BASINGSTOKE Bison beat Peterborough Phantoms in their opening league game 6-4, as five players were dismissed.

Referee Dave Cloutman dished out 206 minutes in penalties on the night, which was only 13 minutes short of the club record of 219, which was also against Peterborough in January 2000.

It all kicked off with 10 minutes to go with Bison cruising to victory as they led 6-2.

The Herd were on the attack, with Grant Rounding just entering the Peterborough end zone, when the whistle was blown for a penalty behind the play.

The forward never heard this and fired the puck, which saw the hot-headed Peterborough goalie Janis Auzins, not for the first time on the night, leave his goal to punch a Bison player.

Things escalated and Peterborough’s top penalty taker Greg Pick tried to pick a fight with Brendan Baird, but was sent to the bench.

The red mist had now come down for the Phantoms’ defenceman and he then tried to pick a fight with Joe Greener, which sparked a massive flare-up by the Peterborough bench.

Once this had calmed down, Bison’s Matt Selby and Pick took to centre ice to end the conflict and the teams were ordered to their dressing rooms to calm down.

After around 15 minutes delay, Cloutman handed out four match penalties to Bison’s Selby and Greener, along with Phantoms Auzins and Pick. The Herd’s Ciaran Long also got a game penalty for leaving the bench and Rounding a 10 minute misconduct penalty for firing the puck.

This gave the Phantoms a four minute powerplay and also meant the Bison had lost four players to Peterborough’s two.

Then a minute later, former Phantom Declan Balmer took a penalty which gave his old side a two man advantage.

This really spurred them on and Milan Baranyk scored twice in the space of 34 seconds to make it 6-4.

Then with just over two minutes to go, Peterborough pulled their goalie Samuel James, but thanks to some smart saves from Dean Skinns, they were unable to score again.

Earlier in the contest, Peterborough started brightly and Edgars Bebris opened the scoring, as he put away his own rebound at 7:35.

Soon after, Auzins took a punch at Joe Rand and just as the powerplay ran out Greener scored from close in.

The Herd from then on dominated, but were unable to add to their tally before the first buzzer.

The Doug Sheppard, Long and Greener line in the second period, proved to be unplayable and the Bison scored three times without reply.

They took the lead at 21:36, as Greener scored from close in from a nice pass from Tomas Karpov.

The British forward then completed his hat-trick after great spade work from Sheppard.

The score became 4-1 at 29:58, after Karpov scored with a low rocket and then another great move saw Greener feed Long and he crashed a shot off the underside of the bar.

As the session came to a close, the Phantoms ran into penalty trouble and a lovely blue line strike from Miroslav Vantroba just 32 seconds after the break gave the home side their fifth goal of the night.

Peterborough pulled a goal back from Baranyk, only for 19 seconds later Long to make it 6-2.

Then came all the fun and games with the penalties, but the Phantoms were unable to level the game and the home side deserved their victory.

Tonight, the Herd open their cup campaign with a trip to Chelmsford Chieftains.

Scoring; Bison: Greener 3+2, Karpov 1+2, Long, Vantroba 1+1, Sheppard 0+2, Melachrino 0+1; Phantoms: Baranyk 3+0, Bebris 1+0, L Ferrara, Apellis 0+2, Levers, J Ferrara 0+1. Shots on Goal: Skinns 32, Auzins 39 James 2. Penalties: Bison 118min, Phantoms 88.