High Quality Brits Were The Key To Our Success

Posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

The countdown is now on. There is only three months left in our off season and I can’t wait to start things up again with a new batch of Giants. With a year under my belt and a successful season behind me I am feeling quite a lot more comfortable and confident then I did at this time last year venturing into the unknown!

Some of our rivals are really starting to put some good teams together and I feel that this eight team league will be bitterly contested with everyone team having the ability to beat anyone. I think that we had the right formula last season and that the injuries we sustained were the biggest difference between us and Sheffield. I am not saying that we would have won the league had we stayed healthy as the Steelers were an excellent side and thoroughly deserved both trophies but I think that we would have pushed them right until the last few weekends. In saying that, looking back at what we accomplished is much more satisfying now a few months into the summer than it was at the end of the season dinner after we had just lost a heart breaker to the Devils.

I think that the depth provided by high quality brits was the key to our success last year. With our injuries and travel schedule it could have devastated other teams in the league but we were still able to pull in half of the available trophies. I think that we have another great group of non imports lined up for next season and I am expecting improvement out of the returnees. We all know what Shieldsy can provide as he is a very gifted player. He may have been the best player in the league from January to April. Davey Phillips was my biggest gamble last year and he turned out to be one of my best signings. His ice time will go up from last year if that is possible as he has now proven to me that he deserves to be on the power play here. Both of those two are as good if not better than the majority of imports in our league.

When Stevie Lyle decided that his future was to be in Cardiff with his family we moved on Stephen Murphy very quickly. We did briefly speak with a few of the big name import goalies like Koenig and Verner but we couldn’t get close to their salary demands as they are looking for a big pay day and both deserve it as they are great goalies and proven in better hockey countries than this one. I highly doubt that any team in our league would be able to afford an import goalie like either of those two without sacrificing the rest of their roster or blowing away the wage cap. No team can sacrifice that much of their overall budget to sign one player. We would have also had to find another British skater to play in our top four defensemen or top nine forwards which would not have been cheap.

As Davey was viewed last season, Murf will be my seen as my riskiest signing for the upcoming campaign. I really don’t feel like he is though, I actually think that he will be our most important signing. Not only is he one of the best goalies in the league in that he steals games, he is consistent, his stats are great, he is low maintenance and on top of this he is British which is like having an extra import and as I mentioned earlier, this is crucial for Belfast. I also believe that we would have lost Nathan Craze if we had gone down the import goalie road and Nathan is the best insurance policy in the league. We all know what Wally and Mo provide on and off the ice and they are both still rapidly improving. Craig Peacock is the unknown to us but I can assure you that he isn’t unknown to goalies in the EPL! I went to watch him play last year and he does the little things very well. He makes quick decisions, he is highly skilled and is hungry to emulate the success that Robert Dowd had last year for Sheffield.

If it is a sprint to sign the British players it is a marathon to get the imports. The economy certainly isn’t working in our favour right now with the exchange rates where they are but I can say that we are much further ahead now than we were at this time last season.

Firstly I would like to thank our departing imports for the great job they did as they are going to be a hard act to follow. I wish them the best of luck and I am happy that we were able to help progress their careers. It really is not a bad thing to be seen as a stepping stone onto bigger and better for guys that are looking to come over to Europe. I had my end of the season meetings with the guys and if they told me that their aspirations are to move on, I did everything in my power to help them even though it meant many more sleepless nights dealing with the time difference talking to agents trying to replace them! It was a difficult decision for those guys to make as they all loved it here and I did try to tempt them back with offers but our budgets don’t match the offers some of these teams in Europe are offering. Everyone asked at me at this time last year how I was going to replace Pete Campbell’s 40 goals and I am sure that I will be getting the same question about an entire line this summer! I am very confident that I will be able to find our next batch of heroes here though.

It actually amazes me how teams can consistently re-sign their top guys after career years, then find a way to improve in the areas that they felt were weaknesses and on top of this point their fingers at us for overspending. We played the entire season last year with an average of eight imports on the ice. Other teams not only had cover for injuries, they had room to bring in players if they felt that guys on their roster weren’t performing. Anyways, I have learned that you can’t worry or stress about things that you can’t control and I actually believe that it is a huge compliment that people feel that my rosters are so expensive as it means that I am doing a decent job. The moment that one of our competitors writes a story about how inexpensive the Giants look; there is a good chance that I have made some mistakes.

Steve Thornton
LBM Belfast Giants Player/Coach