Suffice to say, the run-in for Belfast isn’t too kind and they’ll require one hell of a favour from either Newcastle or Braehead to have any shot at the title. And not to forget the Cardiff Devils of course. They sit nicely poised in third, two points back of first but with a game in hand. They could yet win the title and relegate the Giants to third place.

Below is a look at the final games for the three league title fighting sides:

Steelers last 3
A – Newcastle, 13 Mar
A – Braehead, 19 Mar
H – Braehead, 20 Mar

Giants last 3
H – Newcastle, 12 Mar
A – Nottingham, 19 Mar
A – Coventry, 20 Mar

Devils last 4
A – Hull, 12 Mar
H – Nottingham, 13 Mar
H – Coventry, 19 Mar
A – Edinburgh, 20 Mar

To put it bluntly, the Giants absolutely must win their final three games. Newcastle is – sadly – virtually a given, while Nottingham and Coventry are likely to prove a challenge. Sure Coventry are a shadow of their title winning side last year but they have the potential to always be a threat and that should be considered in the fact that if the Giants do finish third, they’ll be playing Coventry in that first round playoff match-up. Second would get them Hull, and the title would have them play Dundee.

But winning those final games in the league season will mean nothing if the Sheffield Steelers don’t somehow buckle under pressure in one (or more) of their games against Braehead and Newcastle. Like the Giants game against Newcastle tomorrow night, a victory for the Steelers is to be expected, so it’ll be the inaugural side from Glasgow that Giants fans will turn to to help them out. They’ve had a very impressive first campaign – looking set to finish in 5th place – but if you’re a Sheffield fan this is still the kind of run in you’d have taken at the start of the year if presented with this scenario.

As for Cardiff, well, much like the Giants they must go through Nottingham and Coventry if they want to win the title, but unlike the Giants they get to host both teams at home. Nottingham remains the Giants best bet to scupper Cardiff’s chances and while Coventry will prove a test, both fixtures are sandwiched by almost certain wins against Hull and Edinburgh.

Still, having watched this sport for well over ten years and seen many a Giants title challenge, one thing I do know is that the most unexpected results usually show up at this time of year and with the pressure on count on this title race having another sting in its tail.

Losing by one or two points would be tough to take and leave the Giants fans wondering all summer where exactly it all went wrong. Was it the bad form over Christmas when I just so happened to be at home to catch my only games of the season, or was it this past week when they lost a big game in Sheffield? But one reason to be optimistic even if things don’t quite go our way: We’ve been here before, fallen short but rebounded to win the playoffs. Just last year Coventry edged us out by just 1 point before our final four success. And even more memorable, in 2002/03 after a successful run in the Continental Cup, the Giants returned on a high, feeding their fans pint glasses of belief that they would storm on and win the league championship only to fall short by 1 point against Sheffield on the final day. A few weeks later they were playoff champions for the first time.

Pointless facts

While checking out the league table for this piece I came across some interesting stats.

* This year the Belfast Giants are third to the Edinburgh Capitals (603) and Braehead Clan (705) in total penalty minutes with just 720. It puts them well on pace for the lowest total number of penalty minutes for a season in team history. The current lowest ever is 978 in the 2001/02 season.

* The team are just forth in the league in goal scoring which is unusual for a Giants team that is normally right up near – or at – the top when it comes to goals per game average. Still, showing how big the gap is between the top and bottom of the Elite League and how many goals the top teams are running up against the smaller sides, the Giants have still averaged 4.25 goals per game which if the season ended now would still be comfortably the most they have ever averaged in a season. Actually, even if they went scoreless the final three league games, they would still break their present best goals per game average of 4.00 in 2008/09 by 0.02. For what it’s worth, the lowest remains the inaugural season in 2000/01 with 3.29.

* And why not sign off on some grim news. While researching the previous topic I noticed just how long it has been since we had the joy of celebrating a league title. It’s easy to forget just how long this team have actually been around now. I sometimes consider the Giants a new team – and in the grand old scheme of hockey history, they are – but considering the comings and goings of the British game the Giants have been around a fair little while now. Success came early and quick with a league title in 2001/02 and we only had to wait four seasons for more of the same in the Theo Fleury season of 2005/06, but it’ll be five full seasons – or almost half our history – since we don’t manage to pip the Steelers and Devils to the crown this year out. Thankfully last seasons playoff success has kept us a trophy winning side of some sort.

For the first time in playoff final history, the final was shown live on Sky Sports 2, which was ideal for those of us who couldn’t be in Nottingham and so for me personally the timing couldn’t have been better. So at 4 p.m. yesterday afternoon I cracked a cold beer, sat down on the recliner, and settled in for the game. The first two periods of the game had the Giants struggling badly, yet they somehow took a 2 goal lead during the second frame. The breakout passes from the Giants team were poor and the turnover rate very high and only Jeffrey Szwez and Brandon Benedict appeared to be really stepping up for the Giants team over the course of the entire game. Nobody else was playing badly, but other than the two mentioned players, the rest were drifting in and out of the game and Cardiff must have been wondering how they were behind after being the better team through the two periods? But then, just seconds after the Giants made it 2-0 through a tip-in by George Awada, with Brandon Benedict scoring a similar such goal not long before, the Devils struck with their first goal and only minutes later tied it up as the period came to a close. They fully deserved to be level with a period to play.

The third period seen the Giants start to finally play Hockey on a consistent basis as the Devils started to tire. The longer the period went on the more I felt the Giants were going to find a way to win it, but as it turned out the Giants had scored two goals while not playing so well, yet when they were putting together their best periods of play they couldn’t get the puck past their ex-goalie Stevie Lyle, who like Stephen Murphy at the other end, was putting up a fine display. Who would have thought back when the Giants won their last playoff crown in 2003 that seven years down the line when they next got to the final that two British goalies would be between the pipes? Who would have thought it would take seven years to get back? But that thought aside, the two British goalies were on their game.

Overtime brought more end to end Hockey as I hoped the Giants would win it before it went to the dreaded penalty shootout. Now of course, I’d rather the Giants win it in a shootout than lose it in overtime, but I wasn’t excited about the prospect of the game being won and lost in a glorified skills competition but as the ten minute overtime ticked down it was getting more and more clear that neither goalie was going to blow it for their team. The game was becoming a goalie duel and probably the only man on the ice that looked like he could swing the result was Jeffrey Szwez. He couldn’t though and the contest indeed headed for the penalties.

It was tough to watch, but through my hands I forced myself to watch what was happening on the TV screen. First up was Max Birbraer who missed and he was followed by Evan Cheverie who also failed to find the net. Wes Jarvis, Tom Walsh, Mark Smith and Jeffrey Szwez all went next and all missed. Szwez had come up big in the semi-final with two shootout goals but couldn’t repeat it tonight, so when it went into sudden death and Max Birbraer missed his shot, Evan Cheverie got to go again and this time had the winning shot on his stick. He came in, considered deaking for a split second but then before those of us watching could think what me might do he snapped a wrist shot, hard and high and right into the top right corner of the net. The crowd went wild, Cheverie wheeled away with his arms up and I jumped across my living room, but for a split second I had to tell myself that this goal had won it, regardless of the fact that I knew before he took the shot that scoring it would have won it. Cheverie himself seemed to take longer to realise. Celebrating like he’d just scored one of the three in the shootout, but not thee one, he eventually realised, threw down his gloves and sticks and jumped into the arms of the on rushing team that had come charging off the bench to join the celebrations.

The medals were presented to each player before the trophy presentation proper. Captain Colin Shields, the EIHL player of the year, came up, grabbed the trophy and then skated hard to the corner of the arena were the Giants fans were seated to raise it to be cheers. As he turned around he could be seen asking, “Where’s Johnny? Where’s Johnny?,” before notcing him, skating too him and handing him the trophy to next raise up. That was Shane Johnson, just finished his final Giants game and the final Hockey game of his long successful career. Shane, who has been with the Giants since the clubs first ever game was going out in fine style, a playoff champions and with the trophy above his head. Next in line was Mark Morrison, another player rumored to be leaving the club at the seasons end but who has given some great service to the club over the years. He may have been on the bench throughout this game, but when he’s been called on over the years to either play a gritty forechecking shift to give the top line players a breather, or even get into a scrap, he’s always answered the bell. Stephen Murphy took the trophy next – the best goalie in the Elite League this season and one the Giants must look to retain next season – and so the trophy went round each player who go their turn to raise it before the Giants fans.

Looking over the players standing on the ice waiting on their trophy the camera panned across Rob Stewart. A legend of the Belfast Giants but a quiet man of the organisation, Rob’s part in the Giants successes in recent seasons has been massivly underrated. While Steve Thornton has been a terriffic coach the past two years for the Giants having lead them to the Challenge Cup and Knockout cup last year and now the playoff title this season, he has also spent a fair amount of time taking shifts on the ice while Rob Stewart has been the man in the shirt and tie behind the bench, looking for things Thornton might miss while on the ice, and keeping things running well. Rob Stewart might have had a tough year as coach in his only season in charge of the Giants in 03/04 following their previous playoff victory, but most of the troubles that year were very much out of his hands, and this season he has really proved himself as a fine bench boss when the coach himself is adding to the performances on the ice. Rob Stewart, like the GM Todd Kelman and the outgoing champion Shane Johnson, has been with the organisation since the first season and it was great to see him become a champions yet again.

And now into the summer, another off season and the rumour mill will officially open. Following their 2003 playoff success the Giants had the most turbulant summer of them all when the team looked like it might fold for a while before just about scraping an organisation together and a set of players to enter the season but this time around the summer of 2010 promises to be one of more calm waters. While the likes of Awada, Johnson and Morrison may well move on and pass the torch to a new era of players, the Giants will not likely have finacial woes and Steve Thornton can go about retaining a solid core of this years team while recruiting some new faces that will help the Giants retain their competitive edge that has seen them win this playoff championship while hoping to go one point better in the league and win that as well.

Enjoy your summers and revel in the clubs success.

The show has just started and one of the analysits is Steelers coach and ex-Giant Dave Matsos. The year the Giants won the trophy in ’03 he scored one of the goals.

Enjoy.

So far it’s been a wonderful weekend of sport for a Giants and Liverpool fan. United lost to Chelsea, Spurs lost to Sunderland and Coventry are out of the playoffs. And that is a very nice set of welcome gifts upon my return to Belfast for my first visit in fifteen months and a nice consolation for not being able to make the playoff final weekend for the second time in a row now.

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.