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.

Read More»

Game one of the home and home series with the Nottingham Panthers is done and it is advantage Belfast heading to Nottingham tomorrow night. The Giants downed one of their biggest contenders for the league title 6-3 tonight in front of a loud Belfast crowd that got to see a high scoring physical game of hockey – a throwback to the Giants – Panthers games of old that will no doubt have stirred the memories of many. The Giants got two goals from Brits Craig Peacock and Colin Shields while skilled/tough guy Jeff Szwez was ejected from the game for cross-checking and fighting.

Szwez was cross-checked by Panther Corey Neilson as part of a ploy by the Panthers to wind Szwez up. It worked and Szwez retaliated by cross-checking Neilsen in what some are saying was the neck region. It put Neilsen down and coming to his rescue was Cameroon Mann who was quickly pummeled earning Szwez the ejection. Some will be concerned about Szwez’s discipline given the fact other teams are starting to target the Giants most dangerous player, but the Giants still won the game so it didn’t hurt them and the only one hurting in the morning might well be Neilson, and I sure hope that is the case.

Read More»

Sean McMorrow is set to drop his gloves for the Giants cause again tonight and is making sure everyone is aware of it in the media prior to the Giants double header with Nottingham this weekend. In a potential battle to see who leads the Elite League after the weekend the two teams will do battle with the puck and it seems with their fists.

McMorrow’s latest challenge is to Panthers newboy, Mario Larocque who comes with a tough reputation but one which McMorrow wants to put to the test. He feels Larocque would be doing his team-mate Bergin a favor by stepping up as McMorrow has fought and beat him twice this year.

Read More»

Normally when you win 3-0 all the attention is around the goalie for picking up the shutout and while nothing will be taken away from Murphy for another fine performance between the pipes, all the talk will centre around new boy Jeff Szwez and his two goal debut performance. He only met up with his new team-mates earlier in the week but seems to have settled immediately as seen by tonights showing. Not only did the result come against the Panthers, but against the league leading Panthers and was enough to jump the Giants to the top of the Elite League table. Thank you Jeff Szwez. Read More»

NOTTINGHAM V BELFAST
HULL V BELFAST
5-6/9/09

And so we have it. The first weekend of Giants Hockey 09/10 is behind us, all the good feelings are gone and we are back into the depths of another hockey season. Thornton’s first mistake of the year was allowing this teams chances of a perfect undefeated season to slip away at the very first game … how dare we lose one and lose one so early at that. Fingers were pointed following the defeat to Nottingham and questions were asked about Thornton’s goaltender selection given that Murphy was supposedly ’50-50′ to make the start just 24-hours earlier having been an injury risk and about the ice time handed to Sean McMorrow. Rational explanations such as McMorrow carrying a bit of an injury were ignored, at least until the following night when the team put things to right with a 3-2 victory over that British Hockey juggernaught, Hull. Read More»