Last year I done a season preview of each team but to be honest I just don’t have the time right now as well as the knowledge of each team. It has been such a busy summer that I have only really been able to follow the Giants progress and if other teams is anything like the Giants, their line-up’s will have changed so much that any honest assessment would be useless until I had seen them all play. Teams who finished bottom last year could well be near the top this time out and vise-versa. That is the beauty of ice hockey though. The standings are never easy to predict and especially with the Elite League where the majority of teams are on one-year contracts teams can change so much between seasons. So the following is just a flash guide to the season with just a little bit on each team and what you MIGHT expect to see from them. Of course in 7-months time you could read back on this and see it as nothing more than rambling gibberish. MORE »

The Giants new team will get their new season underway at home on Saturday 6th September against the Cardiff Devils. That was announced today when the fixture lists for 08-09 were released. Following the Devils game the Giants will go onto the road for a game in Edinburgh the following night in the Challenge Cup. The first month of the season for the Giants will consist of back-to-back Saturday/Sunday games at home and away. MORE »

The Sheffield Steelers are the 2008 Playoff Champions. Dave Matsos, an ex-Giant, is a playoff winning coach after winning the trophy as a player for the Giants back in 2003. The weekend was a beer filled, hocked packed hoot as per usual and maybe once I have fully recovered, counted the losses financially and tried to remember as much as I can I will write some kind of story about Nottingham Playoff weekend 2008.

As for now . . . Well done Sheffield.

Friday Night:
Sheffield 5 Mancheter 4

Saturday Night:
Edinburgh 0 Coventry 1
Nottingham 3 Cardiff 4
Belfast 3 Newcastle 5

On Tap for tonight:

Manchester v Sheffield, 5:30 p.m.
Newcastle v Belfast, 5:30 p.m.
Cardiff v Nottingham, 6 p.m.
Coventry v Edinburgh, 6 p.m.

One look at the standings will tell you that Coventry are now champions and the Giants are in a uninteresting battle for 3rd and 4th place with Nottingham. However if you cast your eyes further down you may be surprised to see the Edinburgh Capitals in 6th place. Its been quite a turn around for the team that for a long time in the season occupied the last place spot in the league. For so long it seemed Basingstoke were a lock for the 6th place spot but a new found team spirit in Edinburgh has turned the fortunes around and the Scottish team look on pace to claim a playoff spot. MORE »

So after a terrible start to the year and a 16-game winning streak that pulled them from bottom to top, the Giants have gone back into free fall of late. A new losing streak has seen the boys slide down to forth place thanks to a huge Panthers win against the Bison last night. The Giants are now set to finish outside the top two places in the league for only the third time in their eight year history. The last time they finished forth was under Rob Stewart back in 2003-2004 - The first year of the Elite League - and Stewart duly lost his job. MORE »

A big win or a predictable win over the Belfast Giants on Sunday night - call it what you will - sealed the Elite League title for the Coventry Blaze for a second year running. Definitely hard to swallow for the Giants fans who certainly have a bit of a rivalry with Coventry and also because it was their defeat to the Blaze that confirmed their position as Britain’s best team. Coventry have lead the league from start to finish and made everyone comfortably second best. All the Giants can do - bar looking to the playoffs - is to look to competing from the off next season.

It appears the Steelers are moving into their own little ice pad, 7-miles up the road in Rotherham that is. MORE »

Take a look at the Powerplay rankings in the Elite Leauge to this point in the season. For those who thought our PP was bad it’ll make interesting reading and for those that thought it was good it will still make interesting reading. I didn’t think it was anywhere near as good as 23.6% but then again thats what you get with a set-up man like Ed Courtenay and guys who are willing to screen the goalie like Carlyle Lewis and Shaun Sutter.

            PL  OPP  GF  GA   Pct
Belfast     51  229  54   4  23.6
Coventry    53  301  67   2  22.3
Sheffield   56  265  53   2  20.0
Basingstoke 54  220  41   6  18.6
Nottingham  55  325  59   8  18.2
Newcastle   53  257  45   8  17.5
Edinburgh   54  302  51  14  16.9
Manchester  52  276  44   6  15.9
Cardiff     54  279  44  10  15.8
Hull        54  333  26   5   7.8

Info obtained from THF via KotG

There have been rumors doing the rounds this past week that Dundalk may be ready to enter a team into the EIHL next season as the league looks to expand. It may answer why the league was looking to up the number of imports, if they are expecting more teams to join the league.

The Giants have played four games out of Dundalk already this season as the home team and the Giants fans have taken over the arena, selling it out on their last trip and making a serious amount of noise. With that, it poses the question, could Dundalk create it’s own set of fans to do the same? MORE »

The Giant hopes of a league title this year may not be over after last weekends events but there’s still a lot to be positive about. The Sunday night defeat to Manchester that also seen Coventry winning was the real killer blow, especially when Coventry had been trailing 2-0 for part of the game. To be honest though I was nearly glad Coventry took the win. Had they lost as well as ourselves I would have been absolutely gutted that we didn’t take advantage of the slip-up. As it turns out even if we had won in Manchester the gap still would have been to much to have realistically made up. MORE »

It’s been the topic of the day over on KotG and for good reason. The EIHL are talking about serious changes to the league’s set-up next season from the salary cap to the number of imports allowed on each team. The story broke here today and it has the fans talking about the pro’s and con’s. I haven’t had a great deal of time to look at it so I’ll give it some time before writing anything that will be read and digested by the proverbial masses, for a day or so. (The real excuse being I just dont have time right now).

About four or five weeks ago prior to the Giants resurgence the Cardiff Devils were also in a funk of their own. The Giants were the only team they seemed capable of beating and even at some of our worst times they still sat below us in the standings.

How times change. The Devils went on a tear winning game after game to move from dead last to top of the league by a point over Coventry. They have played five games more than the consistently good Blaze but if ever the Giants needed an inspiration from someone else that the season can still be turned round they can find it in their rivals from Wales. Granted wins by the teams behind them in their games in hand would push the Devils down to third of forth but the way this crazy league has been going not all these teams are going to win their games in hand.

What does this mean for the Giants you ask? Well with a game in hand over everyone except Coventry we have the potential to put ourselves within five points of forth place Sheffield and eventually with the right wins four points behind the most in form team of the last month, Cardiff. It’s an uphill struggle and the main aim must surely be playoffs already but moving further up the league can only be a bonus.

An article in the Belfast Telegraph has GM Todd Kelman claiming the GIants are clean with regards to the player signing of Peter Campbell and Stevie Lyle from Basingstoke last week. Basingstoke have been doing a bit of moaning about how their players were approached but Kelman is not worried.

“This is a dead issue as far as we as a team are concerned, that is how it should remain.”

~Todd Kelman

Basingstoke have made their feelings felt to the media the past week as well as to the EIHL. It’s not yet known whether the Elite Leauge will take any action.

Maybe Basingstoke ought to stick to worrying about their finances rather than other teams signing up their players which in the end did free up some salaries for them which for a team in financial problems can only be a good thing.

I’m a day or so late on this one but talk on the Steelers message board is suggesting that Michael Hicks will be returning to refereeing again this year after a leave of absence off the back of a poor start to last season.  It was through complaints of the Giants from early last season that seen Hicks given his break after he struggled to referee the zero-tolerance rules.  MORE »