Bison weekend review

BASINGSTOKE, UK-The Basingstoke Bison opened up their much anticipated league campaign with a weekend of mixed results.

A defeat at home against fellow EPL newcomers and title favourites Manchester Phoenix was followed up with a narrow 3-2 success against big spenders Guildford Flames the following night. Saturday evening saw the Phoenix rise over the Bison 7-4 in a entertaining game played out in Hampshire. Both teams were locked in a nail-biting 4-4 tie heading into the third, this after the home side had earlier rallied back from 2-0 and 4-2 deficits. But an abysmal start to the third period saw the Bison concede three soft goals in quick succession. The first to go in was a Luke Boothroyd shot from the point which Davey Lawrence in the Bison net made a complete hash of. That was then quickly followed up with two goals in just under two minutes by 41-year-old Ed Courtenay who announced his arrival in the EPL with a four-goal outing. This passage of play eventually turned out to be the turning point of the match as the Herd who, despite dominated large parts of the third, were not able to mount a comeback. Ondrej Lauko led the Bison stampede with a 3 point night contributing a goal and two assists. Ollie Bronnimann and Tom Long both continued their fine early season form with a goal apiece and skipper Nicky Chinn opened up his scoring account for the year. Chris Wiggins picked up the Bison man-of-the match award. A disappointed Moria felt his team were a bit unfortunate not have got something out of the game “We were the better team tonight. We have out-worked them and out-chanced them, but have nothing to show for it. Once again we out-shot them, but tonight luck was really not on our side. Their goalie has given up a lot of rebounds, but none have fallen onto the sticks of our players.” He added “It is disappointing to start with a loss, but we will take a lot of positives out of the game. I am sure all the Basingstoke fans here tonight enjoyed what they saw from their team.” The following night, the Herd paid their first visit to the Guildford Spectrum since 2005, coming away with their first two points of the season after recording a 3-2 triumph over their local rivals. Lauko again showing he is the real deal in the EPL, scoring all three of the Bison goals. Two in the first period and a short-handed marker in the third to cap a natural hat-trick. Gary Clarke and Martin Masa were the Flames only scorers on the night. The Bison came out of the gates flying in this one, racing out to a 2-0 lead inside the first 15 minutes of the game courtesy of a Lauko brace. Clarke cut the deficit in half for the hosts in the second when he took advantage of a Bison turn over in the defensive zone and slotted home from in-close. A short-handed breakaway strike by Lauko three minutes in the final session doubled the away side’s advantage but Czech native Masa gave the Flames some hope when he scored at 49.51 setting up a frantic finish. The Berkshire side applied constant pressure whilst looking for the equaliser but Tom Annetts between the pipes for the visitors came up huge, thwarting numerous Flames opportunities. The momentum that Paul Dixon’s men were gathering seemed to die out after Masa received a game misconduct for checking to the head. This definitely took the wind out of Guildford’s sails as they had to play shorthanded for the remainder of the match and weren’t able to mount a serious enough challenge towards the end. A less daunting weekend lies ahead for the Bison as they welcome last years treble-winning outfit, Peterborough Phantoms to Planet Ice, followed up by a visit to Rom Valley Way to renew their rivalry against Jesse Hammill’s Romford Raiders squad. The Phantoms have seen the majority of last year’s successful squad move on. Losing the services of Nathan Rempel (to Guildford), James Hutchinson (to Elite League Hull) and Craig Peacock (to Belfast) have been a huge blow for the Bretton-based side. While a successful defence of all three titles is probably not going to happen, Phantoms are still a team to be reckoned with and could still possibly retain at least one title this year. The Raiders meanwhile faced their fair share of ownership troubles over the summer which cost Hammill to miss out on some the players he had been targeting. Nonetheless he still has managed to do a fine job bringing in the likes of forwards Dallas Costanzo and Kamil Vavra and former Swindon D-man Jon Sitko. The club on paper looks like it may languishing at the bottom half of the table battling for the last couple of play-off spots. Looking ahead to the this weekend Moria commented “Peterborough obviously won all the trophies last year and that is going to be almost impossible to repeat. Romford is a tough place to play and you really have to be careful you do not let them take a 3-0 lead, before you wake-up which then makes it really difficult to come back,” he concluded. Contact the author at  Sandro.berish@prohockeynews.com