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 »

It’s been ten days since my last post and back then I previewed the Giants Christmas games talking about how their form has been over the Christmas period in years gone by. True to form the Giants have been successful winning five of five so far over the Christmas period with one more game to go on the 5th against Nottingham. It means it’ll be another winning Christmas for the Giants who in their five wins so far have turned over Coventry, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Cardiff twice. It’s moved the Giants up into the top half of the table going into the second half of the season. MORE »

Tonight is the last home game before Christmas and the league leading Blaze come into our barn for a tilt that last time out between the two teams in Coventry shockingly had the Giants winning AND shutting out their opponent. The Giants form has been inconsistent of late, I guess that goes for the season but they’ve slowly been climbing the standings and enter the festive season with the chance of closing the gap even more on the top teams.

It’s probably unrealistic to expect the Giants to win the league this year but they will make the playoff knockout stage and so have a season long run to prepare for it and to push for the final four and possibly the final trophy of the 07-08 season. Now that would cap off the season nicely. MORE »

(Image stolen from Giants website but I’m sure they wont mind!!)

This is one of the nicest Giants jersey’s of all time and to think it was probably thrown together over a few weeks to raise some extra cash in a raffle over the festive season. I may be missing the games they will be worn over Christmas but I will certainly be leaving some cash behind to cover the cost of entering the raffle to get my hands on one of them. Beauties.

Normally when I look at the fixtures and see a road game in Coventry I mark that down as one I expect them to lose, afterall the Giants never beat Coventry nevermind in Coventry and after a defeat on Friday night I fully believe this would be a losing weekend to forgot. Then the Giants gave me a kick in the ass, reminding me to show more faith more often as they rolled into the Coventry Sky Dome and took all two points with a 2-0 shutout to boot. It was a major result against the runaway league leaders that will install a confidence into the Giants players that anyone and everyone is beatable.

British netminder Stevie Lyle was the hero of the night and deserves the praise he’s been getting so far this year. Is it to early to take a leaf out of the NHL teams books and try lock this guy up for next year already?

Boy, I love beating Coventry.

Them games hurt. Your in the game, it’s tied, it’s heading for OT and possibly a shootout and a solid point is up for grabs when . . . Wham . . . Nottingham score with thirty seconds to go and all the points are lost and a home defeat is inflicted.

While the game may be remembered by the fans more for the Giants mascott the Gorilla being attacked by an idiotic over weight Nottingham fan in the crowd, much to the horror of a group of 8-10 year olds looking on. The Gorilla suffered minor injuries including the loss of his head while the perpatrator who clearly had issues with being able to handle his drink was escorted out of the arena.

I’ll not comment much on a disapointing result on the ice either but while Nottingham fans were concentrating on the Gorilla their players were stealing the show on the ice . . . As Shane Johnson pinched into the play on the final minute the Panthers hit the Giants on a 2 on 1 break and made them pay. It left me wondering was it not the sensible thing to sit back, play out the final minute and guarantee yourselves a point before going for the extra one in OT? I guess not and we ended up with nothing.

It’s the first home game I’ve gotten to in almost a month. It feels like a brand new season for me. Not seeing the team play for so long has felt like a mini off season. Tonight rivals Nottingham come into town and with a win the Giants can propel themselves up above the Panthers in the Elite League standings.

The Giants and Panthers have had some heated battles over the years though with Carlyle Lewis still out with a leg injury it’s unlikely to be as physical as in previous years though you never can tell. I just hope the Panthers don’t try taking liberties with our team missing the muscle from Carlyle.

It’s pretty clear I don’t like the Panthers at all and after such a poor start to the season it would be pretty sweet to now climb above them in the table.

It didn’t take Troy Neumeier long to find employment elsewhere. He has gone from mid-table to top of the table after signing a short-term month long contract with the injury riddled Blaze this week. Speaking on his signing and his release from the Giants Troy admitted he was ‘Quite surprised to be let go’. He revealed that even with the Giants needing to release one player after getting to full health claimed ‘I really didn’t expect it to be me’.

Still he can take comfort in the fact that he’s now playing at the top of the league. Hopefully with the extra month of income he can take his time to find a new permanent role.

It could have been worse, much worse and Carlyle Lewis will be thanking his lucky stars that he will only miss a few weeks of hockey action after a skate blade cut open his leg spilling blood onto the ice in Edinburgh on Saturday night ending the second period early. He was able to leave the ice under his own power but was rushed immediately to hospital were he was told that he would need emergency surgery but after further examination the doctors realized that the cut was not as deep as they thought. He received stitches to close the wound and was discharged late Saturday night. He will most likely be out two weeks to let the leg heal completely.

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!!!

The ‘Christmas’ double header vs Edinburgh is back again and tonight is round one of the two games. Here’s some updates from the game with thanks to fans feedback on KotG, box scores on ih-update and other text messages . . .

- I’m picking up updates at the end of the second period only having just finished watching a shocking Liverpool performance on Setanta Sports.
- Three fights in this game and the boxing tonight hasn’t even started. Perhaps a hockey game will break out in Las Vegas tonight.
- Apparantly the second period has been ended early due to an injury to Carlyle Lewis. Sounds like it must be pretty serious. Fingers crossed.
- Any chance of grabbing Troy quickly before he heads home? I worried someone would end up getting injured this weekend. It’s just our luck.
- Sutter is looking for his scond hat trick of the season tonight. He’s made up for his early penalty that gave Edinburgh the league by scoring two goals and adding an assist in this game.
- And Sutter has his hat trick - All three on the power play.
- Campbell now grabs a goal, the only goal not score on the power play so far tonight.
- Edinburgh score and the Giants then retain their 6-2 lead through Sutter yet again. Thats four for him now and finally one not on the power play. The Giants power play is really clicking. Thank goodness Sutter wasn’t the one cut this weekend!!
- Is this a wind-up? Sutter has just bagged his fifth of the night. Is this some kind of record? Time to play Sutter as much as possible and keep feeding him the puck. The double hat trick is on.
- Both back-up tenders are on the ice. Young Adam Cree makes his debut making him the youngest ever Giants player. Goodluck kid.
- The fighting continues as Mo drops the gloves with #21 according to ih-update. #21 also picked up a boarding call earlier in the game . . . Bit of pay back from the Mo train?
- I wonder if the 4 fights in this game is a single game record for the Giants?
- Just checked, the 4 fights tie a record, the five Sutter goals becomes a new goals in a game record for the Giants AND Adam Cree becomes the youngest Giants player ever.
- Thats a wrap. 7-2 win. Those there witnessed some historic stuff and the best part . . . Theres more to come tomorrow night.

It’s never fun to see a man loose his job just a few weeks prior to Christmas but it was a position the Giants were in and it was a decision Ed had to take to appease league rules. We had 11 imports and with the league rules stating only ten and with everyone now healthy in the Giants lineup someone had to go. According to Ed it was between three men and Troy got the chop.

Troy had been playing very well lately, a top stay-at-home defenceman and so a few eyebrows were raised at the choice but then what player wouldn’t have raised a few eyebrows if he had been cut. Everyone has been playing pretty well. I’d love to know what it was that made Ed decide on Troy but so long as the team continue to win games then we’ll never know and never need to know. I suspect it came down to Age. At 37 Troy is probably in his final pro-season whereas a younger guy like Trevor Johnson has years left to give and would be seen to have more of a future potentially at the team.

Make no mistakes Ed will live or die by the decision should results not go our way but nobody wanted to be in Ed’s position to make such a decision and so whatever decision he made had to be supported and we’ll trust his decision going into the double header in Edinburgh this weekend.

There were times earlier this year we were happy with Courtenay making any changes to improve the team and given the chances we all would have liked his job to make the changes as people debated and generally agreed for once on the message forums on who had to go.

But now Ed is in a position that nobody is envious of. He must pick a player to cut from a side that has been winning. MORE »