Peter Brads SPORTS Blog: Manchester`s Cool Hand Luke fires Phoenix to victory!!

MANCHESTER PHOENIX 5 - 2 BASINGSTOKE BISON

Wood , Bakrlik ,Boothroyd x2 , Archer Melacharino , Karpov

An unlikely double by Captain Luke Boothroyd saw the Manchester Phoenix overcome their fellow title rivals in the Basingstoke Bison 5-2 in an entertaining game last Sunday evening. Manchester moved to within a point of new leaders the Guildford Flames. With Phoenix having Frantisek Bakrlik returning to the Manchester line up, they looked to get back to winning ways after their heavy 7-2 loss on Saturday to the Milton Keynes Lighting in what was their 2nd big defeat handed to them within a fortnight at the Coventry Skydome by the same team.

Their opponents at the Altrincham Ice Dome the THEN, league leaders the Basingstoke Bison find themselves on the receiving end of a beating too on Saturday night with the Hampshire club losing 4-2 on their travels at Telford.

Both sides desperately wanted to avoid a 'Nil point' weekend, as it would give the winners the extra boost for different reasons. If the Bison won the game the overall series would see them lead 3-1 if it came to down to it in the table they`d have the upper hand but if Manchester won it, then it would help their cause as they the extra games in hand that would see them get a head start on their rival.

There was a huge crowd in the Ice dome as they witnessed these two top two lock horns in a top of the table clash.

Early moments of the game saw the Manchester forwards testing Dean Skinns in the visitors net as it saw him stand up to the task, stopping all shots he faced.

Basingstoke then came into the game as they had the Manchester defence all at sea for a while in the opening 10 minutes of play the with Bison seemingly camped in the Phoenix zone. Manchester was finding it really difficult to clear the puck from out their end of the ice with then visitors pressing them back.

Manchester was then down a man for when defenceman Joe Graham got called for Hooking at 2-05.

So it didn`t come as any surprise when at 10-30 gone in the game, the Bison struck the first blow through a Tomas Karpov shot that got blocked by Phoenix player near the net and the puck fell fortunately for the visitors and gave Andrew Melachrino the opportunity to put past Steve Fone for a 1-0 lead to the Herd and gave the small number of Basingstoke fans that made the long trip, something to cheer early on.

Phoenix almost scored on fast break when a pass down right boards saw Liam Chong skate away on a 2 on 1 with Michal Psurny great move and pass across goal saw the Czech man robbed at point blank range by Skinns, as Psurny and everyone in the rink thinking it had gone in.

They responded in the next run of play, as it took 56 seconds from the Bison goal to seen Ben Wood screamer from the Bison blue line fly in past Skinns in the nets and the delight was for all to see on the defender face, Bakrlik and Kovar grabbed assists on the tying goal at 11-24.

Phoenix fans had hardly any time to sit down when returning forward to the Phoenix line up in Frantisek Bakrlik as he turned from provider to scorer with the Czech forward skating into the visitors zone and then put the puck through the legs of the goalie to give Phoenix a 2-1 lead and turn the game on it`s head at 11-55.

Phoenix then started to take the game over with them peppering Skinns and having a few near misses which saw the Bison netminder fumbling and looking very unsure most of the evening.

Rob Schnabel then took a trip to the penalty box for what was a bizarre Interference call after he had put a hard hit on Michael Wales which saw the Bison player flying and end up crashing by the boards while he had the puck, a lot of people in the rink was baffled with that call, but it was a period littered with some baffling calls on both sides. One notable call was during a Phoenix Penalty kill as the home side cleared the puck down the far end of the ice played stopped as the 4 officials on the ice had somehow managed to forget the error and saw the stripey`s look very embarrassed indeed over the incident.

Second period saw Manchester move up a gear or two as they were now pinning back the Bison in their own zone much like they had done to the home side in the opening period. It didn`t take Manchester long to extend their lead either when a pass behind the net by Tony Hand saw Luke Boothroyd skate to the front of the net with a couple of Basingstoke Bison defenders unable to deal with it and the Phoenix captain put home for 3-1.

Manchester had a great chance to make 4 not long after when James Archer was fed in front of the goals by Hand, but Skinns was equal to it to and produced another good save from the forward to keep it a two goal game.

There was a delay in the game when Player Coach for the Bison, Doug Sheppard took a puck to the face off Ben Wood clearance and saw a couple of Bison players protest to the ref asking for a call.

Nicky Chinn then picked up a needless penalty for the away side when the his side started a rush and at mid ice saw Chinn use his stick to blantantly trip up a Phoenix player skate in his own zone and saw the referee at the far end call it, leaving the bench on Basingstoke unimpressed with Mr Chinn at that point in time as they were having a good spell of possession then.

At 31-30 the game was close to being killed off as the home side scored on the resulting power play, after work by Rob Schnabel and Tony Hand saw the Player coach pass it out to Boothroyd who fired in his second of the game with a one timer for 4-1.

We then had a controversial moment towards the back end of the period as with 1-17 left in it, there was a mad scramble around the Basingstoke goals and saw a Basingstoke player trying to clear a Phoenix man from the front of the crease and as the Manchester man got in front of him, we saw the two players then come down together after the Basingstoke man had cross checked the Phoenix man into the crease and sent the goalie backwards seeing both players landing on top of him. Play continued for a good 10 seconds after which involved a scrum at the front of the net trying to get the puck while Skinns was down and after a shot came that seemed to hit Skinns in his body, a rebound was then put in to the net and the referee signalled a goal.

While the netminder was getting treatment by the medical staff, the away side disputed the goal and the home side wanted clarification that it had counted. Referee down that end in Dave Emmerson gave the goal originally and was in no doubting it was good as he gestured to the Bison players that the defenceman had cross checked the Phoenix man into the goalie and that he caused the problem leading to the ‘goal’.

Confusion rained on for a few minutes with Basingstoke obviously fuming and Phoenix and everyone in the rink wanting to know what on earth was happening,

after consultation with the line assistants and the second referee in the game it was judged to be no goal and that play would stop now and continue again after the intermission with Skinns looking badly injured and saw an early end to the period.

We came back off from the break and played out the remaining 1-17 of the second, where upon the visitors cut the lead in half with touch lucky goal through Tomas Karpov.

The goal came after Robin Kovar had skated just outside his zone and Ciaran Long stick who was trying to knock the puck away clearly took the legs from under the Czech man and in the process wiped out a Bison player as a result, Karpov took possession of the puck and skated across goal Steve Fone before sliding it under Fone for a 4-2 game coming at 39-36.

Basingstoke for the remainder of the second looked to have out come and put up a little more fight as they weren`t going down easily.

Third stanza saw the game kind of fizzle out in the end really as the officials started to make calls and face off`s which had players on both sides not happy with and the referees were slowing the game down.

Bison picked up a power play opportunity early in the period with Bakrlik receiving a bit a late hit from an opposing player to which he then skated for the puck and retaliated to the earlier hit he got catching a Bison player with an arm causing a penalty on the Czech man for Elbowing at 41-09.

Both sides collected Icing infringement penalties and with Manchester currently serving their own penalty it was made tougher, when Luke Boothroyd collected another weird call by the officials, when he was sent for High Sticks despite the stick staying below waist height, it was one of many calls in the game that had both sides frustrated it seemed with the officiating.

Phoenix then made sure of the points after some board play by Richard Bentham and Jack Watkins saw the young Watkins pass the puck into the path of James Archer and this time he buried the chance at 57-25 to make the game 5-2 as the away side were chasing shadows.

The clock rundown and saw Manchester not only beat another title rival but more importantly in the long run, see them the series 2-2 over the season so far with the next meeting played down at Planet Ice in Basingstoke and the possible title decider coming in the penultimate weekend of the season between the two.

Basingstoke will mark this down as forget and move exercise, while Phoenix will be delighted to have taken 2 points off a near rival in the table and see the title race starting to gather speed in a interesting title race.

English Premier League		GP	W	OTW	OTL	L	GF	GA	Pts
1	Guildford Flames	37	21	3	3	10	156	116	51
2	Manchester Phoenix	33	21	3	2	7	152	95	50
3	Basingstoke Bison	36	20	4	2	10	136	104	50
4	Milton Keynes Lightning	33	17	4	0	12	136	111	42
5	Sheffield Steeldogs	36	11	2	7	16	123	158	33
6	Bracknell Bees	36	11	3	3	19	115	143	31
7	Slough Jets	33	13	1	1	18	112	137	29
8	Swindon Wildcats	32	10	4	1	17	108	119	29
9	Telford Tigers	34	12	2	0	20	109	130	28
10	Peterborough Phantoms	34	10	0	7	17	115	149	27