Watching Giants GM and ex-player, Todd Kelman stand next to Bruins president and ex-legend Cam Neeley at the Bruins arena announcing this game seems somewhat surreal. When the Giants arrived in Belfast in 2000 a lot of people wrote the sport of as a novelty believing that the big crowds that came along to sell out the arena in the first few season would not last. But while the crowds are not quite at the sellout level they once where, they are still big and now, after ten seasons of hockey and 610 games, to see the Giants now only still playing and even winning (this years playoff champions), it is superb to see that they have grown to the stature that they can invite and host NHL calibre clubs to Belfast. I wouldn’t want to serve up humble pie to those non believers back in 2000 because it was understandable to believe it probably wouldn’t last this long, but I hope they are impressed with how well the team has done in the end.

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Over on the KotG message board I noticed a topic running that had fans debating and listing their all-time worst five Giants players. It’s thrown up some interesting names as different people have varying opinions on who didn’t impress in the teal and white. Some obvious names have come up though for every couple of obvious candidates there have been some strange choices. Someone even named Mark Dutiaume and another Matt Reid. But, anyway, to round up every Giants player with all their different positions, styles of play, attributes and rolls on the team and pick the worst five is not easy and can only really be done by deciding which players least lived up to their own individual roll within the team. The easy choice for many was the enforcer types like Angelstad and McMorrow but I haven’t included them because within the roll assigned to them, they did well enough.

McMorrow cannot be judged as bad because he didn’t score much, just as Kory Karlander cannot be judged as bad because he couldn’t fight. If we’re going to call Terran Sandwith bad because he could only score a goal against the British team in a friendly, then we have to call Ed Courtenay awful because he never blocked a shot. (Note: He may well have blocked a shot, but you get what I’m trying to say).

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I thought it worth pointing out that the two minute minor for holding at 16:56 by Evan Cheverie in Sunday’s game against Coventry tied the all-time most penalty minutes in a season in team history and 31:03 Pat Bateman’s two for hooking broke it. The Giants now have 1418 penalty minutes on the season with the old record having been set way back in 2003/04 at 1418. Below is a look at the penalty minutes racked up through each season so far with no doubt more to come this season.

2000/01: 1155
2001/02: 978
2002/03: 1246
2003/04: 1414
2004/05: 1079
2005/06: 1369
2006/07: 1385
2007/08: 1045
2008/09: 1170
2009/10: 1418

That wasn’t the only record broken this season, so far. Colin Shields 101 points on the season broke the all-time marker previously set by Jason Ruff and Theo Fleury at 94. Then there is Jeff Szwez whose incredible 17 powerplay goals and 8 short handed goals are new team records and he has also broken Curtis Huppe’s record of goals per game ratio by scoring in unbelievable 0.85 goals per game. On top of all that there are his 39 goals, which have edged ahead of the previously all-time high of 38 in a single season by Jason Ruff (03/04) and Paul Deniset (08/09). Not half bad for a guy who joined the team quite a way into the season. Colin Shields is on 38 goals also and with games to come they could be fighting it out for that record.

And finally you have Stephen Murphy who smashed the single season record for shutouts. He is currently on 8.

With anywhere from 2 to 4 games still to come for Shields, Szwez and Murphy there is opportunity to build on these records and so I’ll wait until after the season to write something in depth on each guy and their record breaking seasons. If 09/10 is to be remembered for anything, it’ll be for players setting new individual high’s in club history.

Reports have been doing the rounds today that the Boston Bruins of the NHL are to hold their pre-season training camp in Belfast and play a pre-season exehibition game against a German DEL team in the Odyssey Arena. Now it’s unlikely I’d be able to get back to see that, but if you do get the chance you should grab yourself some tickets. Okay so it won’t likely involve the Belfast Giants in any way, but who thought the day would come when an NHL team took to the ice in the Odyssey Arena? It’ll be a pre-season game sure, but the quality levels will still be high and it’ll be a big chance for the Giants fans to see some top quality hockey.

There is no news yet as to when exactly this will take place and as such no news has been released on ticket prices and when they would go on sale. I imagine the tickets will be a little higher than a standard Giants game and I would like to think regular Giants fans will get the first refusal for I’d say tickets will go quickly.

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.

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