Basingstoke Bison 3, Guildford Flames 1

THE BISON gained revenge for an early season defeat on the visiting Guildford Flames on Saturday, with a 3-1 win.

The big-spending reigning league champions gave a debut to Finnish import Mikko Koivunoro and Canadian Scott Campbell and it was Koivunoro who tested the impressive Robert Schistad after 20 seconds.

A minute later Mike Ellis was sandwiched between Jason Dailey and Greg Burke and that earned Dailey a penalty.

From this the Bison scored as Dru Burgess' cross was tapped in at the far post by Richard Little at 2:58.

Soon after Schistad produced a great save to deny Derek DeCosty, but the same player netted the equaliser at 7:41 even if he was offside as he received a pass from Burke. There was a number of missed calls by linesman Risto Aaltonen during the game.

The first chance of the second session fell to DeCosty, but Chris Brant managed to flick the puck away from his stick before he could shot.

Soon after Tony Redmond in his first game back at Basingstoke since his summer departure went inches wide.

After the Flames dominated the early part of the period, the Bison came back with a number of good chances with Gary Clarke being denied by a great poke check by Mark McArthur and man-of-the-match Matt Cote also went close when allowed to skate in on goal.

The Wella-backed side got a dream start to the final period as after Ellis had been denied close in the home side picked up the pieces with Neil Liddiard hitting the post and Burgess slotting home the rebound.

Panic set in on the Flames bench and Stan Marple swapped his forward lines around and maybe if he had thought about it, it might have moved one of his import defencemen upfront instead of playing with just eight forwards.

With the Flames lines looking more like a damp firework, the Bison took advantage and a super move involving defenceman Jimmy Andersson and Liddiard cut the Flames defence in two.

Liddiard found Andersson with a nice pass into centre ice and then he returned the pass for Liddiard to put in at the far post.

The game then started to turn chippy with DeCosty looking to try and pick a fight with anyone as once more he lost the plot.

Koivunoro was denied by Schistad with a great glove save with seven minutes left and then Guildford called a time out at 57:41.

A set play followed but Cote was fully aware of it and Dailey was unable to get his shot away.

As the clock counted down the visitors were unable to pull their netminder as the Bison recorded a deserved win.

A delighted Bison coach Charlie Colon said: "Everyone gave 110 per cent tonight and it is an great result for us."

Scoring; Bison: Liddiard, Burgess 1+1, Little 1+0, Andersson 0+2, Higdon 0+1. Flames: DeCosty 1+0, Wetzel, Burke 0+1. Shots on Goal: Schistad 39, McArthur 28. Penalties: Bison 10min, Flames 10.

The Bison Supporters club are holding a quiz nite on Wednesday at the Planet Ice Arena with members of the team.

Admission is £3 members and £5 non members with doors opening at 7.30pm.