An Assist to Ambler's Ass

Bison 4 Bracknell Bees 0

2/2/13

Muhammad Ali famously described his style as “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”. Well last night at Planet Ice the Bracknell Bees were unable to emulate the great man. They may have buzzed like bees, but they floated more like a Monty Python style ton weight dropped in a river and, as for their sting – more akin to that of a butterfly i.e. not at all. It was Bison who did the stinging with two short handed goals out of their four and another fantastic shut out performance in the net from Stonewall Stevie Lyle, who has now clocked 155 consecutive minutes on home ice without having his goal breached.

The game started in lively fashion with the mother of all scrambles in front of the Bees’ net. Don’t ask me to describe what happened. Suffice it to say that Carl Ambler, who, in contrast to Lyle, was to suffer a painful night, kept the puck out this time. Bison were lucky not to fall behind in the 13^th minute when James Galazzi latched onto a blind pass from Martin Masa from behind the goal line and hammered the puck against the post. A minute later the Bees were trailing. Put in by Shoeless Joe Miller, Greg “The Specs” Owen found himself in on goal with Greg “Chubbs” Chambers in support. His centring pass set up Chubbs for a shot, but alas he muffed it and scuffed it. The puck moved so slowly towards Ambler that Chubbs could have skated forward and overtaken it. Instead of freezing the puck, Ambler chose to execute a kick save, but succeeded only in shovelling it straight to Owen in front of the net. He hammered home and, rather fortuitously, it was 1-0 Bison. 

A minute later with Cuddly Joe Greener serving solitary for high sticks, Bison nearly scored a short handed goal when Greg “The Specs” set up Nicky “You What?” Watt in front of goal, but the shot hit the post and stayed out. However, with only seconds remaining on the Greener penalty, Bison did score a shortie. Jake Thackray told us that Sister Josephine was a “bloody funny nun” (those under 40 will have to Google or, better still, Youtube Mr. Thackray). Well this was a bloody funny goal. Bison’s Caledonian Captain Tosh Redmond and Coach Doug Sheppard combined to set up Chubbs behind the goal line and wide of the goal. Ambler was convinced he was going to slide a pass across the crease and didn’t guard his goal well enough. Chubbs fired the puck close to but away from goal from a wide angle. It hit Ambler, changed direction and trickled over the line for 2-0 Bison. It was a shame that Mack Sennett wasn’t present or he may have attempted to recruit Ambler for the Keystone Kops. It was a comedy moment and just a pity that Ambler’s ass couldn’t be officially credited with an assist. 

 The 2^nd period saw no goals, but plenty of incident. The Bees were desperate to register a goal to get back into the game and they nearly bagged one in the 36^th minute when Shaun Thompson found himself in on goal. Now Stevie Lyle wasn’t exactly the new kid on the block. He’d been around the block a few times. He knew he had to block the goal as effectively as a breeze block wall, a naval blockade or a blockage in the U-bend and block failure out of his mind. This was no time to suffer a mental block. His head was surely on the block and, if he failed, there would be some blockheaded members of the crowd would want to knock his block off. Guess what? He stepped up to the block and saved with his blocker.

Comedy moment No.2 occurred late in the period with Nicky Watt called for a slash. He headed back towards the bench pretending not to know. Linesman, Mr. Thrower, caught him up and tapped him on the shoulder. It was a classic “Who me?” situation. During the resultant power play Shoeless Joe Miller chased onto a dumped puck. Carl Ambler saw the danger and raced out of his goal faster than a Saturn V transporter adapted for drag racing. On or around the Bees’ blue line the two came together and crashed to the ice in an untidy heap, but, luckily for Ambler, the puck had squirted clear and no Bison player could pick it up and put it into the empty net.

And so into the 3^rd we went and 6 minutes in Bison recorded their second short handed goal of the evening. Set up by Sheppard and Redmond, Cuddly Joe Greener surged forward on the left wing and looked inside to fire a return pass to Coach Sheppard. Alas it was at the end of the penalty kill and Joe thought “Poor old bloke. He’s looks all done in. I’d better have a shot myself”. He turned back, skated forward and let loose a rising wrist shot, which beat Ambler blocker side for 3-0 Bison.

At 0-3 in arrears and with only 12 minutes remaining, the Bees desperately needed some luck in front of goal. Could they come back from this seemingly hopeless position? That seemed as likely as Lord Lucan riding Shergar to victory in the Derby and so it proved, for, only 2 minutes later, Bison hammered a 4th and it was all over bar the shouting, most of which was done by the Howling Man in Block C by the way. The scorer this time was Lumberjack Joe Rand, who received a pass from Greg “The Specs” Owen. Alas the pass was to his feet not his stick, but he brilliantly sidefooted the puck forward onto his stick, Lionel Messi style, and took off towards the Bees' net. Joe’s supple and indeed lissom form nimbly, yet forcefully, surged past the static, immobile, unmoving and seemingly indolent, not to mention comparatively sedentary formation that was opposition defense, whose representatives could be forgiven, especially by the Bison faithful, for doing nothing more than admire the aesthetics of Joe’s footwork and subsequent exquisite movement, agility, acceleration and scoring end result. In other words he hammered through the D damned quick and rifled in. 4-0 Bison and, if the Bees travelling support had thought it wasn’t all over already, it was now. The fat lady was singing "Goodnight Vienna".

But the entertainment had not finished. With 5 minutes remaining Cuddly Joe Greener delivered a massive hit on Scott Spearing, which was adjudged interference by the all powerful referee, Dave Cloutman. Spearing is just about as popular at Planet Ice as the scrapings from the inside of a medieval philanderer’s codpiece (sorry that’s going too far). After the hit he skated to the Bees bench and back, all the while muttering away until eventually settling on Nicky Watt to give vent to his considered opinion. It was an unsavoury confrontation. The air may well have been blue, but we were unable to catch the verbal exchange from faraway Block C. Certainly the two players did vaguely resemble a pair of East End barrow boys with Tourette's syndrome attempting to shout each other down. No blows were exchanged, much to the chagrin of the crowd, whose blood lust had risen to fever pitch by this time. Nearly but not quite. The officials prevented an ugly scene of violence erupting and delay of game penalties were imposed on each.

So 4-0 Bison the game ended and Bison’s man of the match was, once again, Stevie Lyle, with another shutout, which he fully deserved with a rock solid performance culminating in two amazing saves within seconds of each other in the final minute. They say that from little acorns mighty oak trees grow. Well I doubt that Stevie started life as an acorn, but to the Bees forwards he certainly must have appeared as mighty as the mightiest of mighty oaks. They just couldn’t find a way past him.  

And a final word for birthday boy Cuddly Joe Greener. They say the grass is greener on the other side and, as far as the Bees were concerned Joe Greener was on the other side, grazing through their pastures, exposing their agricultural defending, ploughing up their fields and leaving their bovine blueline to chew the cud while helping his team harvest a bumper crop of goals. Bison took the bull by the horns and made hay whilst the sun shone. The Bracknell chickens had well and truly come home to roost. They would have had to have waited until the cows came home for a goal, which proved as elusive as a needle in a haystack. Their forward lines looked as useful as a milk bucket under a bull and as unlikely to score as Daisy the Guernsey dairy cow would have of carting off the winner’s rosette in the sheepdog trials at the Romsey show.

Owen and Chambers Terrify the Phantoms

Bison 5 Peterborough Phantoms 1

26/1/13

The game was played on the night after Burns Night and, had Robbie Burns had been amongst the crowd at Planet Ice last night, he might have likened the all-conquering, table topping Bison team to a haggis – that great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race (go on Google “Address to a Haggis” – I wonder if Tosh Redmond can recite it). Bison’s 2^nd period performance was certainly worthy of such a high accolade. What about the Peterborough Phantoms? Sad to say that in contrast their performance was more akin to a stone cold Pukka Pie with soggy pastry and a nondescript filling of mushy steak and kidney with no discernible kidney……or steak come to think of it. Robbie Burns, who died in 1796, long before Pukka pies were invented, would no doubt have been thankful that he never had to ingest a cold Pukka pie. Bison hero of the night was once again Greg “The Specs” Owen, who hammered a 2^nd period hat-trick to put the result beyond doubt.

The first period was a rather tepid affair and, despite firing in 14 shots on the Phantoms’ net, Bison couldn’t find the gaps around Damien King. However, in the 2^nd it was a different story. It was as if Bison had activated the “clinical finishing” button as they stuffed no fewer than 5 goals past a despairing King and by the end of the period it was not a case of “Good morning Vietnam”, but more one of “Goodnight Vienna”.

Goal no.1 was scored on 21 minutes. Greg “Chubbs” Chambers delivered a superb defense splitting long pass to his Bison namesake and soulmate Greg “The Specs” Owen. As the latter bore down on goal, goaltender King must have wished he was a puffer fish and able to inflate to fill the goal. Alas he was not. Owen feinted to shoot to the goaltender’s left, then dragged the puck back and delivered a backhander into the wide open space between goaltender and post which he had created with his clever deke. In celebration of the goal the Bison faithful immediately turned into a bunch of noisy, raving hooligans. If they had behaved this way in a shopping centre, they would have been issued with ASBOs for sure. 

Owen doubled his tally 3 minutes later with a back door tap in at the end of a tic-tac-toe move. “Chubbs” fired a cross ice pass to Shoeless Joe Miller. Instead of having a crack himself, Joe rifled a pass to Greg “The Specs” at the other post to tap in with a smart snap shot. As the puck flew past him and into the net the goaltender looked as shocked as if he had seen Jacob Marley’s ghost complete with clanking chains. (Not a Dickens reader? You’ll have to Google “Marley’s ghost” then).

On 26 minutes Bison stormed into a 3-0 lead with one of the best goals you are ever likely to see. The scorer was Jaroslav Cesky, the Bouncing Czech. It started in the Bison defensive zone. Phanotms D-man, Tom Norton, broke his stick whilst attempting a slap shot. The puck broke loose to Jaro who poked it forward over his own blue line then gave chase. He didn’t hang about, hang fire or let it all hang out. It was not the time to hang back, hang on, hang loose or let things hang in the balance. The goaltender had been hung out to dry, but he was determined to hang tough and hang on in there rather than hang up his skates or even hang himself. Jaro scored with an almost identical deke as Greg “The Specs” had employed, feinting to go right, then dragging back and sliding in the puck left. Hang it all - a truly wonderful unassisted goal. A pity you couldn’t frame it and hang it on the wall.

Tom Norton took possession of a new stick and was adjudged to have used it illegally just a couple of minutes later. A hooking call condemned him to spend 2 minutes in solitary, a sentence which was reduced, not for good behaviour, but because Bison scored on the power play. A long pass from the right wing by Cesky found Coach Sheppard in space in the slot with no Phantom to scare him. His movement was brisk, lively, rapid and urgent, not apathetic, dilatory, lethargic or ponderous. In other words he charged forward bloody quick. As deked and shaped to shoot, a close observer, namely Climbing Girl (she knows about things mathematical), was busy calculating the mathematical probability of a goal, taking into account (a) the angles between the lines of shots to the near post and the far post and a line drawn perpendicular to the goal line, (b) the distances to the aforementioned objects calculated using sines and cosines and (c) the velocity of the forthcoming shot. Did she have time to finish the mental processes necessary to apply the formulae and calculate the answer before Maple Leaf Doug decided how he was going to beat the goaltender? Of course she did. As Maple Leaf Doug lifted his backhander through the pipes, the Bison faithful piped up with a roar of approval louder than the loudest organ pipe in Westminster Abbey as if to say to the doubters, “put that in your pipe and smoke it.” Bison’s home form is piping hot at present. Surely there were more goals in the pipeline and it was the Phantoms’ D who would have to pay the piper.

Doubtless hedging his bets up to this point, Mystic Matthew now confidently predicted a Bison win. The Man with 3 Ear-rings said “It would be nice to have a shut out”, whereupon the Man whose Charlestown Chiefs shirt is in the wash glared at him and correctly surmised that, now he had said it, it wouldn’t happen. And it didn’t. Never mind.

Bison romped further ahead on 36 minutes as Greg “The Specs” completed his hat-trick. Set up by Miller and Chambers, Owen dragged the puck from behind the goal line and was one on one with the hapless netman. Was the latter confident of making the save or did he have a sense of foreboding? Only he will know. In the end it didn’t really matter how he felt because Greg “The Specs” scored anyway. 5-0 Bison. The Man from MI5, observing incognito from Block C, hadn’t had so much fun since he parachuted out of a helicopter with her Majesty the Queen at the London Olympics opening ceremony. (You didn’t really think it was Daniel Craig who made the jump, did you?)

The final period saw both goalies changed with Dan Lane taking to the ice for the whole of the third period and Connor Standing standing in for the last 10 minutes.

With 10 minutes remaining there broke out a malevolent affair of the most violent variety as Scotsman, Nicky “You What?” Watt, obviously wishing to celebrate Burns night in typical fashion for him, launched an assault on Greg Pick, who had unwisely slashed Jaro Cesky. The encounter proved to be a robust and indeed physical affair. Watty proved to be no “timorous beastie”, as Robbie Burns may have put it, as he pummelled Pick into submission. Into the box went the two pugilists for a 2+2 cool off.

The Phantoms rounded off the scoring in the 54^th minute with a James Ferrara slap shot goal to make it 5-1, the puck creeping under the right pad of Connor Standing and rebounding out of the goal to the confusion of many, but a goal it was. Assists went to Ondrej Lauko and Tom Norton.

Tom Carlon and Greg Owen picked up the Man of the Match awards (some beers rather than a haggis each) on a night when, for the third successive Saturday, Bison leapfrogged over the Guildford Flames to the top of the EPL. I am sure Robbie Burns would have approved.

Battling Phoenix Go Down in Flames

Bison 3 Manchester Phoenix 1

19/1/13

For the second Saturday in a row Bison leapfrogged over the Guildford Flames to the top of the EPL and the Manchester Phoenix played their part on both occasions. Last week, as Bison were eclipsing the Slough Jets by 4-1, Phoenix pulled down Flames’ trousers and gave them a jolly good spanking by 6-1. Last night with Guildford having a night off, Bison overcame a strong and spirited challenge from Phoenix to reclaim top banana spot and send their fans home with a warm glow inside or at least those fans who had consumed Pukka pies.

The game started in lively fashion, especially for new Bison signing, Nicky “You What?” Watt. At the start of his first shift he delivered a massive forechecking hit and then immediately broke forward with the puck, which had fortuitously fallen into his path, deked and shot, but just wide of the mark. 2 minutes later he was in the box for hooking. During the resultant power play a scramble in front of goal resulted in the net coming adrift. Referee Cloutman’s whistle blew well before a long range wrist shot ended up in the net, so no goal.

On 11 minutes a defensive blunder, as cataclysmic a disaster as the fall of Rome (OK I’m exaggerating a bit), let in Shoeless Joe Miller. As Joe bore down on goal, the Phoenix fans must have been wishing that their goaltender, Steve Fone, was the size of Mr. Blobby, so that he could have provided a more formidable obstacle in the goal. But let’s face it who would want Mr. Blobby as their goaltender – think of your team’s credibility. In the end it mattered not a jot as Joe’s shot struck the bar.

Phoenix were putting together some smart moves and the pressure finally paid off with 15 minutes on the clock. Michal Psurny held the puck behind the Bison goal line and then fired it to Luke Boothroyd lurking just goal side of the blueline. He raised his stick high above his shoulders and brought it down in a sweeping arc to hit the ice just as the puck arrived. The stick bent and immediately restaightened (OK I couldn’t actually see that from Block C) and sent the puck hurtling goalwards at incredible speed. Stonewall Stevie Lyle in the Bison net must have thought “I don’t want to be here”. But the matter was neither here nor there, as here, or rather there, was where he was, albeit that he might just as well have been not here nor there nor, in fact, anywhere because he couldn’t prevent the puck from finding the net. In fact, he probably never even saw it, so much of a humdinger was the shot. It was a spectacular goal and the Man in the Charlestown Chiefs shirt felt moved to congratulate Boothroyd on his goal in the interval, but he warned the Phoenix D-man not to score any more. The warning was obviously heeded as he didn’t.

Shortly after we were treated to some nifty footwork from Bison old boy Liam Chong. He emerged from a centre ice challenge without his stick, but moving forward with the puck at his feet. He had no option but to dribble on and actually managed set a team mate for a shot. It was wonderful stuff from Liam – good to see him back to full fitness and back at Planet Ice once more. 

Two second period Bison goals and one in the 3^rd upset the apple cart and made the Phoenix challenge go pear shaped. Coach Sheppard and Cuddly Joe Greener proved they were no lemons as they squeezed the juice out of the visitors to set each other up with plum opportunities and turn Phoenix faces as red as tomatoes. Shep’s goal was the bread and butter equaliser, Cuddly Joe’s provided the icing on the cake and Shoeless Joe Miller the cherry on top with his 3^rd period strike. Bison, with a feast of goals, were having their cake and eating it. 

The equaliser on 35 minutes saw Greg “The Specs” Owen exit from the dungeon of incarceration that is the Sapphire Cleaning penalty box and immediately get back into the thick of the action, making a thorough nuisance of himself. Some first rate never say die scrapping for the puck behind the goal line helped Cuddly Joe Greener set Coach Sheppard on his way. Maple Leaf Doug passed behind the goal and then circled out in front with no-one challenging him. He picked his spot and drove in an unstoppable wrist shot which sneaked under Steve Fone’s arm  blocker side (so the Bespectacled Youth observed), for 1-1. Some of the spectators immediately texted, tweeted or Facebook messaged the good news to their friends and family. The Man from MI5, observing incognito from Block C, relayed the score back to his controllers using the transmitter concealed in his bow tie, but no one noticed. Look I told you last week this man really exists. OK?

Bison took the lead in the 38^th minute, taking advantage of a 5 on 3 power play with both Ondrej Pozivil and Michal Psurny banged up, the latter rather luckily for only a 2 minute minor, as his high stick gashed Lumberjack Joe Rand's tongue, enabling him to "speak with forked tongue". With only a solitary second left on the 5 on 3 (you can’t cut it much finer than that), Cuddly Joe Greener shovelled in the puck at the back post from a pass by Coach Sheppard. It appeared to deflect off Fone’s pad as it looped over the leg of the hapless netman and plopped back down onto the ice netside. 2-1 Bison. Greg “Chubbs” Chambers with the second assist.

The final period saw a much livelier Bison, undoubtedly galvanised by their two 2^nd period goals, but Phoenix were by no means out of it. Tony Hand, their legendary player/coach, seemed to be constantly on the ice as he continued to urge his team forwards. It was truly end to end stuff. Bari McKenzie found himself between a rock and a hard place in the 50^th minute when a bit of push and shove in front of the Bison net found him playing the part of the filling in a Greener/Watt sandwich. It could have been fatal for the fellow, but thankfully it wasn’t.

On 53 minutes Bison surged into a game winning 3-1 lead. An interchange between Alex Symonds and the Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky, set Shoeless Joe Miller racing across the face of goal to put himself in on Fone. As Joe bore down on goal, the Phoenix goaltender must have appeared as formidable an obstruction in his goal as Big Sue, the subject of Lucien Freud’s painting “Benefits Supervisor Asleep” (Google that, but be prepared for a shock). However with some clever deking he made Steve look as effective at goal blocking as one of L.S. Lowry’s matchstick men, as he backhanded the puck over the line. If there were any members of the aristocracy present (unlikely) they may have described the goal as spiffing, spanking, top drawer, bonzer, wizard or capital. What ho? To the rest of us it was just a bloody good goal.

The clock ticked down to the final buzzer with no more goals but with much goalmouth action. It had been a pulsating game with much to be admired from two of the top EPL teams. Phoenix must be sick of the sight of Bison with a 0-5 record against them this season. Tom Duggan was their top banana, Shoeless Joe Miller Bison’s.