Bison Win Shoots Them to Top Spot (OK only 1 game played)

Bison 7 Peterborough Phantoms 4

16/10/21

It has to be said. The Peterborough Phantoms are chunderous. A 6-0 trousers down spanking at Planet Ice last time and now a 7-4 embarrassment. A veritable cornucopia of inadequacies plagued them throughout the two games and, even with the assistance of the officials, who seemed to turn into Ray Charles (that's him below), Stevie Wonder, Blind Boy Fuller and Louis Braille each time one of their players perpetrated an atrocity on an opponent, resulting in not a single Bison power play, the ghostly visitors fumbled, floundered and faltered to final failure. But enough cutting criticism. On to the game.

P1 saw a solitary goal. This was scored on 8:09 by Adam Harding. The puck became entangled between Alex Roberts and Thomas Barry. Much to the D-man’s chagrin, it squirted free towards the Phantoms goal and Harding was onto it like a terrier pouncing on a rat. The fellow skated forward and fired an unstoppable wrist shot into the net. It was a Cymru am Byth moment for the Welshman. Had there been a Welsh contingent amongst the Bison crowd, they may have burst into a rendition of “Sosban fach”, but, even if there was, they didn’t. 1-0 Bison.

P2 opened and by the 28^th minute all was looking rosy in the Bison garden. Their lead advanced to 3-0. On 22:52 Gordon “George” Norcliffe burst forward, but was forced behind the goal line. Suddenly from nowhere (well actually it was from somewhere – behind the goal line as I said), Gordon whipped a pass to the top of the crease where Alex Sampford lurked like a shady black marketeer from wartime London. But he wasn’t selling watches or nylons. No indeed – no time for that. He hammered the puck past a despairing Jordan Marr and it was 2-0 Bison. By then Marr had faced only 8 shots (if the SoG stats can be relied on) and had conceded 2. It did not seem to augur well for the rest of the match and indeed things got worse for him and the Phantoms on 27:43. If you want to learn how, I would urge you to read the next paragraph, dear reader.

On 26:36 Brendan Baird hunted down and hooked Jarvis Hunt as he charged towards goal. Ref Belfitt said, “Oi, matey! You’re going down the steps, up the river and behind bars for that.” And indeed that’s what happened. Could the Phantoms snatch a power play goal to reduce the arrears to a solitary goal? No they couldn’t and worse still they conceded a shortie to go 3 goals to the bad. How? Well Coach Ashley Tait battled hard for the puck on the boards to the left of the Phantoms goal. He showed steely determination, fortitude, tenacity, guile and doggedness all at the same time (a fine example of multi-tasking) as he retained possession of the puck and slipped it inside to Filip “Big Phil” Martinec. He, the latter, looked up and saw a glorious sight. Someone or something was steaming forward. What was it? It was Bison skipper Eliot Dewey moving with all the speed of the Tokyo bullet train. OK that’s an exaggeration – the bullet train can travel at a speed 275 mph, which Eliot would be hard pushed to match. But let’s not split hairs. We saw a snipe. Not a long billed bird with white, black and brown plumage, which inhabits marshy areas in Eurasia and North America, as shown below. No it was a hockey snipe. The puck left the Dewey stick and flew faster than a feathered snipe could fly into the top corner of the net. 3-0 Bison.

Bison were cruising. What could possibly go wrong? Well actually lots. And it did. In the space of 5 minutes the Phantoms bagged 3 and it was level pegging from nowhere. It would cause me grave mental anguish to relive these 5 minutes, but, suffice it to say that there was a big slice of fortune to 2 of the 3 goals. One went in off a Bison skate and another bounced in off Alex “Mittens” Mettam after an offside call wasn’t made. The scorers were Glen Billing (2) and Jarvis Hunt with assists to Duncan Speirs (2), Luc Johnson (2), Callum Buglass and Ales Padelek. Enough said.

We moved into P3 with the scoreboard showing 3-3. Could the Phantoms carrying on from where they left off and go on to win the game? Well actually no they couldn’t and didn’t. It all turned around faster than a pirouetting ballerina with Bison bagging another 3 goals. The first of these came on 42:59. Enter Captain Dewey once again. He charged forward up the right wing and centred for Harding to snap the puck past Marr. It was another Cymru am Byth moment for Harding and it was just a shame that the Bison food bar wasn’t serving laverbread (what? See below and also footnote). 4-3 Bison.

Bison were now back on track after the traumas of P2. It didn’t take them long to plunge Marr into a place of deeper gloom, despondency and melancholy. On 44:41 Coach Tait shot one forward for Paul Petts to chase. He, the latter, seized control of the puck and, from behind the goal line, he made the setup. Did you know that, according to the dictionary, a “setup” can be everything required for an alcoholic drink except the liquor i.e. a glass, ice, soda water or other mixer, cherry, cocktail umbrella etc.? Apparently the patrons provide their own liquor. I didn’t know that, but I do now. Well that wasn’t the sort of setup Petts had in mind, which was just as well as he didn’t seem to have any cocktail umbrellas on his person. It was a hockey setup. He slewed the puck from behind the goal line to an advancing Hallum Wilson. Marr was too slow across the crease and Wilson fired into the gaping gap that was between Marr and the post. 5-3 Bison.

Marr’s night of misery, anguish and torment was not over. On 51:11 he was plunged into a deeper pit of wretchedness, disconsolation and worriment (that is actually a real word) with no hope of assuagement, solace or condolement or even condolence. Set up (again no cocktail umbrellas involved) by Wilson, Captain Dewey threw a speculative shot in a goalwards direction. “No need to worry about that one, it’s going wide,” thought the Caledonian custodian. Indeed it may have been, but, much to the hapless netman’s very grave chagrin, “Big Phil” Martinec dangled his twig and the puck flew off it and past the shellshocked net fellow, causing the net to bulge and the goal light to illuminate (to split hairs it was the goal judge who caused the goal light to illuminate, not the puck, but let’s not be pedantic). Oh dear Marr. 6-3 Bison.

But our evening’s entertainment was far from over. We were to experience some late drama. With 2 minutes remaining Marr was pulled from the net. Thankfully this was not a literal pulling from the net i.e. no-one came on and dragged the netman kicking and screaming to the bench. No indeed. I am sure Marr was quite happy to make his way off as he was by then “boasting” (unlikely that he actually did any boasting about it) a chunderous save percentage of 70% - OUCH! Counselling required. 3 Phantom goals in 2 minutes? It was never going to happen. But they did grab one in the 6 on 5 – scored by Will Weldon with Billing and Norton assisting. Back came Marr for the face off only to disappear again very rapidly and, I am sure, very voluntarily. The Phantoms were in the last chance saloon, but couldn’t keep hold of the puck, which some would regard as preferable if you have an empty net. 3 empty net attempts from Bison went a begging (not always that easy so the words barn door and banjo will not be mentioned here). The third attempt was a pea roller which could have changed direction at any time. The Phantoms bench watched on aghast, but the pea roller failed to veer to the left and in and it was relief all round on the ghostly bench. However, their aghast demeanour was revived when, with just a few seconds left on the clock, Canadian Alex Roberts seized the puck and drove it netwards. So tight was the time that it was impossible to look at the clock and puck at the same time to see if the puck crossed the line in time. No problem. The puck slid over the line with a solitary second left on the clock and it was 7-4 Bison. Never mind the laverbread, break out the poutine (see footnote 2 and below).

It was all over and Bison had, after an uncomfortable wobble, put away a very poor opponent. Top Bananas were elected. Billing was best Phantom and Dewey top Bison.

Footnote 1 : Laverbread is a traditional Welsh delicacy, which is made from edible seaweed.

Footnote 2 : Poutine is a Canadian speciality food. It comprises chips and cheese curds topped with gravy. Jumping Jehosophat on a pogo stick. Do they really eat that? Yes they do.