THE best game of the season so far at the Basingstoke Arena, saw the Bison just edged out 4-2, by the English Premier League leaders Telford Tigers.

With both sides at full strength, it was the visitors who started the better as former Herd man Joe Miller tested Dean Skinns after 13 seconds.

Nathan Salem had another chance for the Tigers, before Miller departed to the sin bin for hooking.

This gave the home side the chance to pressure the net of Tom Murdy.

Having weathered the early storm from the Tigers, the Bison came into the contest, as Ciaran Long, Miroslav Vantroba and Grant Rounding, all forced saves from the Tigers’ man-of-the-match.

The best chance of the period fell to the visitors, as Miller fed Peter Szabo in the slot, but he lost a blade, as he went to shoot and fell over.

Telford were then given their first powerplay of the night, after Ricky Skene departed for holding and Scott McKenzie was denied by a pad save from Skinns.

The second session, continued like the first with the big hits as two of the top sides in the league locked horns.

A crunching check from Joe Rand on Jonathan Weaver saw the Tigers’ defenceman leave the ice shaken, but he returned three minutes later.

The Bison looked to be getting the upper hand, as Tomas Karpov went close twice and then Karpov, Aaron Connolly and Nicky Chinn had an excellent shift as they moved the puck around the Tigers’ end zone, but could not find a way past Murdy.

The Tigers hit back and opened the scoring, as Weaver’s blue line shot came back off the pads of Skinns and Jason Silverthorn tapped in the rebound.

A minute later, the Bison nearly repeated the feat at the other end, as the rebound from Joe Baird’s blue line shot fell to Doug Sheppard, but Murdy made the save.

Soon after, Martin Ondrej drilled Rand. head first into the boards and Chinn took his displeasure out on the Slovak, as he then cross checked him.

So this meant both sides took penalties, with Ondrej given the longer rest with a 2+10 for checking from behind.

As the teams played four-on-four, the Bison equalised, as Rand deflected a blue line shot from Vantroba into the net at 32:12.

The goals were now flowing in the contest and it was not long before Telford took the lead again. Peter Szabo scored with a shot from the left wing.

The Herd hit back within a minute, thanks to Sheppard from the hash marks. The Canadian faked a shot and then rifled it past Murdy.

The Bison then had a great chance to take the lead, as Vanroba’s long bomb pass found Ciaran Long.

However, with the puck bobbling, he never got it under control and as he skated in on goal, the net came anyway.

The sides swapped chances at the start of the final period, before the Tigers scored the luckiest goal of the season so far in Basingstoke at 46:36.

Miller fired the puck which came off the inside of the post, hit Skinns’ shoulder and dropped back into the net.

The Bison goalie was called into action again to deny Dan Davies and then on a Telford powerplay he produced a brilliant double save from Miller and Silverthorn, having lost his stick seconds earlier.

The Bison went looking for an equaliser and man-of-the-match Aaron Connolly tested Murdy and with 34.3 seconds left, there was a goal mouth scramble, but Rand and Karpov were unable to force the puck home.

At this point, the Bison called a time-out and pulled their goalie for the extra skater.

Unfortunately, the move back fired, after Silverthorn won the puck on the boards and fired into the empty net with 18.9 seconds left.

This was not the end of the action, as with 9.9 seconds left on the clock, Joe Greener was dismissed on a match penalty for checking to the head on Max Birbraer.

This was after Greener had checked another player and Birbraer took exception to this.

It was a sad end to what had been a superb contest, which had kept the crowd entertained from start to finish.

Tonight, the Herd have a tough road trip at second placed Peterborough Phantoms (face-off 5.30pm).