Dumbledores Push Bison to an Ignominious Reverse

Bison 2 Bracknell Bees 5

30/10/2017

If you’re reading this you must be a Bison backer. The sort who, if your head was cut off (let’s hope it isn’t), would have Basingstoke Bison running through you like a stick of rock has Skegness running through it. And also you must be one of my regular readers. Who else could bring him or herself to read about the dire game we had to sit through last night? I can picture you now. You sit there in a state of funereal depression, wearing your black armband and with Handel’s funeral march blaring from your sound system. So the last thing you want to read is a description of how bad Bison played in losing to the dumbledores (yes that is a real word – it’s an old English word for bumblebee). This would drive you into an even lower state of mental ill-being, completely lacking in felicity, cheerfulness and exuberance. You want something a bit light hearted. OK I’ll do my best.

P1 opened. There were no goals. P1 closed. So far so good for Bison. Let’s move on.

Now the good bit. P2 opened and the game continued to ebb and flow. Finally the deadlock was broken on 28:59. Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds speared a long pass right up the centre from defense. The accuracy of the pass would have impressed Annie Oakley. It found Aaron “Billy” Connolly just red line side of the blue line and all alone. If there are any children reading this, please don’t read the next sentence. The Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist. Similarly the Bees’ D didn’t exist at this moment. Billy collected the puck and set off towards the Bracknell net. He hammered forward faster than the Wells Fargo stage from Dodge City with its team of horses at full gallop, deked the jockstrap off Alex Mettam in the Bees’ net (not literally of course) and scored. It was a delayed penalty goal with Luke Jackson declared as having been called for slashing. 1-0 Bison.

In 1988 Yazz and the Plastic Population told us “The only way is up”. Had they been present at Planet Ice last night they might have enunciated that sentiment to the Bracknell Bees. Little did we realise at the time, but not only were the Bees going to go up, but they were bound for infinity and beyond, as I shall relate in this humble offering, dear reader.

A mere 1:09 later it was all square once more. I am not quite sure how it got there but the puck trickled across the line and out came Referee Thompson’s goalwardsly pointing flat hand. Had the biscuit crossed the line or was it sitting on the ice touching the line? Some said the former, but Honest Pete, goal judge extraordinaire, said the latter. The Thompson hand said it all. It was a goal. Steven Osman was declared as the scorer, but there were no assistants. 1-1.

If there was controversy about the Bees’ equalising score, there was none cloaking their go ahead goal, scored with only another minute on the clock. Set up by Jared Lane, Jan Bendik unleashed a long range wrist shot from just inside the blue line. With a veritable gaggle of players between him and the shooter, goaltender Dean Skinns could see as much as Mister Magoo. The Bendik shot hurtled past the hapless netman faster than Rosa “Zazel” Richter in full flight. (Who? In 1877 she became the first human to be fired from a cannon. I've told you about her before, but, if you've forgotten, see below). 2-1 Bees.

There were no more goals in P2 and so we entered the final period with all to play for. The stage was set for a storming Bison comeback surely? Alas a frustrated Bison seemed to run of ideas and effectiveness and eventually became as deflated as a space hopper shot by a high velocity round. Instead of elevating their performance to great heights and pulling off a rip-roaring revival, they subsided as surely as would a blancmange put in the oven at Gas Mark 6. The Dumbledores piled on the agony with 3 more goals, as I shall relate, dear reader.

On 46:03 a shot from Tom Avery rebounded into the slot where Shaun Thompson lurked. He fired home. The goal, scored by an ex Bison player who would have made such a difference to the current team were he still a Bison, was kickass as far as the Bees’ backers were concerned and a kick in the unmentionables as far as the Bison fans were concerned. 3-1 Bees.

On 48:22 with Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky, surging forward a bench minor was called. The generously proportioned Mr Lalonde was seen holding up his left hand with 4 fingers and a thumb outspread and a solitary digit, namely his thumb, on his right hand. It could have been the other way around. “Too many men on the ice” was the call and off to the box went Ryan Sutton (I think) to serve what should have been a 2 minute stretch, which actually turned out to be a depressingly short 3 seconds. Thompson won the face off and the puck slewed to Frankie Bakrlik in the slot. He lifted his stick in preparation for delivering a clapper. Deano knew what was coming, but stopping it was another matter entirely. With the puck screaming towards him at a speed of 90 m.p.h. plus, he had no chance of reacting - he just had to make himself as large as possible. He stood as stationary as Lot’s wife after she had turned to a pillar of salt (I mentioned her last week – remember?), as the puck flew past his head and into the net. It had taken a much shorter time to score the goal than it has taken you to read my humble description of it. How funereally depressing! 4-1 Bees and worse to come.

On 57:49 Harvey Stead found himself on the wrong end of the law. The Bison crowd may have considered that his hooking of Grant Rounding was a deed so malodorous and malevolent that 10 years on Devil’s Island would have been an appropriate punishment. However, the referee had not the authority to impose such a sentence of penal servitude and instead slapped a 2 minute minor on Stead. It turned out very well for the Bees, as it transpired. A short handed goal finally sealed the homesters’ fate. You should never concede a short handed goal. It’s almost as bad as conceding an even handed goal to a team of one armed men. However, that is exactly what Bison did. On 58:53 Bakrilk was sent clear by Josh Martin. His deked was a work of art and ended with him lifting a backhanded lob over Skinns’s shoulder. Thompson with the second assist. 5-1 Bees.

Just as certainly as yellow mellow custard dripped from a dead dog’s eye (well according to John Lennon it did), Bison were doomed to lose the game. But the excitement wasn’t over. With Stead still serving his penalty, James Galazzi was called for elbows. It was now a 5 on 3 for Bison and they took advantage. A shot from Ashley Jackson was met by the stick of Ryan Sutton and the puck raced through the Colossus of Rhodes-esque yawning chasm that was Alex Mettam’s 5-hole. 5-2 Bees. Better than 5-1, but only marginally. It was still an ignominious defeat, which confirmed Bison’s exit from the National Cup, which, as I told you before, is probably a gaudy pot, badly crafted and not big enough to hold a boiled egg, so not worth winning. However, the nature of the defeat made many enunciate their wrath.

 All that remained was to appoint the Top Bananas. They were Steve Osman for the Bees and ex Bee Josh Smith for Bison.

Dogs' Ineptitude Makes Coach Morgan Barking Mad

Bison 3 Sheffield Steeldogs 1

24/9/17

This evening saw Bison entertain the Sheffield Steeldogs in the first game of the Autumn Cup, not to be confused with the National Cup, which is something completely different. The Autumn Cup is a cup competition unsurprisingly played in the Autumn.

What a start the game had. Some might say it began in a Jumping-Jehosophat-on-a-pogo-stick manner. In fact I would. From the face off Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov’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 the opposition defense, whose representatives could be forgiven, especially by the Bison backers, for doing nothing other than admire the aesthetics of Karpov’s footwork and exquisite movement, agility, acceleration and scoring end result. Eh? OK to put it another way he won the face off, advanced down the centre without a challenge and then rifled a wrist shot towards Brandon Stones in the Dogs’ net. They say Rolling Stones gather no moss. In this case there was no moss, but there was a puck and also a Stones. Alas for the travelling Dogs’ fans, Stones failed to gather the puck. On went Honest Pete’s goal light and it was 1-0 Bison. Only 7 seconds had been played.

Could Bison continue scoring at this rate? Had they done so it would have been 171-0 by the end of the 1^st period. However, they couldn’t and it wasn’t. In fact the period ended with that solitary goal separating the teams. The additional 170 goals the Bison backers were expecting didn’t materialise. However, there was nearly a second score before the first minute had elapsed – only 17 seconds after the goal, in fact. A shot from the Antonov twins was deflected in out of the air by Karpov. “Your stick was above bar height,” said Mr. Matthews and the goal was expunged as if it had never existed, which, according to the game sheet, it hadn’t. 1-0 Bison it remained, luckily for Stones, who, by now, must have felt like he was stoned.

Then it was the Dogs’ turn to score a phantom goal. I can’t tell you what happened or who was involved as it was a bit of a mêlée in front of the net, but the goal light definitely came on and then went off. Much to the relief of the Bison backers and the chagrin of the Dogs’ faithful, Referee Matthews’s hand didn’t become flat and pointy in a netwards direction and play continued. Shortly after that the period ended. The P1 shot count was announced as 17-2 in Bison’s favour. Had the Dogs’ goal, which wasn’t a goal, instead been a goal it would have been 1-1 and a travesty on the balance of play. In fact, Jesse James and his gang could not have undertaken a more audacious robbery (see below for a splendid illustration of the James gang’s raid in Northfield 1876 – it went hideously wrong by the way). 1-0 it remained at the buzzer.

 

Bison needed to make their superiority count or the Dogs would be in with a shout. This they did within a couple of minutes of the start of P2. On 22:18 Ashley Calvert was called for slashing and condemned to a 2 minute stretch of solitary without even bread and water (actually there may have been some water available). Well it should have been 2 minutes, but only 14 seconds into the power play Bison scored. According to the B52s, on Planet Claire the trees are red, the air is pink and no-one has a head. I’m not sure about the trees and air at Planet Ice, but the members of the Dogs’ D also had no heads or, if they did, they clearly weren’t using them. They were caught out by an Antonov across the crease pass to Aaron “Billy” Connolly at the back door. He slapped the puck home past a hapless Stones, whose brother Rolling would not have been impressed. 2-0 Bison.

On 28:12 Bison made the scoreline a trifle more representative of their dominance. Stuart “The Cat” Mogg and Ryan Sutton combined to send the Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky on his way. Jaro skated forward and unleashed an unstoppable wrist shot. Well it may have been stoppable, but not by Stones. In 1957 Larry Williams sang about his girlfriend Bony Maronie. He wanted to make love to her under the apple tree – surely this would have constituted an outrage to public decency, but never mind. Mr. Williams also told us that the aforementioned lady was “as skinny as a stick of macaroni”. The Dogs may just as well have had Bony Maronie in goal rather than Brandon Stones. Size mattered not a jot as the puck sailed past the hapless netman’s blocker and into the net. This occurrence must have made Stones adopted feelings of funereal perturbation - this was the second time he had been unable to stop an unstoppable whipped wrist shot in the game. 3-0 Bison.

Shortly after Cesky rang the pipes but, on this occasion, Stones had a fortuitous escape as the puck went to safety. Not long later Cesky fired one off Stones’s mask. Had it not been for Jacques Plante, Stones would have ended up looking like a character from a Sam Peckinpah film. Jacques who? See footnote.

That was it. There was no more scoring in P2 and Bison went in with a comfortable lead. It has to be said that the Dogs had proved woefully in adequate on the attacking front. Dean Skinns had had to keep out only 7 shots in the first 2 periods. A Dogs’ comeback in P3 seemed as unlikely as Robbie Coltrane riding a penny farthing to victory in the Tour de France (believe it or not they did used to race them – see below). However, we did not see more of the same in P3. The period belonged to the Dogs, mainly because they spent 6 minutes of the period on the power play and had not a power play to defend themselves. Bison were called for no fewer than 4 minors and a 10 misconduct on Elliott Dewey on 56:15. To attract a penalty of this type Dewey, called for a delay of game penalty as a result of his scooping not an ice cream but the puck over the glass, uttered words which cannot be reproduced in a report of this type in for fear of perpetrating an outrage to public decency. Actually they could be because I have no editorial control. However, modesty prevents me from reporting his actual words, notwithstanding that I don’t know what they were. However, Mr Matthews clearly regarded them as offensive as the utterances of an angry fishwife and off to the box went Dewey.

 However, as usual, I jump ahead, dear reader. Let us return to the 45^th minute. Cesky was called for a delayed penalty for hooking. Stones saw his chance. He raced full tilt from his net to allow a 6^th skater to take the ice. I would like to say that he possessed the sure footedness of an Alpine goat, but I can’t because he didn’t on this occasion. In fact, he fell over. Never mind, he eventually made it to the bench and on came the extra man. It paid off for the Dogs as Ashley Calvert, set up by Adrian Palak and Lewis Bell outdeked Dean Skinns and slotted home. 3-1 Bison.

All to play for with 15 minutes remaining. However, as the clock ticked down, the Dogs were making no impression on Bison. There was much grinding in the corners on Bison power play kills and a few near misses which had the crowd oooing and ahing. But the Dogs could find no way past Skinns. Suddenly, as the game passed into the last minute, an anguished cry went up from Block C. “For God’s sake, pull your goaltender.” The Che Guevara impersonator wanted the excitement of an empty net, but he didn’t get it. Stones remained planted in his net. The final buzzer sounded and Bison had won the game. The election of Top Bananas concluded the proceedings. Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds was Bison’s and netman Brandon Stones was the Dogs’, which made him the third visiting goaltender in a row to pick up the award. We long for the visit of a team with a dodgy keeper.

Footnote : On November 1^st 1959 Jaques Plante, the Montreal Canadiens’ goaltender, was hit  in the face by a puck, which broke his nose, in a game with the New York Rangers. He got patched up and returned to the ice wearing a facemask. It was the first time this had been done in an NHL game.

Silverthorn the Thorn in Bison’s Side

Bison 2 Telford Tigers 5

16/9/17

Last night we welcomed the Telford Tigers for the second game in this season’s NIHL Cup. The Tigers seem to have Bison’s number at Planet Ice with 2 wins out of 3 last season. Once again they came out tops and, once again, Jason Silverthorn was the fly in the Bison ointment with a 2 + 2 game, as I shall relate, dear reader, so pray read on.

The game opened and it didn’t take Bison long to snatch the lead. 3 minutes in fact. The execution of the move would have impressed even Madame Guillotine. One of the Antonov twins burst forward and fed the Bouncing Czech, Jaroslav Cesky on the right wing. The Czech chap chucked the puck across the crease and there was Elliott Dewey, as opposed to Dick Dewy (see footnote), to deflect the puck past a hapless Dennis Bell in the Tigers’ net. 1-0 Bison.

Things went from good to even better on 10 minutes (that is before they went from bad to even worse to downright depressing – but I jump ahead, dear reader). Let’s enjoy the good bit first. On 12 minutes a defensive blunder, as cataclysmic a disaster as the fall of Rome (OK I’m exaggerating a bit), occurred. A Telford giveaway (there weren’t many of those) saw Cesky seize possession of the puck and pick out Antonov. Was it Vanya who had assisted in the first goal or his twin Ivan? I don’t know, but it didn’t matter because he drove the puck through the goaltender’s 5-hole. Alas for Bell, whereas he had previously been merely hapless he now became very hapless, but by the end of the game he was decidedly unhapless, as I shall relate. Never mind that it was now 2-0 Bison and cruising. What could possibly go wrong?

On 13:05 Paul Petts, not to be confused with Paul Potts, operatic tenor from Bristol, who is someone completely different (I think) held someone and was consequently held in the penalty box. Alas not for long as the Tigers hammered home their power play advantage. Rick Plant planted a pass to Silverthorn, who speared a cross ice pass to the man over all alone at the back door. Who was it? Alas it was former Bison favourite Joe Miller and he showed no mercy (why should he?). He thwacked the puck past Dean Skinns. 2-1 Bison. Bah!

Not content with merely pulling one back the Tigers levelled it with only 12 seconds remaining in the period. Adam Taylor put Silverthorn away. It has to be said that the Bison defense on this occasion looked barely more mobile than Lot’s wife. Could Silverthorn prove to be the grit in Bison’s Vaseline? He went clear, unopposed, unbridled and unfettered and undressed Dean Skinns. Not literally of course – that would have been an outrage to public decency, not to mention a criminal offence. No-one was quite sure how he had got the puck past Deano, but it seemed to go in without Silverthorn actually shooting. It mattered not a jot as over the line went the puck, on came the goal light and there was Mr. Matthews pointing goalwards flathandedly (that can’t be a real word surely?). It would be easy to criticise Deano for letting this one in, but sometimes a goaltender is foxed by the movement of the player and, without the benefit of Bison TV, we cannot be sure what happened. However, I am certain Deano was as embarrassed as a man whose wig is snatched off his head by a seagull, carried off and eaten. 2-2. Oh Lordy!

We moved into P2 and the Bison backers wished we hadn’t. The Tigers owned the period. They outplayed, outshot and outscored Bison and caught their hosts on the hop, out to lunch, with their trousers down and flies undone with another power play goal. Paul Petts once again had his collar felt, this time for hooking. Down the steps he went and within a minute we had witnessed another defensive fiasco. OK the Bison D had found themselves up against it, up a gum tree and up the creek without a paddle, defending the power play, but it seemed so easy as the Tigers worked a spare man in front of goal, who beat a hung out to dry Deano. The scorer was Jack Watkins and his confederates were identified as Silverthorn and Miller. 3-2 Tigers. Flamin’ Nora.

We needed a very different Bison in P3 if they were to come back to win the game. They had to up the ante, up the stakes and go up up and away. Alas the only thing which went up was the number on the scoreboard under “Visitors”. They bagged 2 more goals from only 5 shots on target, while Bison continued to fire pucks straight at Bell, which he engulfed like a giant amoeba. The end result was that the young goaltender ended the game with a save percentage of 94.74 and the Top Banana award. But had he been that good? Not in my view. Bison once again failed to find the gaps between netman and goal frame, whilst at the other end the Tigers did just that. But as usual I jump ahead. Let’s go back to the 47^th minute.

Jonathan Weaver weaved a pass to Rick Plant, who planted a shot on Skinns which was saved. Alas the rebound went straight to a marauding Adam Taylor, all alone in front of goal. Had the Bison netman possessed the physical form of Pavarotti, he would have had a chance of blocking the goal completely. But he did not. (Neither could he sing operatic tenor, although Paul Petts can – or is that Pol Pot who does that? I am not sure). Taylor snapped the puck home and it was a depressing 4-2 Tigers. Drat, drat and double drat, as Dick Dastardly might have said.

But all was not lost …. yet. There was still plenty of time to pull the game back and, as we know, a 2 goal winning margin can be lost in the blink of an eye. A rock balancing sculpture (see below) can be brought down by a gust of wind. In this case, however, neither occurred. In fact the Tigers put the lid on proceedings with another goal. Eton Mess – a combination of strawberries, meringue and cream. Scrummy. What we saw on 52:59 was a mess of a totally different variety – a defensive mess. Once again the Tigers ended up with a man over. Silverthorn, all alone at the back door, received a cross ice pass from Plant, who seemed to have taken root in the Bison defensive zone. It was an over the shoulder number from Silverthorn as he lifted the puck over the by now very hapless Bison goaltender and into the net. There was an explosion of exuberance behind the goal as the travelling Tigers’ fans (all 8 of them) tried but failed to fill Planet Ice with noise. It was 5-2 Tigers. Oh hell’s bells and buckets of blood. It was enough to make you flip your wig. The Bison wigwam had truly gone up in flames.

 

By now the Bison backers had decided that the cup wasn’t worth winning. I have not seen a picture of said cup and, in fact, it probably doesn’t even exist yet, but I am sure it is or will be a gaudy pot, badly crafted and not big enough to hold a boiled egg. What do you mean sour grapes? All that remained to round off the evening’s proceedings was to elect the Top Bananas. Silverthorn was deserving of the accolade with a 2 + 2 evening, but instead the amoebic Dennis Bell took the beers and, once again, the Antonov twins were elected suitable candidates to take the Bison award.

It was nice to see Joe Miller get a good ovation from the Bison fans at the skate past, as he always does. I wish the loutish Tigers’ fans, who thankfully never make the journey south, could have seen that splendid sporting gesture. They might have learned a thing or two. But hey! Let’s not get heavy. We will leave those oiky people to ferment in their own juices of animosity and say no more.

Footnote : Dick Dewy was the hero of Thomas Hardy’s novel “Under the Greenwood Tree” published in 1872. It’s the nearest Hardy gets to a comedy. His books are literary masterpieces, but rather depressing as all the central characters die – sorry I’ve given all the plots away. By the way don’t confuse Thomas Hardy with Thomas Hardy (the famous Trafalgar captain who Nelson wanted to kiss) or indeed Tom Hardy the actor. That's him below. Looks jolly doesn't he? Perhaps he's a Bison fan.

Dynamos Prove Less Than Dynamic

Bison 4 Invicta Dynamos 0

9/9/17

In every league there are strong teams and not so strong teams. This is dictated by money – ask the Telford Tigers. In the NIHL we have such an imbalance by HEY! we have hockey, whereas a few weeks ago it looked as if we might have nothing at all following the folding of the EPL (thanks Wayne Scholes, Neil Morris and all the other people who contributed to taking a damned good product and driving it into the ground – sorry mustn’t get too serious here). Last night we witnessed Bison’s first competitive game in the new NIHL as we welcomed the Invicta Dynamos to the crumbling ruin which is the Basingstoke Arena.

“It's Raining Men! Hallelujah! - It's Raining Men!” So sang the Weather Girls. Remember those wonderful dietarily challenged ladies? It may have rained cats and dogs, rather than men, during the day, but anyone who expected it to rain goals last night were to be disappointed. Thanks to a 92.59 save percentage performance from Invicta netman Damien King, Bison ended up with a solid win but certainly not a cricket score.

The game opened and just before the 8^th minute had reached its conclusion, General Grant Rounding took off on a mazy Karpov-esque dribble. Fleet of foot, keen of eye and sharp of brain he showed sleight of hand as he outsmarted the covering Mo’s D-man, Harrison Lillis, who could not dispossess him. Instead he tripped him, sending Rounding crashing to the ice like a sack of King Edwards, right in front of the Bison bench. A massive eruption of protest volcanoed from the bench. Shouts were shouted and Bison back up goaltender Dan “The Beast” Weller-Evans even threw his arms into the air in a flamboyant gesture of objection. They needn’t have worried whether or not there would be a call. In his famous song of 1965 Wilson Pickett told us he was “gonna wait till the midnight hour”. His namesake Referee Tim Pickett, on the other hand, had no intention of waiting that long to make his decision. The whistle blew immediately and up went his arm to call a tripping offence. “Hey dude. You can’t do that,” he may have said. Whether he did or didn’t must remain matter of speculation. However the end result was that Lillis went off to the slammer for 2 minutes of porridge and Bison were on the power play. 1:42 into the 5 on 4 Bison broke through. Skipper, Aaron “Billy” Connolly passed across the face of goal into the slot from a position on the right wing. Waiting there was Tomas “Grandmaster” Karpov. Connolly may have said “Oi Geezer! Slap your lumber on that, matey”, although I heard no such utterance. However, slap his lumber on that was exactly what Karpov did. The puck was propelled forward from the Czech chap’s stick with the same velocity as Grandad’s dentures ejected during a violent sneeze. We heard a clunk, on went the goal light, up went the arms. The puck had hammered in off the post. Whoever painted the goal frames during the summer must have winced. 1-0 Bison.

As the period wore on the Kentish icemen were becoming frustrated and violence of the most virulent variety erupted shortly after. Josh Condren (don’t misspell his name please) barrelled forward and attempted to get past Rabbit’s Foot Joe Baird. A physical but fair tussle with tangled limbs and sticks ensued, the end result being that Condren fell to the ice, his charge forward terminated. In steamed Adam Strawson, who proved he is no man of straw, with an illegal hit on Baird. Next Kurt “The Scissors” Reynolds confronted Lillis merely to deliver constructive comments on the last passage of play I am sure. Appropriate penalties were doled out and Bison ended up with a 5 on 4, but could not take advantage.

A minute after the power play had ended Bison got another as Mason Webster delivered a cross check on Dan Scott in the corner. The latter was not happy and made his views known to the former. It didn’t escalate otherwise we could have seen a scene similar to this …..

The Mos should have levelled it up just before the end of P1. They had a 2 on 1 breakaway with Moggy the piggy in the middle. Deans Skinns saved the first shot, but the rebound fell right into the path of Adam Rehak. He couldn’t miss the open goal from point blank range. Planting the puck in the net seemed easier than hitting an elephant at 5 paces. But actually it wasn’t because……….he missed. 1-0 it remained and 1-0 it was at the buzzer.

Into P2 and Bison dominance continued. The midway point of the period passed with Bison still leading, but only by that solitary goal despite peppering the Mo’s goal. Heroics by goaltender King were preventing an embarrassing avalanche of goals. He had kept out 21 of 22 shots in P1 and now a further 8. Could he keep out Bison’s 31^st shot on his net? Well actually no. On 32:07. Antonov fed Karpov, who took the puck around the boards from behind the goal and passed to Stuart “The Cat” Mogg on the blueline. He sent in a speculative wrist shot towards the bottom corner. The shot was a sweet as a nut (strange expression that as nuts aren’t really sweet) and in it went off the post with a sonorous clunk. The goal frame painter must have winced once more. 2-0 Bison.

Just over 2 minutes later it was 3-0 and Bison’s efforts were at last bearing fruit......

 On 34:48 Baird sent in a wrist shot from the blue line, much in the same manner than Moggy had. Would history repeat itself on this occasion? Not quite because one of the Antonov twins (Ivan or Vanya) thrust his stick into the path of the puck and tipped it past the hapless goaltender. In celebration of the goal the Bison backers immediately turned into a bunch of noisy, raving hooligans. If they had behaved this way in a shopping centre, they would have been arrested for public disorder offences and issued with ASBOs for sure. 3-0 Bison.

The clocked ticked down to the end of P2. Although it hadn’t quite been a jumping-Jehosophat-on-a-pogo-stick period for Bison, they now had a comfortable lead, which would have been of considerably larger had it not been for the goaltending heroics of Damien King. He certainly was having a zim-zam-zaramango game. However, he was to be undone once more in P3, as I shall relate, dear reader.

P3 opened and there was a flurry of penalties starting in the 43^rd minute when Ryan Sutton was sent to the slammer for a slash. 15 seconds into the power play Connolly had his collar felt for cross checking. 5 on 3 to the Kentish icemen. They had to score. Well actually no they didn’t. The 5 on 4, which had become a 5 on 3, then became a 4 on 3 as Tom Ralph went down the steps for tripping. 10 seconds later it was 4 on 4 and then a 4 on 5 in Bison’s favour as Connolly’s incarceration terminated. Confused? I am. All we need to know is that Bison were now on the power play and made it count on 45:34 when an Antonov shot was saved and Connolly flicked the rebound over King’s shoulder. 4-0 Bison.

Could Invicta stage a comeback from this seemingly hopeless position? If they could it would make Lazarus sauntering out of his cave alive and in robust of health look a mere bagatelle. With only a dozen shots on goal so far, scoring 5 in the last 4 and a half minutes seemed unlikely. And so it proved. The final buzzer sounded and Bison had bagged the bounty in a game which lacked the cut and thrust and excitement of an old EPL game, but what the hell at least we have hockey to watch. Men of the match were goaltender King (who else could it have been?) and the Antonov twins, who once again had to share the Top Banana beers.