Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.... I should point out that a) I find it veryhard to stay even slightly objective for games at the Playground and b)I don't keep many notes in these games, so you'll have to excuse any sparsity of details.
The game started with Bracknell missing the Chief after his collision with the goal in the pointless Guildford game on Thursday. Didn't hear any changes for the Moo-moos. Fairly scrappy start, with no real pattern to the game. Carson decided to make his prescence felt within two minutes when he called a Bison penalty, which was quickly followed by an Intereference call on Scott Campbell, despite the fact that Carson never saw it. He just looked over, saw Campbell standing over a downed bison, and assumed Scotty had taken him out. Then, on 4 minutes, a second Bees player went off, to give the Bison 5-on 3 for 50 seconds, which was worsened when Bernie cleared the puck, only for it to fly straight over the plexi for 2 minutes, delay of the game. Fortunately, despite 2:37 of 5-on-3, Bracknell killed the penalty fairly well and were able to go looking for a goal. However, it was the Bison who scored first when, on 9:15, Conway stole the puck of Matt Cote on the blue-line, and skated through one-on-one with Bernie, to slot the puck home in the left corner for 1-0. Tempers started to frey here, with Carson missing some nastyness, and then trying to make up for it. One of these penalties led to Bracknell's equaliser, when Shayne McCosh played the puck into Bucsis, just to the side of the net, who scored a good wrap-around goal past Mignacca. Then, in the 17th minutes, Wayde was boxed for Elbows, and the Bison scored their second on the resulting powerplay, Conway again scoring after being given plenty of time in front of the net to belt it past a helpless Bernie. Less than a minute later, and Brown wasn't picked up as he entered the Bees zone, and was able to slapshot the puck home from the blue-line, although the puck seemed to travel under Bernie's legs. So, end of the first, and Bracknell down 3-1.
Bison scored their fourth in the 25th minute, Conway notching his hat-trick after once more being given acres of space in front of the net. Bracknell were playing terribly, unable to make any passes or even get out of their zone at times. There wer several mad scrambles about the Bees' net, with the puck only just being cleared. It didn't help that Bracknell were taking a rediculous series of penalties at this point, resulting in comments being made and a Bench misconduct being handed out. So it was no surprise then when the Bison went 5-1 up with only 44 seconds of the period left, Gatto recievng a square pass Conway to tap home through Bernie's 5-hole. Once again, Bracknell's defence had gone AWOL.
Into the third period, and Carson was up to his antics within 3 minutes. Bernie cleared a puck down the ice, it flew into the bench, but below the height of the plexi, and he was given a Delay of the Game (again). In the 50th minute, Shewan completed the Bison's scoring, afer (once again) being given space in front of the net to pick his spot. Is there a pattern emerging here? Bracknell added a slight bit of respectability to the score-line in the last minute, when Tom Gomes scrambled the puck home after Scotty Campbell had skated the length of the ice stongly and squared into the crease. too little too late, though.
MOM for the Bison was Kevin conway, with his hat-trick, whilst Shayne McCsoh was a deserved (I felt) MOM for Bracknell.
The major incident of the night, however, happened after the MOM presentations. I don't know too much about this, as I was sat at the other end of the block, so I don't want to go too much into it for fear of misinformation. However, it appears a couple fo Bison fans were sat in the away block, and at the nd of the match became involved in some very nasty stuff. I saw one guy being grabbed from behind by a security guard and dragged out of the building. As I say, I can't be certain of the actual origins of the fight (I've heard several conflicting reports) so I don't want to start any bad rumours.
Anyway, back to the game. Overall, it would be easy to blme Carson for the poor rsult, but that wouldn't be being honest. In truth, Bracknell were terrible tonight. Basingstoke weren't particularly good themselves, but they were able to capitalise on some very basic defensive blunders by the Bracknell defence. Add to this an off-night from Bernie, and it all amounts to a very bad performance overall from Bracknell. The loss almost certainly means that the Bees will finish fourth in the group, and so play the top team in Group A. To finish thrid now, we would have to beat Peterborough (OK, I think we can do that), and beat Panthers away from home. Should we only take three points, we'd finish below the Bison, as they beat us by 4 tonight and we only won by three at the Hive. Not good. Still, hopefully that means we'll play the Storm, which would be handy for me......