Flames Falter but Bison Don't

Bison 3 Guildford Flames 1

20/3/16

Having clinched the league title one week earlier Bison entertained the Guildford Flames, already assured of 3^rd place in the EPL, for a dead rubber. The game was played in a robust competitive spirit, despite both teams doubtless wishing to avoid injuries going into next weekends’ play off quarter finals. Such a season ending injury occurred the previous evening when Milton Keynes D-man Martti Jarventi perpetrated one of the worst cases of assault on Bison skipper Aaron “Billy” Connolly I have ever seen. Billy sustained a broken cheekbone which will put him out of the playoffs. Jarventie's punishment – just a match penalty. If that had occurred on the street it would have been 5 years for GBH.

On to the game then. On 7 minutes we saw a scoop. The dictionary defines scoop as “a utensil composed of a palm-sized hollow hemisphere attached to a horizontal handle, for dishing out ice cream or other soft foods”. Could Jez Lundin’s stick be thus described? Although no ice cream was involved nor was there a palm sized hollow hemisphere, he did use his stick as a scoop to propel the puck over the plexi, so I would say yes it could. The referee’s whistle blew. “Oi, matey, that’s delay of game and you can’t do that,” Mr. Matthews may have enunciated. Off to the house of penal reform went Lundin. Bison took full advantage and bagged the first goal of the game 37 seconds into the power play. Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack’s slightly wayward pass to Declan “Barrack-O” Balmer saw the puck pass out of the Flames’ defensive zone. Out came the Bison forwards. Balmer skated backwards, took control of the puck and fired the biscuit back across the blue line to Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov. The Flames’ D would have wished Karpov’s movement and motion to be alike and akin to an apathetic apothecary listlessly and languidly reaching for a remedy. But no. The slippery Czech chap skated in on goal and unleashed a wrist shot, which passed through the 5-hole of the hapless goaltender Gregg Rockman. 1-0 Bison.

We had to wait until the 18^th minute to see another goal and, much to the joy and jubilation of the Bison backers, it was another Bison goal. Lack fired in a shot which was wide of the mark. The puck rebounded off the back boarding straight to Karpov. He passed inside to an unchallenged Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson. Tommo took his time (well why not - there was no-one closing him down), picked his spot (well why not – he had the time) and fired past Rockman. 2-0 Bison. The goal caused the Bison backers to enrapture expansively, enunciating ecstatic elation and the visiting supporters to be depressingly disenchanted, disconsolate, despairing and dejected.

And so we came to the end of P1 with no further scoring. Bison must have been content with a 2 goal advantage, an accurate reflection of the play with a shot count of 13-6 in their favour. However, as any hockey will know, such a lead is frail and all it would take would be an early score for the Flames to be back in with a chance. This they bagged in the 25^th minute when Matt Towe, set up by Danny Meyers and Sam Godfrey, burst in on goal.  Nobody could accuse him of being a lazy, indifferent or apathetic devil-may-care. Indeed no. His movement put him more in the category of an energetic, hasty and enthusiastic fleet-of-foot as he raced forward and 5-holed Tomas Hiadlovsky. 2-1.

Could the Flames go on from here and level it? Fie and pish! Their revival hit the buffers only 2 minutes later when Alan Lack scored on the wraparound. He swept around the back of the goal, appeared at the back door and attempted to squeeze the puck in. It was at this point that I lost sight of the puck. The Headbanger, a close observer of the incident, informed me that Rocky made a hash of it. Was he trying to clear it, smother it, shoot it or fall on it. I know not. But what I can tell you is that the goal light came on and it was “Ooo Rocky” as opposed to “Ooo Betty”. Long and Karpov were awarded assists for the goal. The aforementioned Headbanger was moved to celebrate the goal with an utterance of “Musha ring dumb a do dumb a da”. Very few of you, my dear readers, will know why. 3-1 Bison.

The period was played out with no addition to the score. It ended with Bison in control at 3-1 to the good. Another period of dominance for the home team with a P2 shot count of 13-8. The Flames needed to step it up in the 3^rd or all hopes would be lost. They did, but could not find a way past Hiadlovsky. Neither could Bison breach the Flames’ pipes, so I have no more goals to describe. There were, however, a couple of interesting incidents. Firstly, one of Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson’s skate blades came off. (OK I admit I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill out this report). He later reappeared with repaired footwear. The Man with 3 Ear-rings speculated that Jonny “Shut-em-out” Baston had repaired it on his Black and Decker Workmate. What? Yes Jonny was actually seen carrying one at a recent away game. For what purpose we can only speculate. By the way did you know that there are 30 million Workmates in the world? 29,999,999 if you exclude Jonny’s.

The second and only other incident of note occurred when the aforementioned ear-ringed gentleman scooped the 50-50. He immediately acquired a number of new friends including the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs Shirt who asked him if he could “tap him for a monkey”. The Man with 3 Ear-rings had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and the monkey remained untapped.

The final buzzer sounded and all that remained was the final ceremony of presenting the medals to the players and the EPL champions cup to the team and saying a fond farewell to Joe Greener, who is off to coach in the USA. Thank you Joe for 4 great years. The title had been earned with some hard fought wins on the road, but in the final analysis it was Bison’s home form with 24 wins and only 3 losses to their name which had swung it. So regular season over. Now the playoffs. Stay tuned.

We Are Number One I Said We Are Number One

In case you missed it last week ……… If anyone is interested I shall be putting together a season’s souvenir book of match reports and photos of 110-120 pages entitled “HOW BISON WON THE TITLE!”. I emphasise this is not a money spinner on my part – it will be available at cost. Alas not cheap (about £35 inc P & P), depending on numbers and whether or not Blurb increase their prices between now and the summer. Click on this link to see one of my previous years’ books. This one is not supposed to be for sale please note – I just put it up to give you an idea of what the finished article looks like :-

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/6222937/8600f68bdb224e892b6bd314780d6ade8c649c53

 If you might be interested in the 2015-16 book (no obligation yet) FB message me or e-mail me (trevor.rutter@btopenworld.com) so I can gauge numbers.

We Are Number One I Said We Are Number One

Bison 5 Swindon Wildcats 4

13/3/16

How do I write an impartial sports report of this game, dear reader? Well I can’t, so to Hell with that! For a load of biased nonsense about Bison’s titanic title tilt triumph, read on…..

With a Yippee-ki-yay, a wowie-zowie, a zim-zam-zaramango and a bowl of Holy guacamole. What a night in Bisonland. Bison brought home the bacon. Famin’ Nora! They only went and won that thing beginning with “T”. Now it’s done I can mention it by name. It is of course the title. Eh? THE TITLE! Didn’t quite catch that. THE TITLE! Are you deaf?

What about the game? Oh yes. Well Bison started in top gear. They went for the throat from the first puck drop. However, it was the Cats who bagged the first goal in the 11^th minute. Set up by Adam Harding, Tomasz Malasinski fired in a shot which Jonny “Shut-em-out” Baston saved with his pad. But the puck fell into the space in front of goal and an almighty melée ensued. That space became a scene most disordered, deranged, devilish, daring and disorganised as players stabbed and jabbed at the loose puck. Eventually it was forced over the line. Was it Bilbo Baggins who has scored. No it was another hobbit, namely Jonas Höög. (I am not sure why they call him the hobbit as he’s more akin to Gimli in stature and general appearance - see below). Never mind it was 1-0 Cats.

 

Gloom and doom descended upon the glass half empty Bison backers, but their despondency was to be short lived. Very short lived in fact. For 17 seconds later it was level. Alan “Prairie Dog” Lack ground the puck out and fed Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov. He fired an across the crease pass and there was Long Ciaron Long to smack the puck home with a down on one knee snap shot. 1-1. In 1883 the volcano of Krakatoa erupted. It was one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic events in recorded history, with over 36,000 deaths being attributed to the eruption itself and the tsunamis it created. The noise all that made must have been quite loud. But that pales into insignificance when compared to the noise made by the eruption of the Bison backers in reaction to the goal. Seismic activity was recorded in Hartlepool and Helsinki. (Well I did warn you in the opening paragraph that this report was going to be full of nonsense, didn’t I?)

Bison continued to press forward in search of a go ahead goal, but it was the Cats who got one. On the stroke of 16 minutes Lack was called for tripping. There was to be no appeal. It wasn’t a court of law. Mr. Matthews was the law and into the box went the errant fellow. Re-enter the hobbit. With only 2 seconds of the penalty remaining he bagged his second. Tomasz Malasinski and Carlo Finnucci combined to set up Höög. He broke inside and unleashed his shot. We heard a thud, but the thud wasn’t loud enough. Baston had got a piece of it, but not a large enough piece and the puck continued in a southerly direction, as far as the netman was concerned, but to be truly pedantic in a north easterly direction as far as the compass is concerned. Honest Pete, the goal judge, illuminated. I don’t mean he himself lit up - just his goal light. 2-1 Cats.

So ended the period with Bison facing an uphill struggle instead of a cakewalk. The Cats weren’t there to make up the numbers and, despite being outshot by 16-9 in P1, the brilliance of Höög had snatched the advantage for his team. What a player he is.

Bison’s second equalising score came on 25 minutes. Bison skipper Aaron “Billy” Connolly scrapped for it and fed Tomas Karpov, who put Lack in on goal. The Prairie Dog had a shot which was saved but not covered and he forced the rebounded puck over the line for 2-2. The goal was greeted by a sudden outburst of noise, which threatened to bring the Planet Ice roof down. Structural Engineers familiar with the building might tell you that wouldn’t be difficult. On this occasion the roof miraculously remained in place.

Bison continued to press in search of a go ahead goal. They nearly got it soon after. Sloppy D work meant that Stonewall Stevie Lyle had been hung out to dry, sold down the river and left holding the baby all at once and not once but twice. In very quick succession he thwarted Jarolin and Greener in one on ones with astonishing saves, which brought “oohs and ahs” from the Bison crowd and gasps of astonishment from Baston in the goal at the other end. His beard may be greying (Stevie’s not Jonny’s that is), but his ability remains undiminished.

But Bison were not to be denied. And on 33 minutes Karpov put one Bison hand on the trophy with an unassisted goal resulting from a terrible defensive error – an “Ooo Betty” moment if ever there was one. As if he had been slipped a brown envelope full of dosh, a Cats D-man (I didn’t see who that was so I can’t name and shame him) laid on the perfect pass to the Czech chap all alone in front of goal. This was no time for Karps to procrastinate nor indeed to beat around the bush, dawdle, dilly-dally or drag his heels. And he did none of those things. A snap backhander past Lyle, who was still in shock at seeing his D-man lay it on a plate for the Killer, made it 3-2 Bison. In Buddhism and Hinduism Nirvana is a state of mind characterised by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world. Did the Bison backers attain this supreme state of mental wellbeing when the goal was scored? Hell yeah. Not through the medium of silent and introspective meditation of course – quite the opposite. In fact quite a lot of pain was involved – to the eardrums.

Bison now had their noses in front. Once again they had dominated play and the shot count was well in their favour. However, you can’t ignore the hobbit and he once again popped up to complete his hat-trick and, in doing so, delight the inhabitants of the Shire. Breaking forward he evaded the covering D-man, cut inside and whipped a tremendous and indeed wicked wrist shot past Baston into the opposite side of the goal as he skated across the face of the crease. Could the hapless netman have saved it? Not a chance. And I will challenge anyone who says he could to a fist fight. It was 3-3 and all to play for.

So into P3 we passed and Bison got their noses in front again in the 44^th minute. Lack fed Karpov who broke forward with Long in support. The Grandmaster’s across the crease pass took out both D-man and goalie and there at the back door was Long Ciaron to smack the puck home as the net came off its moorings. I looked immediately at Ref Matthews to see if his arms were thrown wide to disallow the goal for net off, but instead I saw his flat hand pulsating at the net in a most theatrical manner. The goal was good. Mr. Matthews saw that the puck had crossed the line before the net began traveling in a south westerly direction (see comments above regarding compass orientation). 4-3 Bison. The goal was greeted by a vociferation most tumultuous from the Bison backers. A salvo both joyous and ecstatic. Not so much a crescendo, which the dictionary defines as “a gradual, steady increase in loudness”, as there was nothing gradual or steady about it all at. It was more of a sudden outburst.

Could Bison now hammer home their advantage and sew things up? Well, although they did indeed hammer home their advantage with another goal, things were not quite sewn up, as I shall relate, dear reader. That goal came on the stroke of 50 minutes. When Karpov, set up by Shaun “The Sheep” Thompson and Ryan “You What?” Watt, whipped a wrist shot past a startled Stonewall Stevie from the slot. 5-3 Bison. The Crowd erupted. The Che Guevara impersonator leapt to his feet and with a great wail, as opposed to a great whale, and raised his garden gnome above his head. “Oh come on,” I hear you say. “You’ve made that up.” I guarantee he really exists – come to the EPL playoffs and you’ll meet him. And yes he really did bring his gnome to the game, just to prove he’s completely off his trolley. By the way the gnome had a passing resemblance to Jonas Höög.

A 2 goal cushion with only 10 minutes to play. There was a flurry of activity as those with smart phones began to order silver polish online. Were they being premature? Well almost because the game was far from over. With just over a minute remaining Lyle was pulled from the net (actually he skated off of his own accord rather than being dragged kicking and screaming from the crease as the expression might suggest) to enable a last hurrah 6 on 5. And it paid off. Finucci and Höög set up Adam Harding for a slapshot from the slot. The Harding stick crashed to the ice with a loud report and off went a piledriver of a hot shot clapper through traffic and into the net. No chance for Baston and anyone who says otherwise just drop the gloves, matey.

Back came Lyle for the face off, but was gone immediately after. He must have felt like a yo-yo. The final tense minute was played out and featured a missed empty net attempt and the mother of all melées in front of Jonny “Shut-em-out” Baston’s net. But alas for the Cats he and the Bison D did exactly that. Nevertheless, during the melée the pessimists in the crowd were on their smartphones cancelling their orders for silver polish. But they were to be exposed as nothing other than downright despicable defeatists, yea killjoys of the worst possible kind wallowing in their own polluted quagmire of depression, pessimism and glass half emptyism. Fie to them. Of course Bison were going to win the thing beginning with T. And as the clock ticked down the crowd got to their feet and began to sing the traditional “Great Escape” which became louder and louder and LOUDER! The final buzzer sounded. Bison had done it. The Winston Churchill impersonator in Block B was so elated that he was moved to mutter “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” He threw his homburg hat into the air, whilst on the ice helmets, gloves and sticks were similarly tossed Heavenwards, perhaps as an offering the hockey gods, who clearly didn't actually want them as they all fell back to the ice. A crazed mob of Bison players took to the ice and mobbed Jonny Baston in one huge gaggling bunch of delirious sportsmen, which slowly drifted into the corner to the right of Baston’s domain. Well all except one - Watty. He skated across to the penalty box door where Lumberjack Joe Rand was standing and tried to persuade him to come onto the ice. What a fantastic gesture, Watty. However, Joe wouldn’t come on, not wishing to gatecrash the party. He should have as he had played a major part in Bison’s title winning season and it was great to see he later relented and joined the on ice celebrations. The less said about the later in bar celebrations the better. You had to be there. What a night for all. The “Hockier than thou” brigade, the Jonny-come-latelies, those who had stuck it out through the dark final days of the Elite League. All Bison backers together. All for one and one for all. As for the boys – job done.