Looks like Mike Minard is done for the year.  The goalie who helped lead the Giants to the league title last season has had his fair share of struggles this year and it started rumours throughout the fans that it could be down to a long standing injury.  The teams line is that the injury was picked up in Edinburgh on Sunday night but many will feel the injury is something that’s been lingering for a while now.  At the end of the day, you dont go from being one of the leagues best to letting in 5 and 6 goals a game.  Whether Mini will be back next year remains to be seen, but should he get healthy and fighting fit then few will argue against looking to re-signing him.  Cheers Mini!!

As for Mini’s replacement, that comes in the form of  Phillippe DeRouville who has just finished his season in Italy with his team being knocked out of the playoffs.  DeRouville played as a team-mate with Ed Courtenay in 2000-01 at the Ayr Scottish Eagles.  He was a 5th round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins and played three games in the show.  All being well he should ice tomorrow night in Manchester.

You’re welcome Phillippe, hopefully you can help us turn things around.  Now just to hurry up and get Huppe back on the ice.

Capitals 3, Giants 2

If losing isn’t bad enough the Giants threw away a two goals lead against the lowly Edinburgh Capitals on Sunday night.  It leaves the Giants as the most out of form team in the Elite League and sliding down the league at a rapid pace.  The Giants took a two goals lead through Jeff Hutchins who grabbed his 26th and 27th goals of the season, one of the only bright spots when it comes to getting goals for the Giants this season and of late.  The other goes by the name of Curtis Huppe who was sitting at home in Belfast.  His replacement and coach Ed Courtenay was good for two assists however while Jason Ruff also picked up two points as that forward line looked to have clicked early on.  Unfortunately things dried up after fifteen minutes and it was Edinburgh who did all the scoring from there on in.

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Panthers 6, Giants 3

Although Ed Courtenay managed an assist in his first game of the season it wasn’t enough to stop yet another hiding for the Giants as Nottingham where the latest team in line to dish it out to them this week, beating them 6-3.  Curtis Huppe was indeed the man replaced by Ed Courtenay but theres been no word from the Giants on what the reason was for Huppe being replaced.  Clearly he was not the man needing replaced it it where not because of injury and yet again the Giants struggled to come together as a team dropping them to third in the league.

Giants goals came from Awada, Dutiaume and Ruff while Shawn Skiehar dropped the gloves with Ryan Shmyr in the third period.  The Giants travel north of the border to Scotland to take on the Edinburgh Capitals tonight, but a team once considered to be an easy two points, will really feel they can take on the Giants and beat them.  Nobody would argue against right now.

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BelfastGiants.com — The Coors Belfast Giants Head Coach Ed Courtenay announced today that he will be registering himself to play for the weekend’s two away matches against the Nottingham Panthers and Edinburgh Capitals. Courtenay is still deciding which player to deregister as there are a couple of players that are awaiting x-rays and medical clearance to play. A player, once de-registered, has to sit out 6 games which would give an injured player 3 weeks to rest and would have them back in the line-up for the home match on March 9th against the Newcastle Vipers. At that point whether Courtenay takes himself out of the line-up or decides to sit out a player remains to be seen. The recent dip in form for the Coors Giants had Courtenay threatening changes in the roster and with a couple of players nursing injuries he has taken this opportunity to possibly add an offensive spark that has been lacking as of late.

“Offensively we have been struggling as of late but besides the Coventry and Hull games, our form defensively has been fine,” said Courtenay, “I still have confidence in this team.”

“It will take me a couple of games to feel fit on the ice again but I have been training with the team most of the season in case something like this came up.”

–

There has been hot rumours of late that the guy to be replaced would be Curtis Huppe who must be carrying an injury and who just a few days ago became a father for the first time to his Belfast wife.  It would be a real knock for an already struggling team to lose a guy like Curtis Huppe for six games, a guy who’s at least been able to put the puck in the net even during the goal slump of late.

More to follow…

Steelers 3, Giants 1 

One goal from forty-two shots tonight, three goals from 112 shots over the last three games while the oppsition hit us for 18 goals in 92 shots for a .804 save percentage.  Can it get any worse? 

Roman Gavalier, rumoured to be playing with up to thirty stitches in his face after taking a puck there last night picked up the Giants man-of-the-match award in what was another defeat for the crumbling team.  Gavalier to many is the only man showing up night in night out for the team, while others blow hot and cold depending on the game and others just, well, blow.

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Stingrays 7, Giants 2

It was 8-0 by the league leading Blaze six days ago; tonight it was 7-2 at the hands of last place Hull.  If my formula’s are correct then tomorrow night against mid-table Sheffield they should take us about 6-4?  Gosh a defeat like that right now actually sounds like a good result.  Who knows what’s going on with the Giants but at least tonight their physical side came out a little in frustration.  Awada was in the thick of things all night roughing it up and even shedding the mitts to win a fight - it’s the only thing we’re winning of late but with the ‘C’ on his chest I guess he had to stand up and he deserves some credit for it.  Skiehar from early reports also dropped the gloves near the end but there’s no report on that one yet.  As for our goal scorers well, answers on a postcard…

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The Giants are currently in action agaisnt the Stingrays needing a win to get their season back on track.  Nothing short of two points will do for the Giants who are on their longest road trip of the season.

Click below for updates:

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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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Giants @ Stingrays; Giants @ Steelers 

The Giants head into the weekend with a huge amount of pressure on their shoulders.  After a 8-0 thrashing at the hands of league leaders Coventry Blaze it’s a must win, all four points weekend for the Giants if they wish to maintain any kind of hope of winning the league.  Unfortunately with the form of late, gaining the four points looks like it could be an uphill battle.  Hull are the hosts on Saturday before a game against Sheffield on the Sunday. 

Hull are in the unfortunate position of being in an even wrose run of form than the Giants.  The team that started the season so well and adapted so quickly to zero tolerance have hit the wall of late (See power rankings ver, 8.0 below) as other teams adapt to zero tolerance as well.  The playoffs are slipping away from the Stingrays even quicker than the league title is from Belfast so both teams will be playing some desperate hockey.

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After moving into first place in the league standings Coventry have shown they really are the form team over the past three weeks by moving into first place in the power-rankings. Cardiff also move up a huge clump of places while the Giants terrible period is shown up by their slide from first down to their worst spot in the rankings this season in 9th. The 8-0 thrashing by Coventry certainly didn’t help the Giants cause. The only team worse than them of late are Hull who after their great start to the season have really been exposed of late. After 34 games this season Hull were a -16. In the last 6 games they have went a terrible -16.

Enjoy the rankings… more in a few weeks.

1.  (2)  Coventry Blaze            +13 / 5gp  =  2.60
2.  (8)  Cardiff Devils            +11 / 8gp  =  1.38
3.  (6)  Nottingham Panthers        +6 / 5gp  =  1.20
4.  (4)  Sheffield Steelers         +4 / 6gp  =  0.67
5.  (7)  Manchester Phoenix         +1 / 5gp  =  0.20
6.  (3)  Newcastle Vipers           -2 / 8gp  = -0.25
7.  (10) Basingstoke Bison          -2 / 5gp  = -0.40
8.  (9)  Edinburgh capitals         -7 / 7gp  = -1.00
9.  (1)  Belfast Giants             -6 / 5gp  = -1.20
10. (5)  Hull Stingrays            -16 / 6gp  = -2.67

Blaze 8, Giants 0 

The Giants blew it big time.  When your goalie has a disaster and your forwards don’t show up you know you’re in for a long night.  Despite out shooting the Blaze 37-22 the Giants where embarrassed by the likely 06-07 league champions, Coventry Blaze.  I say likely in that in this sport you don’t know what’s going to happen next.  We’ve went from good to bad and it could equally happen to Coventry but the unfortunate thing is we now need that kind of collapse from them to have any chance.

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On one final note.. According to ih-update.co.uk Trevor Koenig was awarded the Blaze man of the match for tonights 8-0 win.  Is that some kind of joke?

The Giants are on the road tonight with a game against the Coventry Blaze and it’s a game they really need to come home with all two points in.  Ideally without giving the Blaze anything.  Realistically though against such a tough opponant in such a tough arena to play the Giants would love to come out with even an overtime win.  A tie would not be the end of the world but it wouldn’t put them top of the league and right now points mean everything to the Giants who go into the contest level on points with the Blaze but having played two games more.

Updates: Blaze 8, Giants 0 (FINAL)

- Coventry have now made the game 4-0 leaving the Giants in a huge hole, the Giants will need to get their asses in gear. 
- Two powerplay goals from two attempts for Coventry.
- Blaze take their third roughing penalty of the night, not only are they beating us up on the scoreboard…
- At 0-4 with the man advantage the Giants must strike now to make a game of it…
- Another short-handed goal for the Blaze.  What a shambles our powerplay is.  More the fool to me for thinking our fortunes could change on this game…
- Giants hand the Blaze a 5 on 3.  I could at least understand it if they where for a bit of goonery, but no.
- A dismal second period ends and the league title looks further away than ever before.
- Third underway and normal order is restored where it left off.
- The embarssment continues.  I’m not sure what our boys are doing but it’s not fighting for the league title.  This is a blow out and it’s time for changes.
- And thats a rap.  Eight - Zip, and I’m off to bed - So too is the Giants season.

SCORING:
1st Period:
1. COV, D.Stewart (N.Martin, S.Nasreddine) @ 03:46 (pp)
2. COV, R.Ndur (A.Calder, D.Carlson) @ 16:25 (pp)
Penalties - BEL, L.Jamieon (Hooking) @ 01:52 ;  COV, J.Pease (High Sticking) @ 04:00; COV, T.Carlon (Roughing) @ 06:26; COV, S.Nasreddine (Slashing) @ 09:11; BEL, M.Morrison (Slashing) @ 14:40.

2nd Period:
3. COV, A.Tait (B.Moore, D.Stewart) @ 21:17
4. COV, T.Carlon (N.Martin) @ 27:01 (sh)
5. COV, A.Calder (D.Carlson, N.Martin) @ 29:31 (sh)
Penalties - BEL, M.Levers (Charging) @ 24:54; COV, T.Carlon (Roughing) @ 24:54; COV, R.Simonton (High Sticking) @ 25:57; COV, S.Nasreddine (Roughing) @ 28:29; BEL, G.Awada (Interference) @ 30:01; BEL, L.Jamieson (Slashing) @ 30:15; COV, T.Watkins (Interference) @ 36:10; BEL, J.Ruff (Slashing) @ 37:14; BEL, S.Skiehar (Cross Checking) @ 39:16.

3rd Period:
6. COV, M.Tasker (T.Watkins) @ 41:55
7. COV, M.Tasker (S.Nasreddine, A.Calder) @ 51:04 (pp)
8. COV, A.Calder (D.Carlon) @ 57:11
BEL, J.P.Morin (Slashing) @ 49:33.

Thats the hope anyway!  According to an article in the Sunday Life this morning, Giants owner Jim Yaworski has been in talks with New York Rangers General Manager, Glen Sather about linking up some kind of Euro affiliation with the Giants and his NHL team.  The deal would include an exehibition game between the Rangers and another east coast team at the Odyssey at some point in September 2008.

Of course, those of you who have been following the Giants since day one will remember talk of this somewhere down the line when in season one the Giants where looking to strike up some kind of partnership with the Buffalo Sabres.  It came to nothing.  This time however you get the feeling there could be more to it.  Afterall Yaworski brought us Theo, and he’s already talked to Sather about the idea so heres hoping something would get done.  In what capacity we dont know but the fact it could bring an NHL exehibtion game to the Odyssey can only be promising.

We’ll watch closely…

Jim’ll fix it for Rangers to play at the Odyssey [Sunday Life]

Giants 4, Vipers 1

Scoring has been a problem for the Giants over the last couple of months after scoring for fun early in the season.  It seems at last the scoring touch has returned but it took until late in the game against Newcastle before the goals started to come.  They started from a suprising source as well, forward Shawn Skiehar scored the game winner for the Giants to make it 2-1 before Curtis Huppe and Jeff Hutchins added goals to seal the deal.  Todd Kelman had given the Giants the lead early in the game with is 200th point as a Giants player before Andre Payette tied things up mid-way through the third for the Vipers.  OT was avoided by three goals in two and a half minutes by the Giants as they finally solved goaltender Mark Lee, a British kid who was in goal in place of the injured Aubery for the match.

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