Bison 4 London/Romford Raiders 3 (O/T)
1/2/20
What was the
shortest war in history? It was the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896, of course. It
didn’t last for years, months, weeks, days or even hours. It was all over in 38
minutes when a naval bombardment on the Sultan’s palace (that’s the geezer’s gaff
below after the bombardment) persuaded the Zanzibaris to surrender. In short
they gave up. There is no similarity between Anglo-Zanzibar War and last
night’s game between Bison and the Raiders because, despite being 0-3 down with
3:28 to play and their best player off the ice with a match penalty, Bison
didn’t give up. Oh no matron. There was no Zanzibar-esque capitulation here.
Bison won the game in the most dramatic fashion imaginable. But you, dear
reader, will not have to use your imagination, as, if you read the following
humble acount, you will become wholly appraised of the events of the night.
I will not dwell
in great detail on the events of the first 46 minutes of the game. Eh? What
sort of a match report is this? OK then just a bit.
The Raiders
built themselves a 3-0 lead with a goal in each period. The first resulted from
a stretch pass from former Bison skipper Aaron “Billy” Connolly to Brandon
Ayliffe, who was in on goal and cleverly deked Alex “Mittens” Mettam to score.
1-0 Raiders. Ooo Betty.
We moved into P2
and on 35:06 violence of the most malodorous variety broke out. Basingstoke had
not seen such violence since the great Temperance Riot of 1881. (Riot in
Basingstoke? Oh yes. See footnote). It was difficult to tell exactly what
happened, but, whilst several players went down the steps, others involved in
the unsavoury proceedings got away without having their collars felt. When the
dust settled Bison’s Michal Klejna had a 2+2 for fighting and a match penalty
for slew footing, about which he was incredulous. This was subsequently overturned as there was absolutely no video evidence to support the decision. Oh Lordy! One wonders whether Stevie wonder could have made a a worse call. Mason Webster with a 2+2 for
fighting, Callum Wells with a 2+10 and match for checking to the head and Jack
Flynn with a 10 misconduct were the Raiders miscreants.
2 minutes later
the Raiders scored again with an unfortunate deflection from Dancing Jay King
past Mettam. Ayliffe was credited with Erik Piatak and J.J. Pitchley the assistants.
2-0 Raiders. Oh Lordy. Nothing was going right for Bison.
Into P3 we
passed and into a 3-0 lead the Raiders moved. On 49:43 and on the power play,
Ayliffe, assisted by Lukas Sladowski completed his hat-trick with a
ballet-dancer-on-the-top-of-a-jewellery-box-esque twirl and back handed shot
past Mettam. 3-0 Raiders. Flamin’ Nora.
As I put pen to
paper to record the goal details, the Bespectacled Youth, who knows I write
reports only when Bison win, asked “why are you bothering?” I replied “you
never know.” Did I believe Bison were going to come back from the dead and win
the game or was I was swilling around in the quagmire of defeatism as much as
the next man. Put me in the stocks and throw rotten vegetables at me if you must, dear
reader, but I am ashamed to admit I held the latter opinion. It was looking
very much like one of those nights when nothing would go right. But then
something did go right, although not in the manner we would have expected.
Shortly after their 3rd goal, Piatak thought he had bagged a 4th,
but, after consulting Honest Pete, the goal judge, the officials decided it
hadn’t gone in. What may have happened was Piatak’s shot went in through the
Mettam 5-hole, hit the goal frame and then came back out of the 5-hole and into
the blue paint where Mettam smothered it. It was very difficult to see. No
discredit to Honest Pete. You could search the world over in a quest for a
comparable fine upstanding fellow of impeccable moral fibre, integrity and
virtuosity and not find one (OK that might be a bit of an exaggeration). Had
the goal been given it would have been 4-0 and Bison hopes of winning the game
would surely have suffered a fate similar to that of Richard the Raker, a
Mediaeval gong farmer, who in 1325 fell into a cess pit and drowned. What is a
gong farmer? Well, dear reader, as you may be enjoying your breakfast, lunch or
even an early tiffin as you read this report, I shall hold back from describing
the utterly ghastly, revolting and degrading tasks which gong farmers had to
perform. However, if you wish to appraise yourself of the details of what was
probably the worst job ever invented, I have provided you with a link in
footnote 2.
We moved into
the final phase of this extraordinary game and what we were about to see was
scarcely believable. However, I can assure you it actually happened. I know I
have mentioned him a couple of times in previous reports, but the comeback from
the brink of Armageddon eclipsed
anything Lazarus might have done in rising from the dead. There’s no other
suitable analogy. So, having suffered 46 minutes of unadulterated agony, worse
than having pins driven into our eyeballs, we were about to experience an 8
minutes which propelled the Bison backers onto a new plane of Nirvana.
Conversely it was 8 minutes of ravine of doom plunging beastliness for the
Raiders, who must have thought the spoils were theirs.
On 56:32 with
Ollie Baldock banged up for interference, Bison bagged what looked like a
consolation goal. Ryan Sutton to Gordon “George” Norcliffe, who slipped a pass
to Coach Ashley Tait. In 1899 American poet William Hughes Mearnes penned a
curious little poem entitled Antigonish, the first verse of which is :
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't
there
He wasn't there again today, oh how I wish he'd go
away
Perhaps Mearns
had the Raiders’ D in mind when he wrote the poem as, like the man upon the
stair, quite simply they weren’t there. Tait had all the time in the world to
skate across the crease unchallenged and propel the puck past the pad of Ethan
James and into the net. 3-1 Raiders.
Bison tails were
up and only 36 seconds later it was 2-3. A delayed penalty was called,
occasioning the exit of goaltender Mettam. He bolted for the bench as if his
life depended on it. If he was actually thinking that his life did depend on it, he must be
suffering from paranoid
schizophrenia because it didn’t really. Over the wall came skater no.6 and
Bison mounted a Zanzibar War-esque bombardment on the Raiders’ net. Tait to
Liam “Square Sausage” Morris to fellow Caledonian D-man Dancing Jay King. Ever
heard of Dave Tutt? Of course you haven’t. Well he was the first man to be
killed in a gunfight by the legendary Wild Bill Hickok, not to be confused with
Alfred Hitchcock, who is someone completely different. It is believed this was
the very first “quick draw” gunfight where antagonists start with holstered
weapons. The duel took place on 21st July 1865 in Springfield, Missouri. The
two stood sideways to each other and Hickok nailed Tutt with a single shot from
his 1851 pattern Navy Colt cap and ball revolver at 75 yards! Even if the range
was exaggerated (well it is a tale from the Wild West so it’s bound to be), it
was incredibly accurate shooting. And with a similar degree of accuracy, King
wiggled his twig and whipped a pinpoint accurate wrist shot high into the net
from the hash marks. 2-3 Raiders.
Dave Tutt and Wild Bill Hickok
The 1851 Pattern Navy Colt cap and ball revolver
Bison had 2:52
to snatch a levelling score. Surely they couldn’t? There was an explosion of
noise from the crowd, attaining new decibelular levels as their wall of sound
encouraged their icemen forward. Time was ticking away. Surely all was lost as
we entered the last few seconds. But fie and pish. With a mere 3.6 seconds left
on the clock it was all square. An on the doorstep Tait poked in with Dangling
Dick Bordowski and Adam Harding assisting. In 1959 Rosco Gordon (that’s him
below) had a huge R & B hit with “Just a little bit”, a song later also
recorded by a myriad of artists including Elvis Presley. In the song Gordon
urges the object of his affections to “turn your lights down low, honey, slip
me a kiss, turn your lights down low, I beg you, I can’t resist.” All he wanted
was an “eeny-weeny bit, a teeny-weeny bit” of her (could have been his) love. Tait’s
goal brought the opposite reaction from the goal judge. He didn’t turn his
light down low, he put it on full blast to indicate it was a goal. 3-3. It was
a comeback of gargantuan magnitude. Ooo Matron!
And so into
overtime we passed. This was dominated by Bison with 7 shots on goal to the
Raiders’ 1 and a penalty to each side. As we lolloped towards a penalty shoot
out Bison snatched it on the power play with a mere 1.6 seconds left on the
clock. Adam Jones provided an Ooo Mr. Rigsby pass to Tait who laid lumber to
biscuit and fired the puck goalwards. The last thing James wanted to do was
give up a rebound, but, much to his very grave chagrin, he proved rubberoid on
this occasion and there on the doorstep was Dangling Dick. No need for a dangle
on this occasion, he just needed to smash it in and this he did. 4-3 Bison and
game won. Arms were thrown aloft, hats were propelled to the rafters,
banshee-esque cries rent the air, donkeys brayed, grown men burst into tears
and ladies of delicate constitution fainted and had to be revived with smelling
salts. Holy Guacamole, blistering Biriyanis and Hell’s bells and buckets of
blood! What a wacko-the-diddle-o comeback. You could watch a thousand hockey
games in a hundred countries and see nothing like this ever again. As for the
Raiders, they must have thought they had it in the bag only to have the sweet
smell of success wafted away from their nostrils in the cruellest fashion
imaginable. You have to feel sorry for them. No? OK maybe not. All’s fair in
love and hockey I suppose.
Top bananas were
chosen. Netman Ethan James was considered best Raider and Coach Tait with 2 + 2
was elected top Bison.
Footnote 1 : In 1881 Basingstoke boasted 3 breweries
and 50 pubs and the mayor, W.B. Blatch, was a brewer. On March 27th
of that year over 1,000 people took part in The Battle of Church Square, as
local brewery workers, publicans and assorted blackguards and ne’er-do-wells,
many of whom were drunk it is said, sought to break up a Salvation Army march
preaching against the evils of alcohol. As the town, so one London newspaper
described it was ‘populated chiefly by a set of barbarians’ (still true today?),
the Salvation Army didn’t have much of a chance. No-one was killed, but bones
were broken, windows were smashed and it was Brewers 1 Sally Army 0.
Footnote 2 : Gong farming - https://bendgong.wordpress.com/category/gong-farming/the-gong-farmer-of-the-middle-ages-and-tudor-england/
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