Perhaps looking for a fellow and regular dance partner, Giants enforcer Sean McMorrow has welcomed tough nut Mike Sgroi to the Sheffield Steelers calling him “an excellent addition to the Steelers team and a great signing for the Elite League.” Sgroi comes with a reputation of being a guy who can fight and play a bit and should add to the entertainment factor in games between the Giants and Steelers. With the Steelers struggling so far this season, especially domestically, their coach Dave Matsos has looked to shake up the line-up. Brad Cruickshank has moved to Coventry and Sgroi comes in to replace him. The Steelers organization has obviously seen what a McMorrow can do for entertainment with the fans both home and on the road and have looked to bring in someone of a similar ilk. McMorrow himself was full of praise while taking a not-so-subtle dig at his big rival Brad Voth.

“What kind of guy is he? perhaps the complete opposite of a Brad Voth, Mike Sgroi is a team guy, he puts his team first not him self, he will entertain the fans, protect his team mates and do whatever is best for his fellow players, not necessarily what is best for him self, he is the real deal,” clearly letting us know what kind of player he thinks Voth is at the same time and no doubt sparking their rivalry more.

“Mike is respected by many NHL and AHL tough guys as a clean fighter, he is an honest tough guy, sure he knows his role but he wont cheap shot a guy, he won’t try and beat a guy when he is down, the fans of Sheffield are in for a treat, he is the perfect player for the Steelers and the perfect player for our league,” said McMorrow, again pointing a finger towards Voth who McMorrow feels jumped him the last time they played.

McMorrow went on to say what many of us believe, ”The fans in this league deserved to be entertained, I try and do that and so will Mike Sgroi. The Steelers have a good man, a tough man and a good hockey player, the City will love him.”

It wasn’t a weekend to remember for the Belfast Giants as they came up short in one of their worst performances in team history that had the fans booing them off the ice. Although they fired a deceiving, and surely record setting, 72-shots on the Newcastle Vipers goal the effort against a 9 man Newcastle team wasn’t there and they blew a four goal lead to lose 6-5 after a shootout.

Taking an early 4-0 lead had the fans settling into their seats for a Sunday evening snooze as their team had it easy against a Newcastle with such a short bench that they deserved credit for even bothering to show up. Just nine men had taken the ice for the injury hit team and with the score at four they’d have been forgiven for rolling over and taking the thumping that appeared to be coming their way.

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The Giants were in Dundonald tonight trying to overturn a 5-2 defect to the Cardiff Devils from the first leg of their Challenge Cup Semi-Final and looking to return to the final of the competition for the second year in a row and defend the trophy they won last year. Knowing they had given the Devils a three goal lead from the first leg they had to go attacking from the start, not that such a tactic is unusual to the Giants who are known as an offense first club, but tonight the result had to be good. Enforcer Sean McMorrow was scratched from the line-up in return for speed and scoring power through the roster but if post game reports from fans are to be believe, player-coach Steve Thornton only rolled two forward lines anyway and the team didn’t have the legs to claw back the tie and win it.

Dropping behind inside the first three minutes would never help but three goals in the following thirty minutes of play put the score at 6-5 overall and giving the fans that had showed up to the old barn a bit of hope. Hopes were dashed though either side of the second intermission when a power play goal followed by a short handed goal just seconds into the third frame for the Devils put the tie beyond reach.

The Giants didn’t give up however, two Colin Shield’s goals in the final five minutes again pulled the tie within one with the Giants leading 5-3 on the night, but it wasn’t to be and time ran out on their hopes of retaining the trophy.

Voting is complete for the starting line-ups for the EIHL all-star game on 27 January at Ice Sheffield and the announcements of who has made the team, especially from the Giants, has raised some eyebrows, but reminded us the risks involved with fan votes.

Stephen Murphy, Colin Shields and Jeff Szwez all made it, and rightly so, but Sean McMorrow, enforcer for the Giants and a fan favorite, has also been voted onto the team and while McMorrow is great to watch, even he would admit that he is a little out of place on an ‘all-star’ team in that sense of the word.
But then again, this is a popularity contest among EIHL fans and people want to see McMorrow and while he won’t fight or even hit, no doubt he’ll be entertaining in some capacity.

The Elite British All-Stars, coached by Sheffield’s Dave Matsos, will be back-stopped by Stephen Murphy of the Belfast Giants. Patrolling the blueline will be Coventry’s Jonathan Weaver and Stevie Lee from the Nottingham Panthers. Completing the line-up are forwards Colin Shields (Belfast Giants), David Clarke (Nottingham Panthers) and Lee Esders (Hull Stingrays).

The Overseas All-Stars, will be coached by Nottingham Panthers’ Corey Neilson. In-between the pipes will be Peter Hirsch of the Coventry Blaze, while defencemen Dominic D’Amour (Nottingham Panthers) and Adam Knight (Hull Singrays) have been selected at the back. Belfast Giants’ enforcer Sean McMorrow and team-mate Jeff Szwez will be joined by Panthers’ leading goalscorer Jade Galbraith to complete the line-up.

— eliteleague.co.uk, 6 Jan’10

Some fans will be frustrated about fan voting making a mockery out of an all-star game, but lets face it, this isn’t a serious game – it’s a gimmick – so why not have some fun with it by indeed letting fans vote. The rest of the teams will be selected by the respective coaches and I would expect the import all-stars to win pretty comfortably.

By the way, is there a skills competition?

In my last blog I wrote off the Giants title hopes following news that they had been stuffed by their title rivals the Coventry Blaze 7-1 and felt that after blowing the must win game, they now relied on a lot of luck from other teams in which to win the title because the Giants had only three more games against the Blaze directly. But then I started updating the league table on the site here and noticed that the game at the top is not as bad as I first thought it ought to be now.

The Giants currently sit four points back on the Blaze but having played two games more and with Nottingham wedged in between them having played two more times than the Giants. So yes the Giants will look for the Blaze to drop points, but in theory beating them in the three remaining games can still salvage the season. Of course there are a few things against that.

1. They haven’t beat the Blaze all season so exciting three wins on the trots seems like a big ask, though in hockey, never rule anything out.

2. The Giants need to go almost perfect the rest of the way if they are expecting the Blaze to do likewise (not withstanding the three head-to-head games), though there is every chance the Blaze will hit a few hurdles along the way.

But think about it, there is still 24 league games to be played which means there is a lot of wins and defeats to come and also injuries, for both teams. So I was a little hasty in my anger at reading the awful result against our title rivals to call the title race over. There is still lots to be played, the Giants just need to find a way to sort out their form against the team they want to beat to the title.