With an assist on Curtis Huppe’s goal in tonight’s 4-3 win against Hull Stingrays, Jason Ruff moved into first place in the all-time Giants points scoring chart.  He later added another assist and the game winning goal to move three points clear of previous leader Curtis Bowen.  Ruff now sits on 190 points through 144 career Giants games.

Ruff is currently in his 4th spell with the Giants team having never played back to back seasons until this year when he returned after a season ending injury midway through last year.  It was expected that along side Theo Fleury last season that Ruff would easily pass Curt Bowen’s point total of 187 at some point last season but when Ruff went down with a bad injury in December of last year it ruled him out for the year and almost ended his career.

Giants fans where delighted however to see the big man return this season to help lead the team again after his career threatening injury turned out to be misdiagnosed and after a long rest he was ready to lace the skates up again in Belfast.

Ruff first joined the Giants in their second ever season back in 01-02 and helped lead them to the league championship on a line with Kevin Riehl and Sean Berens that literally tore up the Super league as Ruff scored 50 points in 45 regular season games.  He added 6 more in the playoffs.

After a year away from the Giants playing the German DEL where his season was wiped out with injuries he returned to Belfast yet again this time to captain the team coached by Rob Stewart and he put on a solo master class in what was a difficult season for the team.  Ruff scored 90 points in 54 games and 4 in 4 in the playoffs.

Again Ruffles headed away for a year spending a season back in North America before learning of the signing of Theo Fleury for the Giants.  He wanted to be a part of it and the team where never going to turn down their franchise player.  In that season, cut short by injury, Ruff teamed up with line mates George Awada and Colin Shields to score 27 points in 25 games, playing a lot of them games injured.

Many fans thought they had seen the last of Ruffles and that he would never get that points record but that all changed on 30th May 2006 when Ed Courtenay inked Jason Ruff for a 4th season as a Giants player.  This time there was no doubts the record would fall.

It took until the 10th game of the season to get the job done and although it wasn’t in front of the home crowd nobody will be upset in the manner in which it came.  In true Jason Ruff style it was the assist and then later another assist and goal that inspired the Giants comeback to give the team it’s first win in three games.

The record will likely stand for years although should Ruff hang up the skates for good at the end of this season and Mr. Belfast Giants himself, Todd Kelman play on for an 8th year in the city there is a chance that the offensive defenseman could catch and pass Ruff’s point mark.  Killer currently sits 9 points behind Ruff.

In the four seasons over six years that Ruff has been in Belfast he was been the most complete player of them all.  Scoring important goals, setting up line mates, dropping the gloves when required and playing a tough game, Jason Ruff sums up what the power forward role is all about.  He always made the players around them just that little bit better.

Jason Ruff, number 17, is without doubt the Giants greatest ever player and this weekend he just made that official.

Category: Milestones » » |

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