Well if you like your goals and were in Basingstoke tonight then you had a great time. Well maybe not if you were a Basingstoke fan! As I sat on the dentists chair the Giants were doing their thing against the leagues worst team by racking up eight goals in a match that seen the red light come on thirteen times in all. Andrew Martin scored two goals and had three points for a big five point night while Paul Deniset had a goal and three assists for four points.

Basingstoke clearly showed why they are the leagues worst team and the Giants showed what they can do when things come together for them in front of goal. Shane Johnson had a short handed goal and they scored two on the power play out of five chances. Evan Cheverie who grabbed a loan goal in the contest managed to pick up the man-of-the-match award.

They also did it without Rushton, Robins, Sample and Thornton, making it even more impressive.

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Sheffield lost tonight against Hull giving the Giants a wonderful opportunity to get right back into the title race with a victory over Newcastle. Unfortunately two ex-Giants players came back to haunt their old team in the worst possible way as the Vipers beat Belfast 6-3. Our old player-coach Ed Courtenay picked up 2 goals and 2 assists while one time winger Jeff Hutchins grabbed a hat trick.

Mark Morrison put in the best performance for the Giants picking up two goals as well as their man of the match performance. Although the game passed off more peacefully than some might have expected there was still a few donnybrooks when Jason Rushton and Andre Payette squared up in the pre-game warm-up before Rushton picked up two fighting majors against Chris McAllister and Derek Campbell. Rushton also scored an assist in the game but missed the entire third period due to a hand injury. It is not yet clear how serious the injury is.

Jason Rushton will have to be on the top of his game tonight as the Giants travel into Newcastle to play the Vipers for the first time since the double header in the Odyssey last month when fights broke out all over the place. The Vipers were furious the way things went down, never mind the fact they lost both games. They have promised pay back and have promoted the game as the Giants circus coming to town. The odds on Rushton and Payette fighting again are tiny and the chances of their being more fights than goals are good as well.

I don’t mind. So long as the Giants come home with the two points and without injuries then I am all for us beating them up along the way. It is going to be entertaining but unfortunately I am not going to be able to watch it. Oh well, I am sure the fight videos will surface sometime after the game.

By all accounts last nights game between Belfast and Manchester was far from a classic. The atmosphere was flat and neither teams were playing the way they can when the passes are on the tape and the shots are really making the goalies work, but the Giants were leading the contest when the final hooter blew and that is all that matters.

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I always quite liked midweek games at the Odyssey. A lot of people didn’t because it meant a smaller crowd but I always enjoyed sitting in work knowing I had a game that evening to look forward too. You could stay up in town after work, go to the bar for a few drinks and be in a great mood come 7.30 p.m. and face off time.

I hate midweek games now. I’m stuck in work because of the time difference and I can’t even watch the games online. So on that note there will be no preview, just the information that the Giants play Manchester tonight, that Rushton will almost certainly fight Clouthier and that face off is from 7.30 p.m.