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.

My excitement quickly turned a tad sour when I remembered that I’m now in Canada. Eight bloody fantastic years of watching this team only to move away in time for them to host an NHL team. I’d love to get back to see it, but with a wedding to pay for next year, it isn’t going to happen. Still, I’m delighted for the team, the city, the country and the sport of hockey in not only Ireland but Britain. This kind of exposure at all levels can only be a good thing. No doubt people from Boston will tie the game in with a visit to Ireland, and the exposure the Giants will get on local TV will be better than ever before I can only suspect. The British league will get much needed exposure as well, especially if the game is televised in the Boston area.

No doubt the Bruins will walk away with the victory but talk is that the Giants will invite some of the best players in the EIHL to join them for the game to help boost the competitiveness of the game. Being that the game comes so close to the start of the Bruins season the camp roster will be well trimmed down to those likely to start the season with the Bruins and those still there trying out will be on their last chance to make it with the big club. Expect that to make it a strong line-up for those lucky enough to get a ticket and it’ll make for a very competitive game.

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).

So McMorrow? He wasn’t a great player but he was a dam good fighter and he was a crowd pleaser. He did what he was brought in to do, he followed team instructions and delivered on them and for that reason he doesn’t make my list. Same goes with Terran Sandwith. He was unspectacular and certainly not flash; he didn’t venture over the red line very often but he was brought in to keep things tight, play defensive and shut down the oppositions top line and he did it without question, night in, night out.

Others simply don’t make the list because they had one moment of magic that made them a folk hero and as such grants them immunity from any such list. Colin Ryder is a prime example. An okay goalie at best during his Giants years, but because of his heroics during the Continental Cup qualifiers in Belfast in November 2002, he’ll never be put on a worst players list.

Finally, I won’t be putting in anyone who played less than ten games as a Giants player. It’s not enough time to properly judge a player when they have only stopped in the city for a cup of coffee before moving on to pastures new.

So here is who is on my list and if you ever read this and see your name below – no hard feelings. This doesn’t make you a bad player – you still made it as a professional in sport, something I or many many others will never do, and perhaps Belfast just didn’t work out for you. In another time and place perhaps, but while you were here, sorry, but you were no good.

Phil DeRouville (PL 25, GAA 2.58, SVP .901)
He arrived at the tail end of the 2006/07 season and played brilliantly going 8-1 with a .924 save percentage and it was enough for Ed Courtenay to re-sign him for the following year but it never worked out. Phil lasted just 13 games with his save percentage dropping to .873 with a 3.38 goals against average as the Giants started the season poorly losing 9 of 11 games. To put the blame squarely on DeRouville would be unfair – the defense was extremely poor – but after 13 games he was dropped from the team being replaced by Stevie Lyle and the Giants fortunes quickly turned.

Troy Neumeier (PL 26, G 0, A 4, PIM 20)
Troy was part of that very defensive corps in 2007/08 that played in front of Phil DeRouville that lost 9 of the first 11 games. Troy was 37 when he arrived in Belfast and long past his prime, a prime that included some high level Hockey were he was claimed to have been a very good player, but by 2007 the legs were gone, he didn’t have the pace and after 26 games was dropped from the Giants line-up just a few weeks before Christmas. It surprised me a little at the time given that the teams fortunes had begun to change and Troy had slowly started to pick up his play, but he was one of three on the block and his age likely went against him.

Ryan Smith (PL 13, G 5, A 11, PIM 12)
They say stats don’t count for everything when judging a player and if you ever wanted proof of this then look no further than Ryan Smith. Ryan had inflated points thanks to playing on a line with Ed Courtenay and Scott Cameron. He struggled from the start in Belfast. Brought it to replace Jason Ruff who retired in the off-season the pressure was on from the start but his lack of skill, scoring touch and grit in the corners never won him over to the Belfast crowd. There was sparks of good play on a handful of occasions but these were way to few and far between over the course of what has been a disastrous start to the season. He joined Phil DeRouville in being shown the exit and Troy Neumeier shortly followed. Smith returned to the lower leagues in Germany were he had originally came from.

Jason Rushton (PL 17, G 2, A 2, PIM 144)
Rushton arrived in the final third of the 2008/09 season as the teams enforcer. Reports suggested he would bring toughness to the line-up, entertainment to the fans and an edge to his game that would leave fans questioning his sanity and so we looked on with anticipation. Well, as it turned out he did indeed entertain sections of the fanbase, but unlike the likes of Angelstad and McMorrow he rarely actually won a fight and after questions of poor professionalism (he reportedly tossed his skates onto the roof of the arena in Cardiff because he didn’t fancy playing), he left the club after 13 games and was never seen again.

Jerry Keefe (PL 46, G 4, A 11, PIM 30)
Chants of ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry’ to the sound of that Jerry Springer cheer was my lasting memory of Jerry Keefe when he would score one of his four goals as a Giant during their formative year in 2000/01. Jerry Keefe was the Giants first ever American born player on the roster and his greatest moment as a Belfast Giants game when the President of the U.S.A. Bill Clinton came for a visit and Jerry got to meet his commander and chief. Keefe was the extra forward on that original Giants team and never really done that much so when Dave Whistle signed on for another year as coach at the end of that first season Keefe was never likely to return and he didn’t. Still, thanks to being on the first ever Giants team and being the only American he, unlike many other poor players after him, will always be remembered – by those of us were there when it all began.

Worst 5 Brits

I suppose while we’re at it! … I didn’t want to include them in the main list given that baring the rule of having to carry a certain number of Brits most of them wouldn’t have made the team at all as seen by the lack of Brits on the Giants team in the ISL days, but in a category of their own there were a few that stood out from the others. One thing I can say about the British players is that few failed to ever gave anything but 100% effort every game. The same 10 game minimum rule applied and so the short list got pretty small pretty quickly when you obviously excluded the likes of Tony Hand and Colin Shields from it. One missing name that has played a number of games now but never put up so much as a point is Robbie Brown but given that he is effectively in the Giants team to gather experience rather than to seriously contribute, I haven’t put him on the list above. A few of them names you’ll be forgiven for having forgot, but they did play and they didn’t overly impress. In alphabetical order:

Lewis Christie
Gareth Martin
Bari McKenzie
Paul Moran
Grant Taylor

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.

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.

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.