Giants 3, Bison 1 

It wasn’t pretty but the Giants got the job done and take a two goal lead into Basingstoke.  With one foot now in the final four weekend in Nottingham, the Giants must finish off the job and secure their place.  Mark Dutiaume opened the scoring with one of the quickest goals in Giants history after 9 seconds, and Graeme Walton soon made it two after Basingstoke had tied the game with his first ever competitive goal at the Odyssey arena.  It was a milestone moment and George Awada was quick to snap up the puck for him.  It turned out to be the game winner as Basingstoke failed to score another and Jeff Hutchins grabbed the crucial third to give the Giants breathing space going into tomorrow night.

It was a physical game at times with both teams laying on some big hits.  George Awada and Shawn Skiehar skated all night long and where key in keeping the score at 3-1 in the final minutes when the Giants kept out a Bison powerplay with some hard skating and blocked shots.  Jason Ruff played an excellent forechecking game working hard to create chances for his line mates Jeff Hutchins and Ed Courtenay who at times struggled to get into the game though both still ended up with points in the contest.

Before the game faced off the three major supporters clubs of the Belfast Giants handed out their player awards as voted by their members.  Roman Gavalier went two for three picking up the Kingdom of the Giants and Fortress Odyssey awards while Todd Kelman picked up the Mad Hatters (formally known as Nixx Giants) supporters club award.  With the Giants dinner coming up following this weekends action, it’s expected that Roman will pick up quite a few more awards following his superb regular season.

Post game the team gathered at center ice for a speach by retiring GM John Elliot as he thanked everyone in the organisation before handing over his mic to new GM Todd Kelman who finished up his final game as a Giants player on Odyssey Ice.  Todd got a little emotional at times in the speach even dropping an ‘F bomb’ much to the humour of his team-mates and crowd.  He got a deserved standing ovation before doing a lap of ice waving so long but not goodbye to the Giants fans.

Giants-History.com 3 stars:
1st Star: Graeme Walton
2nd Star: George Awada
3rd Star: Shawn Skiehar

Category: Game Recaps (06-07) » » |

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