Roehl Derails the Pirates

Bison 3 Hull Pirates 1

8/10/16

After last Saturday when a bunch of blokes from Sheffield turned up at Planet Ice pretending to be hockey payers and said, “we’ll give you a game”, we were hoping for something a trifle more, shall we say, competitive with the visit of last night’s piratical opponents. After Bison had left the Steeldogs hanging from the highest yardarm last week we expected was a bit more swashbuckle, a bit more buccaneer, a bit more let’s swing on board your ship with cutlasses in our teeth from the Hull Pirates. And that’s exactly what we got, although it didn’t appear so at first with Bison pinning the Pirates down from the first puck drop. In fact, it took two and a half minutes for the Pirates to take the puck across the red line. However, they found their sea legs soon after and by the end of the period had tested Tomas Hiadlovsky in the Bison net on 8 occasions. His counterpart in the piratical net, namely Jordan Marr, kept out 16 shots and was looking increasingly Berlin Wall-esque as he journeyed on a path, not to redemption, but to the Man of the Match award. Bison’s 1^st period efforts can be summed up thus ….. though threatened, they thrashed through the throbbing throng, then, thrillingly, thrust the thing thither – thwack! – thus thoughtfully thwarting those thieving, thunderingly thickheaded thugs, thereafter thoroughly thrown. My best use of alliteration ever. But what does it mean? I have no idea myself. Let’s move on.

P2 opened and Bison thought they had taken the lead soon after. A shot deflected high into the air and then fell to earth like an Isaac Newton apple. On hand was Dangerous Derek Roehl (pronounced rail, not roll, reel, real or royal by the way) to hammer the puck into the net. Alas for Roehl the referee, who was to enjoy a somewhat bizarre game with several odd decisions, only some of which I have time to relate, dear reader, ruled the goal not a goal because of high sticks. So still 0-0.

Bison continues to press and Jordan Marr’s life became more and more charmed as the clock ticked on. During a power play with Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack doing porridge, Bison had more shots on goal than the Pirates and so nearly bagged a shortie when René Jarolin and Desperate Dan Davies bypassed the D-man in a 2 on 1, but the shot was saved, hit the post or went wide – sorry to be so vague. Suffice it to say it didn’t go in. Surely Bison had to score soon. Well actually no – it was the Pirates who bagged a goal in the 32^nd minutes. In the U.S. military “dereliction of duty” is a court martial offence. The first men charged with such during World War II were Lieutenants Sincock and Balides, who mistakenly dropped bombs on Zürich in Switzerland, which was, of course, a neutral country, thinking it was Freiberg in Germany. The actions of the Bison D were nowhere near as serious as bombing Zurich, but it could be said without fear of contradiction that they were guilty of dereliction of duty as Lee Bonner (don’t forget to spell his name with 2 x Ns) and the luxuriantly bearded Jason Hewitt sent Andrej Themar away on a break. He slipped the Bison D-man, cut inside to carve out a 1-on-1 with Hiadlovsky and scored. 1-0 Pirates.

Oh dear. Was this going to be another heist of the century (see previous report)? The position Bison now found themselves in was as undesirable as the Bearded Rabble Rouser of Block A returning home to find his eccentric butler sweeping up the shattered remains of his 16^th century Ming vase having used it for a wicket in a game of indoor cricket. They had to get back into the game as soon as possible and this they did with an unassisted goal, which actually was assisted. Just over a minute after the piratical opener a shot from the point was tipped in by Aaron “Billy” Connolly in an almost carbon copy of the goal he scored last week against the Dogs. Whoever it was who fired in the shot was worthy of an assist, but no-one, not even Tony Hand, came forward and said “it was me” and so the goal was recorded for all time as unassisted. In 100 years’ time when the game sheet is read the identity of the assistant will still be a mystery. Never mind. It was 1-1 and all to play for.

P2 was proving a much more even period than P1 and it would have been a fair reflection of play for the teams to have returned to the locker rooms with a goal apiece at cessation of P2 hostilities. However, Bison had other ideas and on 38:50 bagged a go ahead goal, which had the artistic qualities of Rodin, Nureyev and Picasso, but thankfully not with Rodin painting, Nureyev sculpting and Picasso doing ballet. Jarolin broke up the left wing and received a pass from Connolly. Jarolin's pass across the face of the goal found Roehl, who cut inside in front of the goal and unleashed a top shelfer past Marr, who was by now screened by his own D-men and couldn't react as the puck sailed past his glove and into the net. There was nothing that the Pirates’ D could have done about it. They might just as well have gone off looking for Captain Kidd’s treasure instead (see footnote). 2-1 Bison.

Soon after the period ended and shortly after that the period between periods ended so into the 3^rd period we passed. Referee Tim Pickett was about to enjoy his finest hour. Ivan or Vanya Antonov (I didn’t see which one) shot, Marr saved, scooped the puck back with his stick, but it hit his pad and went in. The Pickett flat hand pointed emphatically towards the net. The Antonov twins looked surprised. “It was a good goal,” Mr. Pickett must have thought and then “actually no it wasn’t” and washed it off. Eh? He blew his whistle when the puck disappeared under Marr, thinking it to be frozen. But the puck squirted through and over the line. If he blew the whistle to stop play, why did he then indicate a goal? The words “ear” and “pig’s” come to mind. Perhaps his namesake Wilson Pickett could have done a better job. Never mind. Both the Antonovs continued to look surprised.

On 50 minutes, however, we saw the Pickett flat hand once again and this time it was not retracted. Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov won a face off in the Pirates’ defensive zone. The puck came to Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer just inside the blue line. He sent in a wrist shot, which, much to everyone’s surprise, flew unblocked into the goal for 3-1 Bison. One can only assume that Marr was screened as the puck came from a long way out. 3-1 Bison.

Shortly after we were then treated to another rather odd refereeing decision. Rabbits’ Foot Joe Baird lifted the puck into air. It followed a perfect arc as it rose and then fell back to the ice beyond the red line, its trajectory uninterrupted by any part of the Planet Ice structure. A blast from Mr. Pickett’s Acme Thunderer stopped play as, in his view, the puck had hit the ceiling. Piffle! An anguished cry of “Oi Pickett. What are you smokin’?” emanated from Block C. Mr. Pickett didn’t enlighten us. It mattered not. A face off was being signaled.

 

And so we moved into the final 3 minutes of the game. Imagine you are Dr. Hook and you’re talking on the phone to Sylvia’s mother, trying to persuade her to put her daughter on the line. The operator says, “40 cents more for the next 3 minutes.” But you haven’t got 40 cents more. You could describe your situation as desperate. And by now the Pirates were in such a desperate situation. However, with 2:25 remaining the Pirates were thrown a lifeline. Roehl was adjudged to have tripped Thamar. The Bison crowd were outraged. Their blood boiled just as surely as the jolly swagman’s billy boiled by the billabong. Particularly vociferous was the Howling Man in Block C. “What a dive,” was his considered opinion and he proceeded to tell us several times over at full volume, as he turned progressively more purple with every exclamation. However, Referee Pickett rejoiced in a contrary opinion to the Howling Man’s and it was only his opinion which mattered. So off to the house of correction went Dangerous Derek. The 5 on 4 soon became a 6 on 4 as the Pirates pulled their goaltender. It was a case of cheerio Jordan Marr - an early tiffin for you old fruit. Bison held out and even managed several empty net shots, none of which went in.

The final buzzer sounded and the buccaneering boarders had been repelled. Top Bananas were goaltender Marr for the Pirates and Dangerous Derek Roehl for Bison. Well done to both. Referee Pickett did not get an award.

Footnote : Notorious pirate William Kidd was hanged in 1701. He claimed to have buried a huge stash of treasure, but declined to say where. Adventurers have been searching for Captain Kidd’s treasure for 300 years, but it has never been found. Was he having a laugh?

Steeldogs Prove more Poodle than Rottweiler

Bison 3 Sheffield Steeldogs 0

1/10/16

Ever heard of Mark Twain? Of course you have. But did you know his real name was Samuel Clemens. It is said he picked up his pen name whilst working as a river pilot on the Mississippi in the 1850s. To indicate a river depth of 2 fathoms the pilots would shout “Mark twain”. How did they know the river depth – after all it was years before the invention of sonar. Well they used to “plumb the depths” by lowering a lead weight on the end of a rope over the side of the boat down to the bottom of the river bed.  What relevance has this to last night’s game? It’s a tenuous connection I admit, but perhaps not literally, but certainly colloquially, plumb the depths was exactly what the Sheffield Steeldogs did at Planet Ice last night. Outshot by an incredible score of 53-15, they succumbed to a rather flattering score of only 3-0 thanks to their Man of the Match goaltender James Hadfield, who had to endure the greatest bombardment since the Battle of Jutland. He ended up with a save percentage of 94.34%.

We were unsure as to what type of Steeldogs team we were going to see. Well the Dogs seem to have shed their goon it up style of play. Of course André Payette has long gone, but we were regaled with some heartening news a few weeks ago when it was announced that the unsavoury Craig Elliott had hung up his skates – if only he had been hung by the neck by an angry lynch mob of hockey purists instead. (If you need any confirmation of how awful a player Elliott was see footnote 1). And last night we were treated to the absence of Callum Pattison, serving a suspension, a man who has racked up a gargantuan 684 PIMs in only 128 EPL games. Let us, therefore, applaud a Dogs’ team which came with the intention of playing hockey. Alas they failed, as I shall relate, dear reader. But before I do I will quote from the Bearded Rabble Rouser’s report, which, although written before the game, proved very accurate – “Byeson v Sherfield. Some hockey stuff happened. Bison won by a country mile. Trevor writed some preposterous waffle and we all went home happy.” Sports journalism of the highest quality I am sure you will agree. You don’t need me, do you?

It didn’t take Bison long to set the scoreboard ticking. On 5 minutes Dangerous Derek Roehl set up Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds for a shot. Said shot was saved by James Hadfield, but, alas for the hapless netman, he failed to engulf the puck in an amoeba-esque fashion and it spilled onto the ice in front of his goal. Johnny-on-the spot was René Jarolin lurking suspiciously.  He slid the puck over the line and it was 1-0 Bison. The crowd erupted while the actor from an itinerant Shakespearean troop present in Block C was moved to utter “Felicitations. We has't scor'd and our team winneth the encount'r”.

Bison continued to press, but, despite their dominance, illustrated by a shot count of 18-3 in P1, could not find a way past Hadfield after the Jarolin goal. The buzzer sounded and off to the locker rooms the team went. Bison must have been very pleased with their performance and the Dogs terrified of what might be awaiting them in P2. They were right to be terrified as they were treated to more of the same. A rampant Bison hammered 25 shots at the Hadfield net, while the Dogs only managed to interrupt the slumbers of an underutilised Tomas Hiadlovsky on 3 occasions. So dominant were Bison that on one Dogs’ power play Bison’s 4 had the Dogs 5 pinned in their own defensive zone for half the play. Eventually the pressure told, so read on if you please.

On 32:30 Dogs’ skipper Ben Morgan was called for holding. “Get down the steps, matey,” or words to that effect, said Referee Brooks and off to the glasshouse went Morgan. The penalty expired and the Dogs’ stalwart defence had kept Bison out. However, just as Morgan was skating back onto the ice, that iron curtain of resistance cracked. Jarolin set up Jan “The Man” Jarabek for a shot from the slot. There in front of the net was Aaron “Billy” Connolly. He thrust his stick in the path of the flying puck and deflected it into the net past the shoulder of the unfortunate Hadfield, who had no chance of reacting to the redirect. 2-0 Bison. The outburst of approbation from the Bison blocks threatened to bring the roof down. Bearing in mind the parlous structural state of the Planet Ice arena, that could have happened.

The Dogs held out for the rest of the period and were lucky when an all alone Long Ciaron Long was set up with a chance close in to the netman’s right, but saw his wrist shot ring the pipes. The net remained unbulged and the score remained 2-0. Bad luck Long Ciaron.

Can you imagine 44,000,000 cowpats? Yes 44 million. That is what I estimate the quantity of dung in the Augean stables to have been. 1,000 livestock lived in these stables, which hadn’t been cleaned for 30 years. So at an average of 4 “movements”, shall we call them, a day each that would be 44 million cowpats, give or take a dozen or two. Hercules was given the task of cleaning the Augean stables in a single day. He succeeded (see footnote 2), but, alas for the handful of Dogs’ faithful, who had made the trek from the frozen wastes of the North, their team, faced with the equally monumental task of coming back from their hopeless position of 0-2 to the bad and outshot by 8-41 in the first 2 periods, were unable to emulate the Herculean success.

Into P3 we moved and, although the Dogs’ P3 performance was a great improvement on their P1 & P2 performances, breaking down the Bison D was proving mission impossible for them. Whichever players were on the ice at any one time seemed not to matter in the slightest as the homesters looked as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, the Great Wall of China and the gates of Fort Knox all rolled into one. And on the 7 occasions when the visitors did manage to have a pot at the Bison goal there was the shutout bound Hiadlovsky to deny them. 

Early in the 3^rd period we were treated to a cameo of violence from Dangerous Derek Roehl. He hammered into Tim Smith in open ice. The coming together could be described as a bone crunching hit of the most gargantuan variety. Smith looked as if he might require medical attention, but I heard no cry of “Ooo Matron” emanating from him. Nevertheless he fell to the ice in a crumpled heap. Roehl’s momentum took him over the prostrate form of his victim and he crashed off the ice and through the bench door. Exactly the sort of physical stuff we were looking forward to from Dangerous Derek when his signing was announced. More of the same please.

The final nail was driven into the Dogs’ coffin on 53:37. Reynolds shot from just inside the blue line. Hadfield blocked it with his pad, but the puck went as loose as a goose and the follically challenged  Matt Towlaski slid it across the line. 3-0 Bison. The aristocrat in Block A was moved to shout, “I say. Jolly good show. You’ve had your chips, you canine chappies.” Dan “The Specs” Lackey was appointed second lackey for the goal.

With goal no. 3 and only a few minutes to play, the Dogs’ chances of getting anything from the game plunged into oblivion in the same manner that Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty had plunged headlong over the precipice at the Reichenback Falls.

And so it proved and, with no more scoring in the period, the one sided game ended. Unsurprisingly Hadfield was elected the Dogs’ who else could it have been Top Banana and Connolly Bison’s.

Footnote 1: Craig Elliott played 263 games for the Steeldogs. 18 goals – 55 assists – 758 PIMs.

Footnote 2: Hercules achieved his task by re-routing the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash out the 44 million cow pats.

Heist of the century!

Bison 3 Peterborough Phantoms 4 (shoot out)

24/9/16

Have you ever heard of Roy James, Charlie Wilson and Gordon Goody? Probably not. But you may have heard of Bruce Reynolds, Ronnie Biggs and Buster Edwards. Six of the Great Train Robbers of course. Back in 1963, long before plastic fivers were ever thought of, they pulled off one of the greatest heists in criminal history when they stopped and robbed a Royal Mail train and made off with £2.6m (equivalent to £50m today which equates to 10,000,000 plastic fivers). Well last night we saw an audacious heist of similar proportions as the Phantoms, outplayed and considerably outshot (39-15 actually), made off with the win after an eventful penalty shoot out, which included a fight (yes you are reading that correctly). It may not have been a criminal heist, but it certainly was a hockey heist.

Bison started badly and found themselves 1-0 to the bad on 1:25. From a face off they failed to clear the puck from in front of goal. Petr Stepanek squeezed off a shot, which Tomas Hiadlovsky saved. Alas for him, the puck bobbled into the path of Martins Susters who tapped it in. Will Weldon with the second assist. Martins Susters? I always have a problem with players with “S”s on the ends of their names. How many of them are there? One, two or four?

If that had been a lucky goal for the visitors an even luckier one would put them 2-0 up in the 8^th minute. Weldon scored from behind the goal as his speculative pass forwards (or backwards to look at it another way) hit Hiadlovsky and went in. It was a disaster for the hapless netminder. Not so much an “Ooo Matron” moment, but more an “Ooo Betty” one. The attempt to score may have been intentional, but probably wasn’t. Stepanek, later to attain infamy as one of the shoot out pugilists, was awarded an assist for the goal.

There was no more scoring in P1 and the interval buzzer sounded with the Phantoms enjoying a commanding lead they did not deserve. Do I hear Phantoms fans saying the words “grapes” and “sour”? Let them doubt my impartiality, if they wish (OK I’m not impartial at all – everyone knows that), but let’s look at the facts. For 20 minutes Bison had given as good as they had got, they had outshot the Phantoms by 8-6, but had nothing to show for their efforts, while the visitors had scored twice from only 6 on target shots and both had been scored with slices of good fortune. Sour grapes? If you like.

What we witnessed in the interval was pure farce. Far be it from me to offer an opinion as I have never driven a Zamboni or resurfaced an ice pad. Neither can I skate or even report accurately on a hockey game (if you’re one of my regular readers you’ll know that already). However …. the Zamboni trundled around the pad belching out what must have been thousands of gallons of water onto the ice. The end result was a swimming pool, which would have been fine if you had had Michael Phelps, Tom Daley and Ellie Simmonds in your team, but none of those were present. The Zamboni returned to hoover up the excess water as an avalanche of appropriate music including “Cry me a River” and “Aqua Marina” (she was Troy Tempest’s squeeze in Stingray – remember?) blared from the tannoy. Bavi you are like Brian – a very naughty boy.

Well things could only get better we thought. And indeed they did but also didn’t. Bison completely, utterly and comprehensively, not to mention thoroughly, unanimously and without fear of contradiction dominated the 2^nd period, running the Phantoms ragged and outshooting them by 15-4. It must have been a ghastly experience for the ghostly visitors. The “didn’t” part of things getting better came when the end of period buzzer sounded and the deficit was still 2 goals. How on earth? Read on, dear reader, and I shall relate how a cracking goal wiped out all Bison’s valiant efforts.

Bison took up the gauntlet immediately and continued to hammer into their opponents. But the Phantoms’ net held out. Bison were in danger of becoming as frustrated as a grandad, who hasn’t eaten for a week, finding himself sitting in front of a big, fat, juicy steak, but unable to locate his dentures. Surely it was only a matter of time before the homesters scored. And indeed it was, but they had to wait until the 31^st minute before they finally found a way past Janis Auzins, a man who enjoys a similar degree of popularity at Basingstoke as Scott Spearing. Craig Wallis was called for tripping. “It’s a spell of chokey for you me old china,” or words to that effect were uttered by referee Brooks and off to the penal institute went the miscreant without his dog Grommitt. Just over a minute later Bison made the man advantage count when a pass from Long Ciaron Long or Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer (I am not sure which, but they were both credited with assists) found René Jarolin at the hash marks. He raised his stick and fired in a clapper. The puck slammed into the net with the speed a Big Mac disappearing down the gullet of a cholesterophile gourmand, who, like the dentureless grandad mentioned above, hadn’t eaten for a week. At last a Bison goal. 1-2.

A minute later it was the Phantoms’ turn to go on a 5 on 4. Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson went from last week’s hat-trick hero to a slashing villain and was ordered to the house of correction. 22 seconds into the powerplay and it was back to a 2 goal advantage for the Phantoms. Set up by Marc Levers and James Ferrara, Stepanek hammered in a slap shot via the goal frame from just inside the blue line. The goal was a tragedy, not a Shakespearean tragedy or even Greek tragedy, but a hockey tragedy for Bison, but you had to admire the ferocity of the shot. 1-3.

There were no more goals in P2 and Bison went into the interval with a shots advantage of 23-10 over the 2 periods, but an all that mattered goals deficit of 1-3. They had to continue their all out assault on the Auzins net in P3 if they were going to get anything out of the game and this they did. Reward arrived early. On 41:26 Balmer and Karpov combined to set up Antonov. Was it Ivan or Vanya? I am not sure. But whichever one it was he trapped the puck, swivelled and fired the puck into the top corner of the net. It was a superb finish. The goal was greeted by an explosion of noise from the Bison blocks. Whoops were whooped and hollers hollered. Shouts of “that’s one in the eye for you Phantoms”, “dashed fine shot, old bean” and “Holy guacamole” were heard.

Bison were now very much in the ascendancy. The level of intensity they displayed in P2 was kept up and it finally paid dividends on 53:48. Antonov proved you don’t have to be big to be effective as he won the puck in a physical tussle on the boards and slipped it inside to Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov, who took the puck forward and found himself with only Auzins to beat. This was not the moment to dither, dilly-dally or descend into a state of indecision and indecisiveness. Karpov had to flummox Auzins. He had to be as sharp as a pencil and as cool as a cucumber. He went 5-hole. We heard a thud. Oh dear Auzins had blocked it. But no the puck had hit his pad, passed through the said 5-hole and then slowly pea rolled over the line. 3-3.

Bison continued to press forward for a winner with the Phantoms looking happy just to hang on. This the visitors did and so into overtime we passed. Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird had been called for a penalty with 22 seconds of regulation time remaining so we found Bison defending a 4 on 3 for the first 1:38 of overtime. There were no goals in overtime and, in fact barely a shot – Bison had one on target and the Phantoms none. So onto the dreaded lottery of a penalty shoot out we passed. With 2 successful shots (Padelek and Levers) to Bison’s 1 (Polodna) the Phantoms won it. However, the highlight, although I feel it somewhat inappropriate to describe it as such, was an unseemly altercation of the most opprobrious variety as Stepanek, having had his shot saved by Hiadlovsky, argued about it and then assaulted the goaltender in a display of the worst kind of bad sportsmanship you could imagine. Blistering Biriyanis! Long Ciaron Long left the bench and laid into the chuntering Czech chap and a fight ensued. The consequence was 28 penalty minutes to Long 29 to Stepanek.

Levers’s winning penalty shot brought an end to the evening’s proceedings. Weldon and Karpov were elected Top Bananas for their respective teams. Bison had to be content with a solitary point from a game they deserved to win comfortably. But such is hockey. The Great Train robbers would have been impressed.