It’s been a long summer, the weather has been pathetic and the Giants have made a smooth transition from one season to the next.  For the first time possibly ever there was no talk of teams coming in or dropping out of the league, no problem with trying to hire a coach or sign players in time for the season and so very little at times to talk about.  But it’s a good thing and plenty of new sponsors have came on boad along with seven new players to the Giants team.  Tonight the off season officially ends and the 8th season of Giants hockey gets underway.  Read More»

The Giants have made two changes to their season schedule.  The home game with the Hull Stingrays, scheduled for Thursday February 7, has been brought forward a week to Thursday January 31 and the meeting with the Sheffield Steelers, which had been due to take place on Saturday February 9, has been moved 24 hours to Friday February 8.

View the fixture list

There’s a good story in the Belfast Telegraph about Trevor Johnson’s hopes for the season and how he would like to bring a league title back to Belfast in the same fashion his childhood friend and ex-Giants star Chad Allan did back in 2002.  Allan who played one year in Belfast before moving on to Germany is remembered by a lot of Giants fans as one of our best ever players.  If Johnson can replicate his play we’ll be doing well.

This summer may already feel like winter but it’s not quite hockey time yet, well actually now that the season is upon us it is indeed hockey time again.  With the season only a few weeks one day away and with obviously no blogging time left I guess it’s about time to try finish up the preview each of the teams with as much knowledge as I actually have of them anyway!  Next up it’s the Phoenix:  Read More»

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.  Read More»

This summer may already feel like winter but it’s not quite hockey time yet.  However, with the season only a few weeks four days away and without knowing how much blogging time I will have I guess it’s about time to look into the season and preview each of the teams with as much knowledge as I actually have of them anyway!  Next up it’s the Stingrays: Read More»

I’ve took part in a debate article over on the Kingdom of the Giants website about whether Jason Ruff was the greatest Giant ever or just one of the greats.  Debating for him being the greatest was myself and debating against him being the greatest was Patrick Smyth.  To view the article click here and to debate the points made log into the KotG forum.

This summer may already feel like winter but it’s not quite hockey time yet.  However, with the season only a few weeks one week away and without knowing how much blogging time I will have I guess it’s about time to look into the season and preview each of the teams with as much knowledge as I actually have of them anyway!  Next up it’s the Caps: Read More»

Huddinge 3, Giants 3

The Giants put on a much better showing last night and tied with Huddinge 3-3.  Unfortunately yet again the referee was penalty happy handing out a number of calls for what otherwise in British hockey would have been let go.  I guess it allowed the Giants to work on their penalty kill.  It’ll give the team a lot of confidence going into the new season that probably without them penalties they may well have taken the game.  Still the main aim has been achieved; Ed Courtenay can now head back to Belfast knowing what exactly he wants to work on in the coming five days before the season opener with Edinburgh.  With George Awada still come into the line-up things are very promising for a solid season indeed.

Notes: Troy Neumeier played in his first game and by all reports had a very solid game.  Paul Moran sat out the game with an injury and Mark Dutiaume didn’t play their third period after taking a knock in the game.

Giants 3, Huddinge 5

Here is my view from the game.  Don’t worry he moved after the first period!

The Giants got their pre-season off to a start last night in Dundalk to a 5-3 defeat to Swedish side Huddinge.  It was a game that will have left Ed Courtney with plenty to think about but also plenty of positive points to take from the first proper run out for the Giants team.  The Huddinge side were slick and fast and punished the Giants for the mistakes they made.  The first two periods the Giants were slack taking a handful of penalties from a referee who certainly wasn’t shy to hand them out at the first sign of contact but they really picked it up in the third playing good attacking hockey.  Ed appeared to be playing around with line combinations and different systems the first two periods before settling down and playing some hockey in the third.

I’ll not give a real in-depth view of the game, just twenty thoughts on what I see from some of our players, the arena and anything else …  Read More»