I’m sorry for being extremely boring lately and only reporting the signings we are making - about 2 days after everyone has already heard about it from The Snow Plough anyway - but the beautiful early summer weather has been keeping me outdoors more often than in and when I am in it is all about the N.H.L. playoffs.

So yeah, you wont be suprised to hear that I am blogging to write about the latest signing the Giants have made. This one excites me though and I think it is one of the best Brit signings we have made in quite a while. Welcome back Paul Sample.

For those of you that started going to the Giants games in the last four years wont know this guy. Well you might know him from his times in Sheffield and Cardiff but not with the Giants. But the fact is, he has been here before and is finally returning. Paul Sample played with the Giants during their first Elite League season in 03-04. That year the ISL became the EIHL and teams were forced to bring on board born and trained British players. Paul Sample was one of the first British players to sign with the Giants and went on to have a terrific first season.

Sample played that year on a line with Paxton Schulte and Brad Kenny and put up some excellent numbers for his first year in the Elite League. He scored 39 points (17 goals and 22 assists) in 58 games and went on to pick up the coaches player of the year award. That year was a tough year for the Giants under rookie coach Rob Stewart as the team only managed 4th place in the league, but at the time Sample was one of the best Brits and although major changes needed to be made that year, I hoped he would stay with the Giants for years to come but with in a year of arriving he was away. I always hoped we would see him back each summer during the signing season but to no avail . . . Until now.

I always maintained he was one of the best Brits we ever had. He was replaced by Marc Levers who was eventually replaced by Paul Moran and now we have came full circle. Hopefully he is back for longer than a twelve month stay however!

And so the Giants continue to get their British signings in early. It was something Sheffield did last year and look what happened there. I think it is becoming a key to success and it’s great to see new coach Stevie Thornton jumping on board in signing some of the best British players in the Elite League. Once that task in complete I would imagine phase two would be surrounding them with some fine import talent to help bring some long overdue success back to Belfast.

Category: Player Signings » » Paul Sample |

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