The Giants awards dinner took place last night and for the 4th time in team history the club MVP weas a goalie (Mike Bales, Martin Klempa and Stevie Lyle were the others). Stephen Murphy won the fans vote for his part in leading the team to a second place finish in the league title which included him racking up a club record 8 shutouts over the course of the season. On the night, Murphy also announced he would be returning next season which is a welcome early piece of news for next years line-ups.

The other standout awards was the Coaches player and players player awards, both won by Brandon Benedict. I remember Dave Matsos once said, upon winning the players player of the year award in 2003, that it means that little bit more to get voted as the best player by you’re follow team-mates. For Benedict to win both the players player award and coaches player award says a lot.

Below is a list of all the awards and although I didn’t see any games this year in person, going by the reaction of some fans I have talked to, nobody is too upset with the outcome.

Award winners:
Fans MVP — Stephen Murphy
Leading Scorer — Colin Shields
Fan Favourite Award — Sean McMorrow
Best Defenceman — Tim Cook
Best Forward — Colin Shields
Unsung Hero — Michael Jacobsen
Most Improved Player — Craig Peacock
Coach’s Player of the Year — Brandon Benedict
Player’s Player of the Year — Brandon Benedict

All-Time team MVP:
2000/01 — Shane Johnson, D
2001/02 — Mike Bales, G
2002/03 — Robby Sandrock, D
2003/04 — Jason Ruff, LW
2004/05 — Martin Klempa, G
2005/06 — Theoren Fleury, C
2006/07 — Jason Ruff, LW
2007/08 — Stevie Lyle, G
2008/09 — Paul Deniset, C
2009/10 — Stephen Murphy, G

Following tonight’s thumping of the Panthers the Giants have now had nine, yep just nine, shutouts away from home (37 in total) in their history and Stephen Murphy has two of them, both back-to-back. That’s 22% of all away game shutouts in the ten year history of our club. 4-0 was the score in game two of the home and home series with the Panthers to give the Giants all four point and an aggregate score of 10-3. Nottingham who were top of the table going into the weekend now find themselves in second with a three way tie for first place on points with the Giants and Blaze on 26 points. The problem for the Panthers after this disaster weekend is that they have played 22 games compared to the Giants 19 and Blaze’s 16.

Games in hand are only good if you win them but the Giants and Blaze are certainly throwing down a message to the Panthers that they will have to pick it up or risk falling behind. For the Giants the weekend couldn’t have went off better. Four points clawed back on Nottingham and holding pace with Coventry.

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