Scrappy win but the Giants are off and running

September 9th, 2007

Giants 2, Capitals 1 

One thing that is for certain, Edinburgh are a much better team this year and will no longer be the leagues whipping boys.  Giants hockey was back in action last night with the Giants managing a 2-1 win over their Scottish rivals.  Goals by Scott Cameron and Mark Dutiaume was enough to hold off a strong Edinburgh team who for the first time ever brought a real physical edge to their game and even gave a good scrap when Adam Stefishen dropped the gloves with our new resident tough boy Carlyle Lewis.  Lewis instantly won himself a new set of fans with a good performance in the fight. 

For the first time ever in my history of watching the Giants I was so excited I managed to show up so early that I had to wait for the doors to open.  Having a pint in the new and very impressive Finn McCools sports bar pre-game watching Northern Ireland slump to a 1-0 defeat in Latvia I could only watch until half-time before wanting to get in and see the pre-game warm-up and buy the new jersey!  Unfortunately sizes in large have not yet arrived and so the £50 stayed in my pocket.

The game itself was far from a classic, in fact by mid-season you’d be kinda disapointed but for a first game of the year with two teams with a lot of fresh blood and not everyone yet fully up to game speed a little scrappy play was to be expected.  I’m just glad we got Edinburgh out of the way before they fully gell.  Reports pre-game had a few guy’s from that Edinburgh team meeting for the first time just prior to the game.  One player I believe included in that first meet also truend out to be one of the biggest players I think I’ve ever seen, Jeff State standing at a few inches under 7ft.

Ice conditions didn’t help, a hot day outside meant for a hot arena and some melting ice and standing water far from helped towards slick play between the two sides.  Still, plenty of positives can be taken like from last weeks pre-season warm-up’s in Dundalk and you can see that in time this will be a strong Giants team but the biggest positive to take from the game was the all important early two points.

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