Happy Birthday Belfast Giants!

Posted on Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 at 10:44 am

Ten years ago to the day, on December 2nd 2000, we played our very first home game at the Odyssey Arena against the Ayr Scottish Eagles. Walking out of the tunnel that night is one of my favourite memories I have ever had in this sport. The Odyssey Arena was jammed for warm up, probably partly because of the delay due to the crowds outside and probably partly because alot of people there that night didn’t necessarily understand the game that well. I have to admit, we all found it a bit strange to have people cheering when we scored during warm up on our own goalie, but I kind of liked that.

I couldn’t tell you a single goal scorer that night, but I remember how loud it was when we scored our first goal. The Arena was deafening! There were times that night when we couldn’t hear our coach Dave Whistle talking to us on the bench because of the roar of the crowd, who basically cheered from the opening face off until the final buzzer.

Of course the guys that dropped the gloves that night became instant legends, Jason Bowen and of course Paxton Schulte who was the talk of the town from that moment on. Within the week, Harp (our title sponsors at the time) had life size cut outs of Paxton (in full ice hockey gear holding a pitcher of beer pointing into bars) out front of nearly every Pub in Belfast. I couldn’t go anywhere in town without his smiling face haunting me!

Back to the match and I can’t remember too much of the finer details except that we lost the game, but it didn’t feel like it that night. You could tell that something special had hit Belfast that day. The crowds and the media attention continued to grow throughout that first season, but more importantly people fell in love with this great game. We still have many season ticket holders that have been here since day one. Along the way we have seen some come and go, as we have with players, but it’s nice to be able to share a memory or two with all of you that were with us on opening night.

Todd Kelman
General Manager