy. Ever heard of Charlie Wilson? He was a
Great Train robber and came to a sticky end in 1990, shot dead in a drug
dealing dispute in Marbella. Ealey-Newman also came to a sticky end, albeit not
as sticky as Wilson’s as he wasn’t shot, but he was ejected from the game. This
was probably a good thing for the aforementioned errant youth as he must have
welcomed the opportunity of sitting in solitude in the locker room with time to
reflect on his misdeeds, which I am sure he will never repeat, having learned a
salutary lesson, enabling him to embark on a journey towards enlightenment and
redemption. With Morris copping a mere 2 minute minor for slashing, the Bees
found themselves defending a 5 on 3 power play. This they did, but they failed
to defend the 5 on 4 which followed, as I shall relate.
On 49:41 Coach
Tait fired a centring pass to Klejna in the slot with an invitation to lay his
lumber on it. Down came the Slovak chap’s stick to deliver a clapper of great
purpleness. The biscuit left the ice and flew past Goss’s head like a
projectile fired from an anti-tank PIAT gun (that’s one below), albeit with
more accuracy. Again it was a goal Goss must have been pleased, almost joyous,
about as he didn’t have a hope of stopping it. 6-1 Bison.
So you’re out
walking in the woods. You come across a hornets’ nest. What shouldn’t you do?
That’s right – don’t thrust a stick into it like the mutton headed nincompoop below.
Well stick a
stick into a hornets’ nest, albeit a metaphorical one, was exactly what the visitors
did. How? They scored a goal. Don’t ask me how it went in – it was all a bit of
a mystery, even to the officials who had to gaggle together and discuss whether
or not it was a goal. They eventually decided it was. Scorer Aiden Doughty
assisted by Brendon Baird. 6-2 Bison.
The sheer effrontery
of it all. How dare they score a goal. Within a minute Bison had shown the Bees
why that hadn’t been a good idea, scoring two more goals within 30 seconds of
each other to advance the scoreline to one even more reflective of their Ooo
matron dominance. The first arrived on 58:08, again on the power play with B.
Baird (not to be confused with his brother J. Baird, or Rabbits’ Foot Joe as he
was known in these reports, on accounts of him being the most superstitious
sportsman the world has ever seen) slashing Bayley Harewood. “Oi geezer! Get
down the steps,” commanded Ref Jarvie and into the glasshouse went the indecorous
blackguard to do his porridge. Jones to Tait to Klejna at the hash marks. The
Slovak chap whipped in a wrist shot for his second of the night and again it
must have been a gratifying experience for Goss as none of the last 3 goals
were stoppable, at least not by him. He must have been filled with a warm glow
inside, which obviated the need for Prozac and indeed booking an appointment on
the analyst’s couch. 7-2 Bison.
Goss’s night was
to get even better 30 seconds later as he again conceded an unstoppable shot,
this time from Turbo Talbot, his second of the game. Brilliantly set up by
Dangling Dick Bordowski, the talented youth whipped a wrist shot past the by
now positively beaming goaltender. 4 goals in a row he couldn’t have stopped. He
must have been on a bigger high than if he had just snorted a row of Charlie up
his nostrils. 8-2 Bison.
I am sure Coach
Sheppard did not share his netminder’s elation. Since time immemorial bluesmen
have been singing the line “Going down to the station, catch the fastest train
I see”. Such must have been the embarrassment of the coach, as he presided over
this positively beastly display from his team, that going down to the station
to catch the fastest train he could see in order to convey himself away from this
scene of ineptitude and ignominy was exactly what he wanted to do. Or maybe he
shared a sentiment with Errol Brown of Hot Chocolate fame, who, back in 1975
sang "I believe in miracles, you sexy thing." Not even Mr. Brown
would have believed that the Bees could miraculously mount a comeback with 7
goals in the last 1 minute 22 seconds to snatch the game. And indeed they
couldn’t and didn’t. The final buzzer sounded to bring the curtain down on this
red raw flagellation. What one earth has happened to the Bees? Abominable,
slipshod, godawful, ghastly, atrocious, bungling and unacceptable are all words
which could be applied to them and their performance.
Top bananas were
appointed. Top Bee was Zack Milton (well it had to be someone). Top Bison could
have been anyone from Talbot, Klejna, Bordowski or Mettam, but was, in fact, 3
assists Coach Tait.
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