Granted you cannot put too much faith into a teams performance in its first game, especially a team with such as high turnover of players that we see with the Giants. You only have to go back ten years to this very week on September 1, 2001 when the Giants opened the season at home to the London Knights (remember them?) and a 9-3 drubbing. They won the following night in Ayr but in the following four games, all played on the road, the Giants lost two and drew two meaning they had one win to show for the first six games and while I can’t remember for sure, I would stake good money that a number of people jumped on the nearest panic button.

The coach was no doubt called into question, the signings slammed as average and changes demanded. But, showing that chemistry can take time in a league with a miniscule pre-season, the Giants began to bounce back and won six games on the trot. Suddenly all was well again and the club went on to dominate the league campaign, wrapping up the title not long into the new calendar year.

Still, the first game was always fun, always that sense of unknowing about a season ahead, an endless list of possibilities, and, for all the teams, a 0-0-0 record and a fresh start.

Nowadays I don’t get that same feeling of joy. Not because I don’t care, but because I can no longer be a part of it. In Toronto the hockey doesn’t get serious until October and even then it isn’t the same for me. This will be the forth season opener in a row now that I will have missed since leaving in August 2008. When I write it down like that it seems strange. It seems only a year or two ago I was still flashing my season ticket at the door of the Odyssey. But of the ten season openers (including today but not counting the 2000/01 season which didn’t open at home until December) I will have now missed four of them.

Anyway, the team goes on and thankfully new technology allows me to follow the team on the webcast if possible, or at least via Twitter and Facebook. It wasn’t long ago that I’d have been on Ice Web looking for goal updates and that was the best I could get. Technology has made the world a little smaller and on weekends like this when the Belfast Giants take to the ice for another season, I’m thankful.

Good luck to them. I’ll be supporting from afar and dropping the odd note on here.

P.S. You may have notice there is no historic data from the 2010/11 season. That isn’t because I’ve stopped updating the site, it’s because I’ve had a busy summer! I will no longer be updating the site on a game by game or even a monthly basis, but ideally at the end of each season. I’m overdue with 2010/11 but hope to have it all up to speed before the Giants get too far into this season.

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.

The last time I was back over the Christmas/New Years period of 2008 the Giants were in the thick of a title fight and that was much the same this time. Actually, having just checked what I wrote about that visit in December 2008, it appears to have been very similar. Here is what I wrote:

“In the two games I seen over the period I have been back in Northern Ireland the team picked up two points from a game that wasn’t a classic and lost the game that was actually fun to watch.”

This time up I once again took in two games, one was poor and one was entertaining, though they lost both this time and I was quickly shepherded out of the Odyssey and told that I was not the kind of bad aura they needed around the club. My time had been and I could bugger off back to Canada and continue to curse the Toronto Maple Leafs. Apparently they had been playing really well up to this point and winning games and now here they were 0-for-2 in my visit and slipping off the top spot in the table. True to form the Giants won the next game they played while my flight made its way across the Atlantic Ocean.

Much like in 2008 I had been looking forward to putting faces to the names I had been hearing about from the current seasons team. Only 3 players remained from the 2008/09 side (Colin Shields, Graeme Walton, Nathan Craze) and just 1 from the 2007/08 team (Walton) which was the last team I watched with any great frequency. But for all the player changes it was still nice to see that some things hadn’t changed. I seen many of the same faces in the same places, I seen Todd Kelman continuing to run a slick operation, Rob Stewart assisting behind the bench and a Giants team running whoever’s turn it was to challenge them for the championship, close. What I also enjoyed was the Odyssey atmosphere. It might sound strange coming from someone now living in Toronto, but mark my words, there is more noise in the Odyssey Arena than an average night in the Air Canada Centre. Certainly more than at a Marlies game in the AHL, or Majors game in the OHL where fans seem content to sit on their hands and demand the entertainment be provided to them while they watch a lower standard of hockey than their beloved Leafs. (Or so they think!)

Now, 17 days into the new year, with me safely lodged back in Canada the Giants have got back to their winning ways. In an unusual fixture set-up the Giants had three straight games against the Nottingham Panthers in league action; one on the road and two this past weekend in Belfast. The Giants came from behind to win the road match, they then came from behind late to force a shootout in the second game which they lost but stole a point, and then cleaned house in the final game sending Nottingham back to Robin Hood land with their tails between their legs with a 7-2 thumping.

But the Giants are far from coasting. Their little Christmas blip, courtesy of myself, left them chasing the Cardiff Devils and requiring their latest title opposition to somehow find a bad slump of their own to allow the Giants back into the title race. As it stands the Devils lead the Giants by three points but have two games in hand. And let’s not forget one of the Giants oldest rivals when it comes to battling it out for a title – Sheffield – for they are just two points back on Belfast with three games in hand. We’ll need a few favors and we’ll need to make sure we beat both these teams when the chance comes along. These three appear to be the title contending teams leaving Nottingham on the fringes and Coventry – a perennial title contender in the EIHL era – already thinking about next season, or perhaps the playoffs.

At the bottom end things haven’t changed either as Edinburgh bring up the rear and have seemingly thrown in the towel with a league record 18-1 battering from the Steelers and relatively close by comparison 10-2 loss to Hull. That’s 28 goals against in two games and the kind of numbers not seen since my BB U12 football team went on a tear over the 92/93 season. It’s left some wondering whether the EIHL needs to insert a mercy rule as seen in U14 girls baseball here in Ontario. I hope they sort it out quick because continued basement dwelling is bad enough for the fans, but results like that will see them gone quicker than Sean Berens upon releasing a CD about whichever city he happens to be in at the time.

Still, it was great to be back and I hope its not two full years before I’m back again, but like all the things I mentioned that are still the same, one of the most typical is that the Giants are not just in a title race, but making sure they have it anything but easy. It’s the Giants way to drag it out, keep us on the edge of our seats and then either nick it or blow it. Nicking it will ensure a playoff collapse, while blowing it will confirm an April victory at the final four in Nottingham. You decide what you’d prefer, but if you really want the league title then you had better get me some plane tickets to Cardiff, and quick.

And what else could I make it but wholly positive given that I haven’t been to a single game. Actually, my first game of the season and my first Giants game for two full years will be this Christmas period when I return from Canada for little more than a week to spend the festive season with family, friends and long-lost pints of Harp courtesy of the Odyssey arena.

So given that I haven’t seen any games it’s going to be quite a challenge to actually give any kind of review, but looking at the table alone paints a pretty good picture and the league table never lies right? At least it never lies when your team is on top having played more than all but two other teams. I don’t know how the individual games have been for the regular attendees, but again, the table suggests that it’s been a hell of a lot better for the Giants fans than it has for the fans of Newcastle.

At the time of writing the Giants sit top on 45 points through 28 games with just four defeats in regulation. They are 7 points clear of second and third place Sheffield Steelers and Nottingham Panthers though both have three games in hand. Cardiff sit forth with five games in hand and nine points back meaning that if they were to win all their games they would move into first, though the Giants will play them over Christmas and gain the opportunity to make that opportunity impossible for Cardiff.

Things certainly look good as the table takes that predictable shape of the arena teams near the top and the smaller sides in the bottom half. The only two standout surprises is that Coventry – normally a perennial title contender – sit fifth 15 points off the pace, and league newcomers Braehead Clan sit sixth, albeit eight points back on Coventry having played three more.

Another number which jumped out at me was the total penalty minutes per side. The Giants are usually at the sharp end when it comes to spending minutes in the box with 1492 a club record set last season. This year though a disciplined Giants side have taken just 379 penalty minutes in league action and challenge cup action (a group they also comfortably top) meaning that at this rate they will surely beat their record low of 978 in 2001/02, a year they ran away with the league title before falling a part in the post-season.

Doug Christiansen has clearly settled in well and moulted the team quickly in his own style and that seems to be working. He’s gone through a vast number of players in comparison to other seasons though by no choice of his own and certainly not for performance related reasons. Instead the Giants have battled injury woes all season long with fill in players coming and going to help make up the numbers and keep the team competitive. I imagine if you were to ask Doug what his wish for Christmas was, it would be a healthy line-up for the rest of the season that continues where they have left off in 2010 – winning.

But even should it all go to pot and even should the team fail to win another game and their enforcer Mike Hoffman win another fight the rest of the way, they’ll both be winners in my eyes thanks to an elf suit and that Christmas parody of “All I want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey, which has gone huge on You Tube.and if released as a single would surely be doing to the UK top 40 what the team are currently doing to the Elite League top 10.