Giants Dim Stars With 7-1 Home Win

Posted on Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 10:43 pm

Upon returning to the Odyssey Arena for the first time in for the first time in 4 weeks the Stena Line Belfast Giants put on a performance for the home fans with no less than 79 penalty minutes, 8 goals and a fight to round off proceedings.

The Giants got on the board with just over a minute played with Benoit Doucet burying a pass from James Hutchinson to put the home team in front.

Doucet then netted his and the Giants second goal after latching on to a lengthy pass from Tom Dignard before rounding Stars netminder Chris Whitley to double the advantage.

The Stars then pulled a goal back through assistant captain Jeff Hutchins who finished off an end to end off man rush beating Murphy with a back door one time shot.

As the period was drawing to a close Referee Michael Hicks had his hand in the air to call a penalty on the Stars but with Murphy making his way to the bench for the extra skater, Jon Pelle jumped over the boards and snapped a one time shot past Whitley taking full advantage of the extra man.

Both teams traded scoring chances in the second period but after 2 periods of play the score remained the same.

In the 3rd the giants came out all guns blazing and netted 4 goals, 3 of which came on the powerplay to end the game as a contest. Jon Pelle netted his second of the night and the Giants 4th at 46:48, Craig Peacock added another powerplay goal at 41:40 and Robert Dowd also netted with the man advantage just 12 seconds later to make it 6-1.

With the balance well and truly in the Giants favor the Stars elected to change netminders and Christiansen responded by giving backup netminder Andrew Dickson the nod who then replaced Stephen Murphy for the final 8 minutes.

Darryl Lloyd rounded off the scoring netting the Giants 7th goal but that wasn’t the end of the action as Adam Keefe dropped the gloves with Jeff Hutchins bringing the Odyssey faithful to their feet.

The Giants focus now turns the Coventry Blaze who visit the Odyssey tomorrow evening. Tickets for the game are available online at Ticketmaster.ie or by calling the Odyssey Arena Box Office on 028 9073 9074.