The Elite League allows an appeal process for suspensions to players but they don’t actually have rules to govern appeals. What next? I mean we’ve had the on/off two-referee system and now appeals with no rules to govern them? It all comes off the back of Steve Thornton’s 9-game ban which he is yet to serve as he waits for his appeal to be heard. Interesting though that the cost of an appeal at two-thousand pounds are in place but no rules to govern it exist.

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The Giants officially announced George Awada as club captain today after coach Steve Thornton had tired a number of players out in the roll to see who fitted best. In the end it came down to a player vote and Awada won the decision by a long shot. It’ll be George’s 4th year as captain of the Belfast Giants and it was a roll I felt was only a matter of time before he got it. Awada has been an excellent leader over his time in Belfast and while at times his points production could be questioned his effort never could.

He is by for the longest serving captain in team history and should the Giants win silverware this season, especially the playoffs, he will be arguably one of the best. Until now only Paul Kruse has captained the Giants to playoff glory.

Bobby Robins, some peoples tip for the captaincy, was awarded an ‘A’ along with Paul Deniset and Mark Morrison. Mo will wear the other ‘A’ on home games with Deniset wearing it on the road. That should keep everyone happy.

If it is not bad enough that the Giants are playing these days without two of their import players due to injury they now could face a very stiff suspension to coach Steve Thornton if the EIHL has anything to say about the incident in tonights game. To see if for yourself click here to view the Vipers post game highlight show – an excellent package I must say – and decide for yourself. To be honest, it doesn’t look good for Stevie and the way the league has set a president of late he could be looking at quite a bit of time off.

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The big question going into tonight’s game with Newcastle with the Giants was how the Giants would react to their first defeat of the season. After their best ever start to a season at five straight wins, they lost last night in Newcastle. Tonight they remained in Newcastle for the second game of a double header but cast any doubts of a potential slump aside with a 3-1 win. Two of the three goals came on the power play which to date in the season had been so strong but had let them down the night before. Newcastle of course showed us they cannot lose with grace and threw the toys out of the pram in the final moments of the game. The win keeps the Giants up at the top of the Elite League.

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The boys are back on the ice in Newcastle at the moment as part of a double header. Following last weeks thrashing of the Vipers the Giants were expected by some to repeat that performance in Newcastle last night. It wasn’t to be however as they crashed to their first defeat of the season after six games. Newcastle promised revenge for what they thought was the Giants trying to embarrass them last week but they kept that revenge for the scoreboard. They still took quite a few penalties compared to the Giants two, but the Giants power play was off its usual form and they couldn’t capatalise and went down 4-3.

Tonight they will look to bounce back and it’ll be interesting to see how this team responds to a defeat for the first time.