Last night’s game marked the first ever professional goal by Lewis Christie. He tallied a second period goal against Manchester on a feed from Mark Dutiaume.

In tonight’s 6-2 win against the Nottingham Panthers, captain George Awada picked up a hat trick and his 99th, 100th and 101st goals as a Giant.  The 100th goal tied him with Jason Ruff for the franchise lead and the 101st stood him alone as the top all-time Giants goal scorer.

‘Atta boy George

Giants won their tenth straight game tonight in Cardiff to break a club winning streak record. The win puts the Giants in a strong second place in the league and baring down on the Coventry Blaze. The game also had a few firsts with Lewis Christie getting his first career point and Leigh Jamieson his first career hat trick. There was two fights in the game, both involving Carlyle Lewis and Brent Pope. An unusual combatant, Pope and Lewis appeared to be at each other thoughout the night.

Playing on a line with Ed Courtenay, Jamieson did what everyone who has played with Courtenay this season does - score goals. The Giants were in control on the scoreboard from the start and never looked back taking a 3-1 lead into the first break and a 6-1 lead into the second break.

The Giants now have two days off before a home clash with the physical Newcastle Vipers who wont want to face the Giants in their current form.

The Giants have tied the club record set between 3rd December 2005 and 7th January 2006 of nine wins in a row with a 6-1 hammering of the Sheffield Steelers. The Giants current streak of nine wins in a row runs from the 16th December 2007 until tonight. Fingers crossed that the record will be broke tomorrow night against Cardiff. The Giants got a hat trick from Peter Campbell who also added two assists on a five point night, while Mark Morrison scored for the second straight game. The defeat to Sheffield adds pressure to an entire team currenly playing on two weeks notice from their owner after a run of poor form.

Giants hit Cardiff tomorrow night before returning to the Odyssey for a game against Newcastle on Wednesday.

Ed Courtenay in just over a month will turn 40 years of age. He’ll be the oldest player to ever have iced for the Giants but the player-coach will break a few more records if his current form continues.

Through 35 games so far (including four challenge cup games) big Ed has 18 goals and 46 assists for 64 points. Should that form continue Ed will play the full compliment of 58 regular season games. On current pace over the next 23 games you can expect to see Ed potentially score 12 goals and add 30 assists for another 42 points. So in all after 58 regular season games are done Ed Courtenay on current pace will have 30 goals and 76 assists for 106 points. Should Ed put in a 100+ point season he would become the first player in Elite League history and in Giants history to have a 100 point season and thats before the playoffs even begin. MORE »

The Giants set three historic records while on their travels to Edinburgh this past weekend.

1. Shaun Sutter’s 5 goals in one game set a single game high for the Giants.
2. The 4 fights in the game tied a single game high for the Giants.
3. Adam Cree became the youngest player to ever ice for the Giants.
and
4. I would imagine Sutter’s 7 goal weekend set a team high for goals over a double-header weekend!!!

Jason Ruff’s goal at 10:17 of the first period in the Giants second leg playoff game against Basingstoke marked his 100th goal as a Giants player - the first player to reach the milestone.  It’s taken 7 years for someone to get there and finally it has happened and who else but arguably the greatest player of all-time in team history - Jason Ruff.

Ruffles also leads the team all-time in assists and points and this season has put in yet another top performance and will be looking to help lead the team to playoff glory.  Whether Ruffles will be back next year or not remains to be seen.  Still, it’s a great achievment for a great player.

Last nights win was the 8th win in a row for the Giants which leaves them knocking on the door of a personal record.

From the Belfast Telegraph:

“Blaze suffered a hangover - literally - after clinching the title with a 5-1 home win over Edinburgh and couldn’t cope with a Giants team that clicked superbly in an eight minute spell to clock up a club record equalling eighth successive win.

It is the most league games that have been won in a row and with two more outings coming up on the final weekend of the season, coach Ed Courtenay would love to make it a perfect ten.”

Just to put things right, the win last night may have been the eighth but does not tie a club record.  The club record is nine wins in a row from 3rd December 2005 to 7th January 2006 when the Giants won eight league games and a British cup game.  It isn’t the most league games won in a row but it did tie the record for league wins in a row over that same time spell minus the British Cup game.

The Giants play Manchester on Sunday with a win there tieing the all-time wins in a row record and breaking the league wins in a row record.  Here’s hoping…

Belfast Telegraph article

The race for 100 is well and truely on.  Jason Ruff is out front but Curtis Huppe is not far behind and has hit a real patch of form in front of goal in recent games.  It’s taken seven years but likely by the end of this season one if not two guys will have hit the 100 goal plateau as a Giants player.  I dont even want to think about the reasons why it mightn’t happen, it’s got to!!

Jason Ruff at time of writing sits on 91 goals as a Giants player.  Curtis Huppe sits on 83.  It might be a little tight for Curtis to make it but baring in mide this is over all competitions goals in the playoffs count towards this total.  With 19 league games left and a two legged playoff game all but assured that gives them 21 games to get the job done or potentially 23 should they make the playoff final.

For Ruff it’s to be 9 in 21 - Very likely; For Huppe it’s to be 17 in 21 - Possible.

I’ll be following this one with much interest!

If you haven’t heard by now then where have you been?  If you missed it in the game report then I’ll put it again here.  In last night’s game Jason Ruff put in a hat trick performance and added an assist.  His second point of the night, his first goal of the game was his 200th as a Belfast Giants player.  Ruff earlier in the year became the Giants all-time highest points scorer to confirm his status among the fans as the Giants greatest players and last night he just confirmed it.  Only Todd Kelman who is still playing could come close to that 200 point mark but he has since announced he will retire at the end of the season.

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The milestones are coming thick and fast this month.   Off the back of Ruff taking the all time assists and points lead and the Giants recording their 200th franshise win, they have set a milestone that wont be to popular with the fans.  The third goal in the 3-1 defeat to the Manchester Phoenix marked the 1000th goal scored against the Giants in team history.  The goal was scored into the empty net by Johan Molin and assisted by ex-Giants player coach Tony Hand and Derek Campbell.

For more on the teams all-time record, click here

Tonights win against Newcastle was the 200th win in the teams history.  It comes 6 seasons and 14 games into the 7th season in the teams history.  Goals from Ruff, Dutiaume and Huppe aided the Giants win with Dutiaume getting the game winning goal.  The 100th win in team history came on 6th April 2003 when the Giants beat the London Knights 5-3 to win their first and only playoff championship.

Going by them time scales the Giants should win their 300th game late in the 2008-2009 season or early in the 2009-2010 season.  Theres no guesses on who will score the winning goal in that game though who would put it past being Todd Kelman!

(Win’s do not include exehibition game or four void league games from the 2002-2003 season and 2005-2006).

Jason Ruff and Todd Kelman continue to battle it out for the all-time assists lead for the Giants.  Ruff’s second assist of the game on a Jeff Hutchins goal in Saturdays 3-1 win over Hull put the big Canadian forward who recently became the teams all-time points leader on 119 assists compared to Kelmans 118.  

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With an assist on Curtis Huppe’s goal in tonight’s 4-3 win against Hull Stingrays, Jason Ruff moved into first place in the all-time Giants points scoring chart.  He later added another assist and the game winning goal to move three points clear of previous leader Curtis Bowen.  Ruff now sits on 190 points through 144 career Giants games.

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Jason Ruff goes into Newcastle tonight needing just two points to tie the Giant all-time points scoring lead currently held by Curtis Huppe.  Ruffles currently sits on 185 points thanks to 72 goals and 113 assists in 139 games.  Curtis Huppe who reached the 187 number in 219 games left the Giants at the end of the 04-05 season to join Nottingham after 4 seasons in Belfast.  Tonights game against Newcastle faces off at 6.30pm.

All-Time player Stats