Thanks to Bobblehat for the report....
The Bees had a hard fought victory tonight against the Cobras. I use the term hard fought in its real sense as well as its....metafor....meataphur....metapphori....not in the real sense.
The Cobras set out their stall as early as the 15th second when the Chief and that naughty Mr Trumbley danced the bolero round the rink after the Chief had tripped the Cobra in retaliation for naughty Mr Tumbley pulling a very nasty face at him. The result was that the Chief recived a 2 min penalty for the tripping offence, and they both received a 2+2 for roughing, although perhaps naughty Mr Trumbly should have received more for being the first to drop the gloves and invite the Chief for a dance.
The real game then commenced and the Cobras continued with their very physical game with the object of throwing the Bees off theirs. This didn't succeed as the Bees continued unabated with missed passes, passing to the opposition and crumbling when under pressure. Ref Kirkham was on good form as at 2min 14 secs he dished out a justifiable 2min penalty to the Cobras' Booberman for elbows and a 2min holding penalty to the Bees' McCosh. How he decided the Bee was holding only Kirkam knows, as, after the elbow from Booberman, McCosh was on the ice. At 5min 55secs Majic skated out of the penalty box and onto a pass to give him a 1on 1 with Bernie. However the Bees' netminder was on top form and refused to be deked and saved the shot. The Cobras were continuing with their niggling tactics and Ross Lambert got in some very cheap shots out of the eye of the ref. At 8min 30 secs after a game stoppage, Majic speared DeCosty, but again Kirkham was wearing his dark glasses. Then came the incident which, in my opinion, eventually lost the game for the Cobras. It was the first shift after their respective penalties that saw the Chief and that naughty Mr Trumbley back on the ice together. Naughty Mr Trumbley went full tilt into the Chief under the nose of Kirkham who could hardly miss this one, and he called naughty Mr Trumbley for a 5+game for crosschecking. Naughty Mr Trumbley was rather upset by this and dropped his gloves again, but this time the Chief grinned at him and skated away, knowing that the damage had been done. Naughty Mr Trumbley then pressed the self destruct button and became naughty, naughty, naughty Mr Trumbley as he proceeded to attack a stripey instead of the Chief. The result was that he received a further gross misconduct on top of the 5+ game already dished out. So at 8min 58secs of the game he had received a grand total of 49 minutes in penalties. So the Cobras' short bench was further reduced, and in the end they suffered for it.
However the resulting 5min powerplay saw some hilarious scenes, none more so than at 9min 20 ses when Bernie and Rob Stewart got into the most horrendous tangle which resulted in Bernie having to pull off a diving save from his defenceman. To say the Bees' powerplay was ineffective is a flattering description. It was diabolical. At 11min 1sec Kirkham again c ame into his own with a 2min tripping penalty against Tom Gomes when neither Tom nor his stick came anywhere near the Cobra who fell over. So that negated the powerplay for 2min., not that it mattered. The Bees were being pulled down to the level of the Cobras, and there was not much pretty hockey to watch. As far as the Bees were concerned Kirkham excelled himself at the 15 minute mark. Smith was through on Bernie with 2 Bees and 2 Cobras in hot pursuit. What's that? Its a Bees stick being thrown along the ice at the advancing Smith and the puck. I look for the crossed hands above the head - no sign. I look back at the game and Randy Smith is in the back of the Bees' net with Bernie and he is trying to thump the daylights out of the netminder. I think that the Hive should now get a mention in the Guiness book of records for the most players in a hockey net. When the rest of the Bees realised what was going on in their net they all skated in, followed by the Cobras. I counted 6 players in the net not including Bernie who had somehow got out and had skated to the side. The rest of the out ice players were all trying to get in on the act. The calls from Kirkham? NIX. To be fair (why?) to him perhaps he had been shielded when the stick was thrown, but he could not have missed the resulting melee and what who was doing to whom. Perhaps he decided that if he had dished out what was required the penalty boxes would have been overloaded. A small oasis of calm then descended on the game, broken only by Denis Burke going in on a 1on 1 against Cowley. This was in the last minute of the period when the Bees were shorthanded, but Cowley stood firm and an incident packed first period ended goalless.
The next two periods were anti-climaxes. Oh yes, in the second period the Bees took the lead through a good slapshot from Pellerin past an unsighted Cowley at 21min 35 secs after good work from Colin Ward behind the Cobras' goal. Cowley was unsighted by his own player, Jamie Pegg who, after losing his stick was skating this way and that in front of the goal. Cobras equalised at 30min 25secs when Brett Stewart converted from passes by Majic and Mulvenna. 25 seconds later and Cobras were in the lead as Bernie failed to hold on to a shot from Lascala and the puck trickled over the line. Kirkham was up to his normal self in this period, for at 35min 31 secs he handed out a 2+2 accidental high sticks penalty to Reggie Crawford after two Cobras collided and Anthony Johnstone was hurt. Reggie had been nowhere near the incident and the nearest Bee had been Rob Stewart. Still, I suppose the Bees' should have been grateful for this, as, shorthanded the Chief broke free and (look out folks here come the cliche) buried the puck just inside Cowley's right hand post. At 38min 16 secs the Cobras' regained the lead as a recovered Anthony Johnstone converted a pass fromJohnathan Weaver. Who said the Brits aren't good enough - oh yes, it was our national coach.
So into the third period and the Cobras leading 3-2 and the Bees bereft of ideas. And so it continued with the Cobras holding out and hoping for their 4 point weekend. At 52min 42 secs matt Cote and Randy Smith were sent to the bin for not being very nice to each other, and on the resultant 4on 4, Brian Pellerin scored the equaliser at 53min 42 secs with an assist going to Shayne McCosh after one of his typical surges down the centre (ooer missus, to quote Mike). By now the Cobras were begining to flag after all their efforts and when Norton was binned at 56min 8secs for holding the stick, it took the Bees only 7seconds of the powerplay to go in front as Colin Ward netted his rebound. Cobras took off Cowley with just under a minute to go, but the Bees held out and, in fact, nearly converted a shorthanded ENG chance. So 4-3 to the Bees and two more points. As the teams lined up for the presentations, Wayne Cowley did a Trumbley and proceeded to hurl abuse at the officials which got him a gross misconduct for his pains. The only reason I can think he did this was that he was rather miffed at being given a penalty during the last period when he collided with a Bees player and received a 2min tripping call.
So, will the Cobras take the same action against naughty Mr Trumbley as Paisley took against Grant Slater? If anyone deserves to be sacked it should be him unless, of course, the Cobras havn't got a get-out clause in his contract. The man is a liability to his side with his action this evening, I believe, directly resulting in his team losing the game. Of the Bees, if they continue to play as they did tonight, its the same position as last year in the league, and no semis in the Expresso cup.
PS can anyone tell me what Scott Campbell does apart from skating around trying to look good?