Running with the Herd – Bison vs Telford Tigers 14/1/23

NIHL National Division

Basingstoke Bison 3-2 Telford Tigers

Bison: Doughty pp, Lubwele, Morris

Tigers: J. Price, McKenzie pp

Donate to the GoFundMe for Aidan Doughty here

So…

Driving home back towards Southampton on Saturday night, I hit junction 11 of the M3 and I had this piece mapped out in my head. I was in a good mood, not overly concerned. The Bison then managed to gut out a win in Hull to take a 4 point weekend and take the club back into the playoffs by the thinnest of margins. We were all riding high though of course we waited for the news about Aidan Doughty, stretchered off on Saturday night off the back of a hit that I thought was a penalty but clearly wasn’t anything with any malice. Then the news came out today and I threw my entire format for this piece squarely in the bin.

We’ll address the big news here. Anyone getting injured is a bad thing. We can “hate” players on another team, jeer them, boo them but nobody wants to see anyone get hurt. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve watched very few players get stretchered off the ice with my own eyes. Genuinely, the Doughty incident was the second time in nearly 20 years of watching hockey that this happened. It was a shock at the time but knowing that what was happening was, to borrow a phrase, our of an abundance of caution, you put the worst to the back of your mind and hope it’ll be OK.

The news out of the Bison that Doughty has a broken back is shocking and again brought home to myself just the risk that guys take playing this sport. It’s compounded by the fact that the NIHL is a semi-professional league and virtually every player has a job outside of hockey. It’s fitting in all the stuff needed to be an athlete around working. As an electrician, it’s not like that’s not a job with physical elements as well. For this to happen is devastating on a number of levels.

The GoFundMe page set up for Doughty is approaching £10,000 in donations as I type this. It is fantastic to see the hockey community rally around Aidan and the initial target to be smashed within hours. That British hockey saw fit to take care of one of its own like this is heart warming, especially with money being tight for many people currently.

The situation does ask the question of why the player insurance isn’t enough that people need to do the above? The whole idea of insurance should necessitate that the governing body provide enough to cover accidents that happen playing the sport, especially in semi-pro hockey where the top players are also potentially making a substantial part of their living alongside hockey. There is insurance in place for National Division players via the EIHA but if it’s not enough to mean that a serious injury can lead to financial hardship, this must be addressed and it shouldn’t have taken players getting seriously hurt to make this happen.

The game itself:

For entertainment factor, this game was great. A close game, ebbs and flows of momentum, some well taken goals, two sides desperate for the win, what’s not to love? In the context of the Bison’s season, the weekend came with massive connotations. They needed to win. Having beaten Telford the weekend before and with two games against winnable opposition across the weekend, 4 points were a must for the Herd and they did it.

The Bison edged the balance of play over the course of the game and were rewarded for some industrious play. 3-2 as a score line tells the story of how close the game was but also tells the story of wasted chances for both sides. Both Brad Day and Jordan Lawday gave admirable performances in net for both sides albeit both were at times left fighting some very last gasp, frantic defending. Certainly, the Bison’s lackadaisical defending at the start of the second period was capitalised on by the Tigers and a well taken goal from Jake Price.

As has been the case with a lot of Bison games recently, the more clinical side did the business. For once it was the Herd who were the more clinical, best demonstrated by Liam Morris’ goal. A 4 on 4 situation gave that bit of extra ice to skate into, Morris split the Tigers’ defenders, raced in and beat Day for what was ultimately the game winner. They followed it up in Hull by crafting chances at key moments, particularly in the third when the Seahawks were within one goal and the Bison, via a mix of skill and doing the basics right, forced themselves over the line. This is a habit they need to persist with.

The key moment in the game came from a bit of Tigers’ self-made implosion. Gaël Lubwele’s elbowing major in the second period that knocked Deakan Fielder for six should have been a chance for the Tigers to really wrestle control of the game back their way. Instead they took three minor penalties inside that 5 minutes and ended that passage of play 3-1 down having started it at just 2-1 down.

Only one team can win a game of hockey and it was the Bison who did it when they really needed to. Post the Doughty injury, albeit with minimal knowledge of the severity and without Neil Liddiard, they travelled to Hull and won another game that they needed to. They need to adjust now to life without Doughty. Whether than means a permanent addition of Jack Peacock potentially or another alternative remains to be seen.

Either way the Bison now have some momentum. They must fight tooth and nail to keep it.

Running with the Herd – Bison vs Telford Tigers 3/12/22

NIHL National Division

Basingstoke Bison 6-3 Telford Tigers

Bison: Banner, Barry x2, Baird pp, Milton, Balaz eng

Tigers: Plant, Luka pp, McKenzie

Count no chickens, but appreciate the eggs: You are never as high as you feel at your highest or as low as you feel at your lowest is a sentiment long batted around. When the final buzzer sounded on the first Basingstoke Bison home win since the start of October, it would have been easy to forget everything that came before it and just be happy. Come the end of the following night after the Bison slapped the Bees around in Slough, it would have been even easier. However if this site has learned anything in the near 12 years of existence it would be that hockey provides many false dawns.

The ease with which hyperbole comes after such a win is great. This site, along with many others, said something needed to change after the frustrating, directionless and futile play during the defeat to Hull. Ultimately what changed wasn’t substantively massive but psychologically so.

The first was more bodies on defence. The Bison’s poor team defence as of late as the forwards misfired was compounded by running 4 defencemen due to injury and suspension. I’ve maintained to a lot of people, and I still do now, that the Bison defenders have actually played solidly across this season as individuals. The problem in the last couple games has been that they’d all be exhausted by the end of the second period and tired players make mistakes. Being able to welcome Josh Kelly back to the line-up as well as being able to add Tom Barry, announced as having signed at 5.30pm, meant that 6 defencemen just allowed the blueliners to be better rested and sharper.

Having been asked to present the man of the match for this game (I think Bison director John Neville was out of people to ask), as Tom Barry skated towards me I quipped “you’ve peaked too soon!” It was certainly an impressive debut from the former Peterborough player but his two goals belied that he did the defensive things really well. Whether the announced two-way contract is a National League audition or not, his ability to read the play in this game didn’t just lead to him seeing the gaps to step into to score but also to stop Telford scoring.

The returning Kelly, partnered with Tom Banner as the third pairing, looked like he’d never been away and the partnership with the more stay-at-home style of Banner gave Kelly more license to go forward and jump into the play.

The rest of the defence certainly played their part as well. Jay King has been a revelation this season with his play, Brendan Baird scored a very good goal and Marcus Mitchell remains his unspectacular self which is still all he needs to do as the bottom defencemen. I can’t remember the last time that the defence scored 4 goals in a game as a unit but believe it goes back as far as March 2016 when Declan Balmer scored a hattrick against Hull in the EPL.

The other part of the defence that really seemed to be on his game was Jordan Lawday. Having been thrown into the game against the Seahawks the week before after a tough first period for Alex Mettam, Lawday seemed to be ill at ease between the pipes as his movements seemed frantic and not well controlled. Given the lack of help he was getting in front of him, this wasn’t a surprise. This performance saw a much more calm and controlled Lawday in net for the Herd and it showed. He couldn’t do much about the goals he conceded but made a string of good saves which gave all the belief that the game was winnable as things were solid at the back with the goalie and the defence dialled in.

The second big thing the Bison got was some bounces. I don’t believe in luck but even I had to admit that at times this season in amongst all the recent poor form, the Bison had seen a variety of things not go their way. Whether a call from the officials or a shot go wide or hit the post or whatever, sometimes it just felt that at a time when they needed a bit of confidence that they couldn’t get a little bit of anything close to a coincidence that might help with that. However in this game we got a bit of everything. From Tom Banner’s early goal managing to find a way through everyone and Brad Day’s legs to just the puck landing in the right place at the right time, the little things led to bigger things. Inches make miles, after all.

The forwards did get their fill during the weekend as they managed to light the lamp with regularity on the Sunday against the Bees and to their credit in this game they did persevere as well. Zack Milton scored a very well taken goal as he beat Brad Day in close before Marcel Balaz punctuated the victory by firing into the empty net.

What was better from the forwards here was they, like their colleagues on the blueline, just did all the things last week that they didn’t the week before. It was night and day as they didn’t force the play, kept to their gameplan, were disciplined and structured and the belief that they seemed to get from things going right was visible. Whether it was Ollie Hemmings-Maher causing a slow Tigers defence all manner of issues, or Gaël Lubwele nearly putting Scott McKenzie into the Tigers bench, it was a vital performance on Saturday and combined with a dominant win the next night, the feeling that this might not be the false dawn that the win in Bristol was will be inescapable for some.

The Bison’s poor form sees them remain in the fight for their playoff lives. This weekend’s results were massive for the team in the table and in their own minds. They are not out of the woods yet by any stretch. A change in fortune, approach, personnel or whatever it was that saw this past weekend go so well must be capitalised on. The Raiders will be no pushover but they must be pushed over.

A word on our opponents: I’m unsure how Telford fans will feel about this game on the whole but the biggest criticism that could be had was that there’s just something not quite there. The Tigers are a good side. Yes they’ve had injury issues in defence as well with both Jonathan Weaver and Deakan Fielder still out but Tom Watkins hockey is good hockey. This wasn’t a good game of hockey because the Bison won, it was because both teams played decent hockey and the Tigers powerplay passing alone was worth the price of admission.

In an attempt to put a finger on the issues for Telford in this game, it would arguably be that they lacked a creative spark at the right moment. The attack felt very much a blunt wedge at times when it needed to be a bit more imaginative. Given the Tigers’ recent form (they came into this game having lost both games the previous weekend) they could be forgiven for wanting to dial things back for a road game in a building that is really tough to play in. Maybe this was the flip side of what was mentioned above, maybe on the night they played well but just didn’t get the bounces.

A word must be said here about Vladimir Luka who showed here why he is so vital to what the Tigers do. In a similar way to what Marcel Balaz does for the Bison, it’s all the little things that Luka does off the puck in attack or defence that were really evident in this game. He sticklifts in his own end to kill off chances then caused defencemen to need eyes in the back of their head at the other.

The Tigers might need to rectify with the fact that they will not “threepeat” as National Division champions. They’ve not been able to replace some of their potent attacking weapons and are arguably too far behind to mount a serious title challenge again. They remain a good hockey team, a watchable hockey team and one that offer something for everyone.

Lowlight of the night: The first Tigers goal felt a bit of a gut punch but one that fortunately had minimal effect in the grand scheme

Highlight of the night: The defence, all of them. They earned this one. “What is Tom Barry doing there?”

Running with the Herd – Bison vs Telford Tigers 01/10/22

NIHL National Division/Cup

Basingstoke Bison 2-1 Telford Tigers

Bison: Doughty pp, Balaz

Tigers: Luka pp

OK, that was cool: The headlines of the Basingstoke Bison’s latest weekend are positive. The skin deep look at the start of October for the herd is two games, two wins, a shutout on the road for Alex Mettam, who might as well be a rotary phone for how dialled in he’s been. They played two very different teams, ground out results and have a nice little run going. However that’s 100% not the full story about this weekend, in particular the game against Telford.

The overriding feeling at times last season for the Bison was that a lot of the time, they beat themselves. They had all the pieces but the puzzle didn’t fit and it felt like they handed games away during the regular season, gave the fans a glimmer of hope in the playoffs to then give that away as well. If last season’s team had gone into this game, it feels like they would have lost it. This season’s team didn’t.

For me that’s the bigger headline in this situation for the Bison. It’s still very early days in the season and there is no Hollywood story to be told, at least not yet (Welcome to Basingstoke, coming soon to Disney+) however this is exactly the sort of game that the Herd would have conspired to throw away. When speaking to Bison off-ice volunteer Eleanor Bradbury after the game, she agreed with my initial assessment then added this great little nugget of knowledge, “they wouldn’t have won it so much as we would have lost it”. It wasn’t picture perfect by any stretch from the Herd and there are still things that need adjusting but where they seem to have some good form and a bit of belief at the moment, they closed that game out. The league champions, depleted or not, came into town for a really competitive if not exactly super exciting game and when the Bison got the lead they didn’t throw it away. It’s not a sea change, it can’t be after the first weekend of October but one of the things that Ashley Tait needed to change about this Bison side in that moment changed.

The announced injury to Adam Jones at the start of the preseason notably unnerved the Bison fanbase but the Bison defensive corps has been lights out this past weekend conceding one goal in two games. As mentioned above Mettam appears to be in the zone right now and Lawday waiting in the wings ready to go when the moment comes. The Bison netminding depth was one of the strengths but this blueline corps, without an all-star calibre defenceman in it due to injury has just done all the little things right. Positioning, decision making, aggression, puck movement; none have been perfect but they have all been very good.

We spoke in the last game write up about Marcus Mitchell not being overexposed and doing the simple things well and that’s what the Bison defence have done as a whole. There isn’t a ton of offence coming from the back end at the moment but there arguably doesn’t need to be right now. There have been, and certainly were in this game, moments where it seemed harder to get things running the way that they wanted, moments where their defensive shape was lost but rather than crumbling, the blueline recovered their composure and kept going.

Up front the forwards were in for a serious grind. It felt at times that both groups of forwards seemed more focussed on stopping the other team’s game plan than playing their own (more on that in a bit) which made the game going forward very bitty. Certainly the first two periods didn’t feel like the fast paced, aggressive style that had put Swindon to the sword. Telford’s initial intense forecheck seemed to catch the entire roster out a bit. It meant the Bison had to wrestle the momentum back which as Telford prepared themselves for the next wave of there attack which gave the game a very yo-yo feel to it. However those periods of transition from Bison to Tigers were more marked with errors and scrappiness so the momentum didn’t flow between the teams so much as grind like gears that desperately needed oiling.

That aside, the Bison forwards deserve a lot of credit for not buckling under that pressure. The Bison’s third line have been a real talking point the last couple of weeks and the combination of Petts, Sutton and Wilson with Dusznik rotating in did a great job of returning the favour in terms of a forecheck that didn’t give the defencemen time to think about what they were doing. They also managed to create a few more scoring chances in this game than the previous week, eventually being rewarded the next night with two goals from Hallam Wilson in Hull.

Marcel Balaz was immediately written off by many ahead of this season and very quickly set about feeding humble pie to many. This game saw the Slovak demonstrate all the things that have endeared him to the Herd faithful so far. Sure, scoring the game winner on a breakaway like his did is amazing and we certainly need him to continue doing this but like the defence it’s been a case of doing all the little things right. His faceoff percentage is very high, especially in his own zone, and his work on the boards is exemplary where he seems to be able to come away with the puck more often that not.

Gaël Lubwele was also in superb form at both ends of the ice. There’s always that little bit of worry when you sign a new import that they’ll get found out and become less effective over the course of the season however even if his attacking production does drop slightly, the quality of his two way play combined with how high his skating quality is and the chaos is causes for other sides is just fun to watch. Last season Alex Roberts was a massive attacking threat and he is a good signing for any team in this league but the Bison’s decision to switch and arguably go more for solidity over scoring appears to be paying dividends to start the year.

The higher end Brits as well were not without note in this game. I don’t think it was Zack Milton’s best game ever but his effort never goes unnoticed. He gets extra points for taking a holding the stick penalty with two hands on his own stick. George Norcliffe does George Norcliffe things (work hard, create chances, gets cross with himself on the bench about not scoring, finds something else to smile about) and Aidan Doughty scored on the powerplay because Aidan Doughty always scores on the powerplay.

Whilst it’s true that many undersold the Bison, we can’t oversell them either. They must play for 60 minutes every night. The little lapses in concentration that sides have give away possession, lose you momentum and cost goals. Going into a game with MK who seem to score like it’s going out of style at the moment will require every ounce of everything. I venture this is a game that Ashley Tait will have a game plan for because giving the top two lines of MK any space will be a disaster. However Swindon took on the Bison having scored lots, they shut them down. They held Telford to a goal. If it all clicks, stranger things have happened. It’s the hope that kills you but given how some of last season’s issues might have actually been addressed, maybe we have a thimbleful just in case.

A word on our opponents: Fair play to Telford for this one, they played a really smart game of road hockey here. Tom Watkins’ assessment of the game on the Tigers’ website was really sound. It’s a building that they’ve struggled in, they came in missing 3 decent players who get regular minute in Deaken Fielder, Nick Oliver and Jonathan Weaver and they put in a hard working, 60 minute game.

Lacking three regular defenceman meant that the best form of attack was defence and they started every period in the same way, with a really aggressive forecheck and attempting to get the cycle going to pin the Bison back and not allow them to get much going forward due to the pressure. It really worked in terms of generating pressure with the view to making mistakes. What struck me was that it felt that the Tigers seemed to lack a bit of attacking bite in the attacking zone. It was lots of pressure and lots of looking for a mistake to be made rather than being particularly creative in their own right but such tactics have worked against the Bison in the past. It seemed a strange tactic though given their powerplay goal was actually a really good bit of creativity and superb passing, stretching the Bison penalty kill till perfectly teeing up Vladimir Luka to beat Alex Mettam.

However we have to tip the hat to the Tigers on a superb team defensive effort. Brad Day was solid and the team as a whole made some very good defensive plays, led by Corey Goodison, Jake Price and Rhodes Mitchell-King who despite being burned by Balaz for the game winner looks a real prospect. Given how good a coach Watkins is, I’m fascinated to see the player he becomes by the end of the season.

Up front I was really taken by Sam Watkins who was a bundle of energy but the game plan was more about a team effort than standout performance up front which is fair given the game only had 3 goals.

It was a disappointing weekend for the Tigers with two road defeats and 0 points. They didn’t play badly, they just didn’t execute and good teams have weekends where that happens. Telford have always lulled teams into a false sense of security. Tom Watkins is the best coach in the league currently. The tricks will be up the sleeve and the quality is very much there. Don’t sleep on the champs.

Lowlight of the night: The game was very scrappy and bitty which made it a bit flat at times.

Highlight of the night: Toss up between Balaz’s goal and Lubwele’s hit on Harewood.

Running with the Herd – Bison vs Telford Tigers 12/3/22

NIHL National Division

Basingstoke Bison 1-4 Telford Tigers

Bison: Roberts

Tigers: McKinney, Hopkins, Plant, Mitchell-King

Running with the Herd – Bison vs Telford Tigers 12/2/22

NIHL National Division

Basingstoke Bison 2-1 Telford Tigers after OT

Bison: Tait, Morris

Tigers: McKenzie

In conversation with someone during the week, I was discussing our hockey based plans for the weekend our chat naturally turned towards the Telford Tigers. The defending champions, top of the table and fresh off of humbling Milton Keynes to make the National Cup final, the Tigers were odds on favourites for this game and that’s only fair. They had 4 wins on the spin going into the encounter against a Bison side for whom inconsistency has been the byword. Even when the Bison won the last meeting between these two sides it was against a Tigers team missing some of their bigger names like Harewood, Plant and Silverthorn.

Nevertheless, I was somewhat perturbed by what my friend was saying to me. “It’ll be at least 4-1, I’ll be surprised if you even get one past them”. Whilst hanging around British hockey for so long has left me with a healthy dose of cynicism about some things, I always maintain a very healthy dose of optimism. Even if I was prepared in my head that the Bison might lose this game, I felt it would be an open one and that the Herd could trouble the Tigers. Given the game that unfolded, I felt everyone was a little surprised with what they saw. For all the attacking prowess that both sides possess, this game had a lot of moving parts which we’ll touch on later but ultimately this was about two men.

Despite being close in terms of time on ice and average saves per game, Brad Day and Alex Mettam have had differing fortunes this season. I’ve taken criticism in the past for my opinions on Day, some feeling I don’t hold him in as high a regard as I should do compared to other netminders in the division. However whilst I think there are better goalies, there is no doubt that he’s a good goalie and he’s backstopping the team that is the odds on favourite for the league title as things stand.

Mettam on the other hand as, I feel, been a little bit unlucky. A wobble in form in November was compounded by the Bison playing badly and he took some unfair criticism in some quarters when the team in front of him wasn’t doing what it needed to do. With Dan Weller-Evans injured, Mettam was left to carry the can as the Herd brought in Jordan Lawday to steady the ship. Mettem’s response to the challenge was to come back into a bit of form.

This was a good old fashioned goalie duel. It’s said that you have to be good to be lucky and with the amount of iron that got pinged, especially by Telford, both netminders were left either hugging their posts or clutching a rabbit’s foot but what that didn’t show was just how focussed and well both played. Good fortune is what it is but this saw both netminders display the skills of their position. It was good positioning, confident challenges when coming out of the net and when things started getting hot in front of them, they remained calm.

Through the first 40 minutes there were arguably not loads of high quality shots but not every shot that goes in is excellent. The first goal of the game was partial proof of that as it came in the second period and was banged in by Ashley Tait from a distance so short that it would have made Gary Lineker smile. Certainly the better ones through the first part of the game fell to the Tigers who hit all three parts of the goal frame, the irony of course being none of them count as shots in the statistics.

The third period saw the best play of the 60 minutes and the workload increase for both netminders. The one shot that did go in during the frame beat Mettam did, again, feel a bit like his bad fortune was coming back to bite him. With the Tigers advancing in the 3 on 2, a backchecking Liam Morris lost his edge which gave extra room to manoeuvre and Scott McKenzie enough time to rip a shot past Mettam. There can be no argument that it was a very good goal and that the Tigers were more than value to be in the contest. Both sides getting a point was entirely justified.

As overtime started we then got the entire game compressed into 33 seconds. Andy McKinney fired across for McKenzie to tip the puck on net to be met with only the clang of puck meeting post. The Bison broke through Liam Morris who made up for losing an edge by winning the Bison the game with a superb charge to the net and then firing Day to keep the extra point in Hampshire. Whoever won the game, the beers were only going to go to two people. Anything else might have resulted in laughter.

Basingstoke and Telford’s styles seem to suit each other. Neither team is particularly speedy so the game became very attritional at times. It was lots of playing the puck, lots of hard forechecking and lots of momentum swings as a result. The Tigers were the faster team in transition, the Bison at times in the first period looking positively disorganised on the breakout. However it was countered with the Bison’s forecheck being better and forcing turnovers that gave them chances.

Both top sixes were arguably a bit guilty of trying to be too cute at times and each roster was far more effective when they were being direct. All the post clanging and arguably both goals in regulation came from plays where they didn’t overthink what they were doing.

This might have been one of the most entertaining games in Basingstoke this season. Not every game that is so has to finish 6-5 or 8-7. Hockey is a game of fine margins and it rarely gets finer than this. Two rosters played very well. Neither are perfect (you certainly can’t use that adjective about the Bison this season) but both showed quality. When it came down to it, it needed someone from each side to put the team on their back. It just so happened on this occasion that it was the men at either end of the ice who did it.

The Tigers must rebound, they remain title favourites and it was easy in this game to see why. The Bison must grab this momentum, whether it’s Alex Mettam’s heroics or Liam Morris’ goal or Ashley Tait doing the work in the dirty areas and they must run with it. Their season depends on it.

Running with the Herd – Bison vs Telford Tigers 15/1/22

NIHL National Division

Basingstoke Bison 5-2 Telford Tigers

Bison: Doughty x2 (1pp, 1eng), Roberts x2, Jones

Tigers: Luka, Hopkins pp

Back into the wild: After finally being released from isolation and being allowed to head back into the rink for the first time in 2022, I entered the Basingstoke Arena and was met with a conflict of emptions. There’s something about Basingstoke where, even if a win feels unlikely, there is always a “let’s see how it goes” mentality to a Bison home game. It’s never overstated, it’s never jingoistic but it’s always there. It’s like the lowest grade of optimism; taking on a team that came into the game top of the table and on an eight game winning run never bodes well but the general feel is “it’ll be alright.” Then there was me in a state of excitement ready to get back to watching the game.

Aside from any bias you can accuse me of, the Bison looked good in this game literally and metaphorically. There hasn’t been a better jersey used during the EIHA’s Pride week than the one that the Bison wore for this game and the fans in Hampshire were greeted by a Bison side that whilst flawed at times, for the most part did something that many of us have been begging them to do for a while. They kept the game simple.

With Ollie Stone and Dan Weller-Evans still on the sidelines and Ryan Sutton added to the list of scratches, there was some shuffling of the lines but not tons. We got to see the continuation of some of the established combinations. A good example here is the line of Aidan Doughty, Adam Harding and George Norcliffe who might have been kept off of the scoreboard as a collective, Doughty’s goals coming through a tip of a shot on the powerplay and the final empty net tally, but there are fewer lines more industrious than this one across the division. The big trick for this line is not losing focus when things don’t quite work. Norcliffe in particular misplaced a pass at one point and javelin launched his stick across his own bench in frustration but went right back to work once he’d been given a sizeable talking to from bench coach Tony Redmond.

This was also combined with what, at times, felt like a bit of defensive uncertainty. Perhaps this was fear of a Tigers’ side that can turn a game on a sixpence or adjusting to a new netminder in Jordan Lawday but at times the Herd’s rear guard action felt a bit last ditch and nail biting inducing. The issue was somewhat nullified by Lawday’s very good performance and being a keeper that generally performs better when busy.

The Herd’s game plan was straight forward for the most part; look for gaps to play the puck into so the skilled players can use slick passing to get around a slightly slower defence. If they don’t appear then just put it deep and chase the puck. When the puck is won, get the cycle going and try to create that space and put the puck on net. We’ll get more into the Tigers themselves in a bit as to why this was moderately effective but it was nice to see some real structure to what the Herd were trying to do.

This wasn’t always effective due to an almost pathological desire at times to overplay the puck in key situations but for the most part the control of the things that they could control served the Bison well. The officials were reluctant to call much and the one penalty that the Bison conceded was questionably harsh given what else was called on the night, it also resulted in a goal, but to not get dragged into penalty trouble against a “better” team was a credit to the home side’s game management.

Alex Roberts’ recent good scoring run continues with two goals; one that was a superb piece of individual skill to work past the defender and beat the keeper with the other being as a result of a lot of solid work by Zack Milton who fed to the back door where Roberts was able to tap in as the Tigers’ defence had seemingly forgotten all about him. The two of them alongside Ashley Tait seems to work though it does at times suffer from Roberts’ desire to seemingly take on the entire opposition roster on his own at times as well as Milton tendency to do the same thing and Tait seemingly just being one step mentally ahead of everyone and putting the puck where he expects people to be but they aren’t.

Adam Jones’ recent role of shepherding Tom Banner seems to continue to prove dividends. Banner was announced by rink announcer Daren Bavister as having joined the Bison in a more permanent capacity (the club themselves are yet to comment) and this performance was clearly evidence of that. The first time Banner appeared, I joked that he looked like a deer in the headlights. The Tom Banner we see now looks composed but it’s also because he’s got that bit of responsibility. Being partnered with Jones means that you have to stay back and be positionally sound. Jones’ role as the club’s number one defenceman and big shot from the blueline means that his partner needs to be able to hang back and cover as appropriate. Banner continues to learn but knowing he has the team’s best defenceman alongside him is the sort of safety net that you should be giving to such a player. It’s sensible coaching from Tait and Redmond which sets up the former Bison junior to success. If nothing else, Jones’ work was rewarded with an unusual goal; the shot striking Tigers’ goalie Brad Day in the shoulder, looping high into the air and then literally hanging inside the net.

If we’re going to make comments about younger players then we have to mention Cain Russell at this point. The on-loan Swindon forward has made quite an impression at this point and certainly did so last night. The game itself actually played into his strengths which are his speed and his tenacity. Buzzing around on the forecheck, the slower Tigers’ players were not allowed a moment’s peace on the puck to think. Whilst Russell lacks size, he makes up for his with his stickhandling ability. You can see why the Wildcats are so keen on the young man though you have to imagine that Tait will want the young man to stay beyond his loan spell which is set to conclude at the end of the month. He’s an energy player and all teams need that sort of spark plug in their rosters as the season goes on. Players get tired, injuries mount up so if able to stay fit then a player like Russell can be incredibly effective. If nothing else he’s just enormous fun to watch.

The Bison ended up taking on a good team not at its best and made them pay as a result. It’s hard to argue that the Herd weren’t the better team on the night here on the balance of the play across the 60 minutes. The Tigers were made to look ordinary at times. When good teams play like that, the Bison must take advantage and they did. With games against sides closer to them in the table close at hand, it’s a good win that can only help momentum as the Bees visit town next week.

A word on our opponents: This game allowed people to see the best and the worst of the Telford Tigers all at once. They didn’t deserve to win, let’s not sugar coat that. The missing players aside, Telford put out a good side last night that just didn’t play as well as it could have done and lost. It’s actually relatively straightforward in that respect.

The Tigers were sluggish going forward and seemed to threaten lots without every really having tons of bite. 12 shots through two periods and then outshooting their hosts 11-4 in the final frame at least spoke to a realisation that they needed to increase their urgency when behind. Even lacking Jason Silverthorn and new signing Bayley Harewood, you could feel and I think we all knew that there was another gear in this Tigers side. They just didn’t find it.

At the back at times the Tigers were slow and lacked shape which is what allowed a few of the Bison’s goals. The powerplay goal was what it was, those don’t count on the plus/minus for a reason but Alex Roberts being allowed to walk through the defence and then Zack Milton turning into a magnet so that the Canadian was left alone with nobody within a stick’s length of the other team’s sole import and top scorer was a poor choice and symptomatic of the night for Tom Watkins’ side. If the visiting fans thought that they were getting back into it, the puck looping off of Brad Day and into the net for the Bison’s 4^th goal might have been one of those moments when they potentially thought that the hockey gods had decided “not today”.

A loss when they potentially expected to win against an inconsistent team, an 8 game winning run gone, big names like Silverthorn and Plant out along with solid depth like Watkins and Goodison leaves the question of what’s the takeaway for Tigers fans here? It was a bad night at the office and you move on. That’s it.

Silverthorn was the real loss tonight. The Tigers’ captain is a game breaker and that’s what the Tigers lacked on this night. When your team is like a car stuck in second gear, you need someone to put the team on their back and drag them through. This Tigers side has tons of very good players, you only had to see the quality of the goals from Vladimir Luka and Jack Hopkins to realise that, but there was nobody capable on the night of grabbing this game by the scruff of the neck and doing what need to be done.

Here’s the thing when you’re a side as good as this one is. You have to take these ones on the chin and move on. Telford are not a spectacular side; they lack the high flying offence of Sheffield, they lack the exciting style of play of Leeds, they lack Swindon’s speed and directness but they’re consistent and the roster is deep. It’s why they won the first NIHL National Division title. They lost one game, they won the previous eight. The book is out there to beat Telford. The problem is if you face a Tigers side at full strength is you have to actually do it. Leaving Basingstoke with a bloody nose won’t matter if they win their next from here.

Lowlight of the night: The Luka goal came at a bad time and came off of a poor bit of play on the boards that saw the puck get lost. Thankfully it didn’t matter too much in the end.

Highlight of the night: Apart from not getting impaled by George Norcliffe’s stick, Roberts’ first goal was superb.