Theres some rumours doing the rounds that the Sheffield Steelers, Nottingham Panthers game on Wednesday 12th September will be shown live on Sky Sports.  This would be great for the league if it where the case.  I’ve always wondered for a long time why Sky haven’t looked to give the sport more coverage when you see some of the sports they do show.

The Gaints 8th season schedule has been released at noon today and it has the Giants opening their season against Edinburgh Capitals on Saturday 8th September at the Odyssey Arena with a game the following night in Cardiff.  It’s taken a little time to get the schedules sorted but it looks to have been worth the wait as GM Todd Kelman has looked to spread out the games as much as possible to cut down on them three games in four night events and keep the players as fresh as possible.  Just one of the benefits of having a hockey man in charge of things. 

Some other games of note include the four games to be held in Dundalk.  They will be against Hull on October 6th, Manchester on October 27th, Edinburgh on January 26th and Basingstoke on March 22nd.

The very popular double header weekend game in Edinburgh will take place on the 8th and 9th December.

Full Schedule available on this site shortly.

Coventry [1], Belfast [2], Cardiff [3], Nottingham [5] have all qualified for the final four 2006 meaning the Giants will go head to head with Cardiff Devils.  As the second ranked team in the semi-final they will play the evening fixture while Coventry play Nottingham in the afternoon game.

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A big win for Coventry last night against Edinburgh handed the Blaze team the Elite league championship for the second time in three years.  It makes tonights game against the Giants a bit of a non-contest but for the Giants it will be a chance to bring the Blaze back down to earth and send a message that they are not going to have the playoffs so easily.  The Giants need to keep their momentum going so by treating tonights game like a playoff contest and hitting everything that moves in a Blaze jersey the Giants will do themsleves no harm at all.  Giants fans no all to well that just because the league may be done you cannot let up for a few games rest before stepping up again for the playoffs.

With that, lets head to the Odyssey and spoil the Coventry party.

Unfortunately the Giants dont have a say in what goes on tonight and it’s their league title thats on the line.  Should Coventry beat Edinburgh then the title is lost, should Edinburgh win the game then the Giants will host Coventry tomorrow night in Belfast in what will be their biggest game of the season.  Fingers are crossed but realistically the fans realise it’s very unlikely to go Belfast’s way.  Then again, maybe that puts more pressure on Coventry.

Edinburgh are sending down a hugely under strength side with a very short bench in a game that will have a huge baring on the outcome of the league title.  Still if the bottom of the league team put in a huge performance and Coventry get frustrated then you just never know.

The shit appears to be hitting the fan in Nottingham with a rumour that the Panthers have been playing most of the season with one to many imports.

Stories broke on the icehockeyleague.tv website with Dave Simms doing his weekly round-up and breaking the story.  It appears Ellis registered himself for the Continental Cup but then failed to de-register leaving the Panthers with an illegal amount of imports.  Now the arguments are going to rise in a big way between the league, Nottingham, other teams and the fans about whose to blame and what’s going to happen next.  If you watch the Dave Simms review he covers a lot of the points and looks at all possible angles of argument but make no mistake, as he says, this one will run.

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Remember Rocket Rod Stevens?  You should do, he played 3 great years in Belfast, remains our top 10 all time points scorers and is still doing us favours.  After a few years on mainland Europe he returned this season to British hockey but to play for our rivals the Nottingham Panthers.  Last night he scored the game winning goal in the Panthers game against Coventry on a short handed play to deny Coventry any points from the contest leaving them now only joint top with us with one game in hand.

During our terrible December slump there was a stage when Coventry had five games in hand and lay only a handful of points back but a little slump of their own capped off by a 6-4 defeat to third place Nottingham last night has kept the Giants right in contention when many thought the Blaze would walk off into the distance by winning them games in hand.

Coventry sit in first place on total wins, the first time since the very start of the season that the Giants have not led the league, and still have one game in hand but the last few weeks have shown that just as easily that any team can beat the Giants so too can any team beat the Blaze.

The Giants have been scoring goals for fun lately averaging over four per game and so it’s no surprise when you look at the league scoring charts to see three of the Giants team in the top four in scoring.  All three play on the Giants top line, Jason Ruff, Mark Dutiaume and Curtis Huppe.  Still there’s other guys around the league doing their job too so lets take a look at the different scoring categories so far this season.  It’s no surprise that the Giants feature in every category…

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Here’s a quick look at what went down around the Elite League last night:

- Basingstoke get a much needed win over the Phoenix 4-3 after over time.  The Phoenix must have had tired legs having played in Belfast the night before to a win that sent them into the semi-finals of the challenge cup.

- Like the Bison, the Vipers too got a much-needed win when they beat an inconsistent Coventry side 4-2.  After making a number of personnel changes the last couple of weeks the Vipers are looking to get back to the form they had last season and get themselves off the foot of the table.

- Arguably the game of the season as the Steelers had the shoe on the other foot when it comes to come back games as they turned around a 4-1 deficit to the Panthers to win out 5-4 after the shootout.  The game had it all, fights, misconducts, goals, comebacks, penalty shots and a shootout.  The Panthers now have just one game in hand on the Giants that if won would still keep them a point back on the league leaders.

This weeks powerplay magazine published the statistics of the Elite league referees so far this season with regards to penalties awarded to the home team, visiting team, totals and average penalty minutes per game.  The six referee’s in the league are ranked by average penalty minutes per game and it doesn’t make surprising reading…

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Part three is the final look into the opposition facing the Giants in this seasons Elite league campaign.  The three teams covered here have all got the potential to challenge the Giants all season long for their championship crown.  The new coaches and players in place we take a look at who and what’s likely to stand in the Giants way when they come up against the Newcastle Vipers, Nottingham Panthers and the Sheffield Steelers.

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Today is part two of the season preview of our opposition teams this season and today’s three to look at are Edinburgh, Hull and Manchester.  Edinburgh are going into their second EIHL season while Manchester come back in after two seasons out. Hull are the leagues new boys this year making it their first season in the big time.  Let’s have a look…

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Over the next 3 days Giants History will preview the 9 teams the Giants will come up against this season in their bid to retain the Elite League title.  Working in alphabetical format the first three teams to look at are Basingstoke, Cardiff and Coventry…

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After retiring from pro-hockey last season after a serious back injury Dave Matsos will return to the game as a coach - of the Sheffield Steelers.  After Dave Whistle announced he was quitting the club to take on a coaching role back in Canada before he had even started, the club where quick to appoint Matsos as their replacement. 

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Goodluck Matty, a second place finish would be just great!!

The Elite league today announced their intentions for the new season - to clamp down on the clutching and grabbing with a zero tolerance policy. The referees will call every infraction from hooking to holding right by the book and like the NHL done last year the Elite league are hoping it will have a positive impact on the speed of the game and the scoring.

I personally think this is a good move. I do hope however that it wont go from one end of the scale all the way to the other though where we watch 80% of the game as a power play to one team or the other, that’s not what you want. But Jason Ruff said it himself that he was extremely unhappy last season because of the interference he had to fight through to play his game and that the referees where letting everything go.

But with a big ice surface over here and still so much clutching and grabbing going on to slow down players it just proved how much it needed to be changed so well done to the league for addressing it. The league will be holding a clinic for coaches to attend to find out exactly what changes will be brought in so that teams are not completely idol to the new rules come face-off in September.

Another great move putting someone in control of discipline, especially someone who does know the game like Kirkham. Hopefully though he will have the power to monitor the referee’s performances to make sure they are continuing to enforce the new changes for the entire season and be able to hold them accountable for sub-par performances.

It will all be very interesting to see in the first few weeks of the season as teams and players get used to the changes, I can certainly see a lot of bizarre looks towards the referee upon some penalty calls but in the long run this can only be a good thing.