This coming weekend the Giants will take to the ice for their one and only home playoff game and when that game comes to an end, so to will the playing career of Shane Johnson on Odyssey Ice and when the Giants finally finish their season (with a Playoff Championship, we hope), Shane Johnson will finally hang up his skates for good and the Giants will be left, for the first time ever, without at least one player who was on the ice for their first ever game back in September 2000.

Shane Johnson will be awarded a testimonial game next year to thank him for his glorious career with the Belfast Giants as well as to lift this number into the rafters along with the #27 of Paxton Schulte and retired for good.

Johnson has been a terrific servant for the Giants and while he didn’t spend ten full years with the Giants – leaving midway through his tenure to spend a bit of time with Sheffield and Cardiff – he was quick to return when the offer to put back on the Giants jersey came again. When he did, it was clear he had left the team way to early the first time around and still had a lot to give. He probably still does, but injuries are beginning to catch up with him and in retiring now, Johnson is going out at the top of his game, playing in a competitive team as one of the top defencemen still in the Elite League today.

Actually, his competitive career will not come to an end in Giants colours, but rather in the Great Britain team kit when he represents his new home in the Division One World Championships.

Over the years you hear quite a number of players rolling out the old, “I love playing here,” line but Johnson was someone who clearly did love playing and living in Belfast though I bet if you asked him in September 2000 that he’d be bringing his Giants career to an end in ten years time, married to a local girl and living in the city, he’d have laughed at you for even thinking he’d still be playing professionally ten years on from 2000, never mind doing it in Belfast. Very few people thought Belfast would last that long never mind any original players sticking around until then. But that is a testament to the City of Belfast itself and the country of Northern Ireland as well as the Belfast Giants organisation.

Shane Johnson was a hit with the fans from the word go and by the end of his first season in Belfast he was named club MVP. In his and the clubs second season he won a league championship and the following year came up clutch and scored a magnificent two goals in the Playoff final against the London Knights to help the Giants win their one and only playoff crown to date. In 2005/06 he lead the team to another league title before leaving to play elsewhere in 06/07 but returned the following year after a short stint at the start of the season in Sheffield and Cardiff. Shane has remained a Giant ever since.

I don’t know what Johnson’s future plans will be but I hope the Giants find some kind of roll for him within or around the club if he indeed wants it. Steve Thornton is here for a while to come, I would hope but perhaps sometime down the line we’ll see Shane back as a coach alongside his good friend and long-time team-mate Todd Keman as GM. If that was ever the case, the club certainly would be in good hands.

Thanks for the memories Shane, you’re a legend and you deserve the jersey retirement and I hope you go out as a winner with the Playoff championship in just a few weeks.

On the subject: Shane Johnson | ALL SUBJECTS |

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