Posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
I am pleased that you have made ice hockey and the LBM Belfast Giants part of your holiday tradition and as usual, we have three of our biggest games of the season between now and when we all return to work, school or anything else that gets us braving the cold in the New Year.
This issue of our match night programme covers the three games over the holiday season; December 27th, 30th and January 2nd. Apparently printers don’t feel like working over the Christmas break as much as hockey players do, so we will forgive them and jam pack this issue with information on all three of our opponents over the holidays.
The Giants have had a great first half of the season, currently sitting in second place behind the Coventry Blaze, who got the better of us twice last weekend to remain in top spot going into the Christmas break. Even with the loss, we still managed to dominate them at times, even outshooting them 21-4 in the opening period on Saturday, December 19th here at the Odyssey Arena. That night we ran into a hot goaltender and he made the difference. We have enough teams cursing the outstanding play of our own netminder, Stephen Murphy, to understand that every once in a while a goalie will steal a game for you and Coventry’s Peter Hirsch did that for them.
Murphy still leads the league in save percentage, goals against average and shutouts and has been a huge reason for our success so far this season. He also has possibly the best defensive core that we have had here in Belfast since the Elite League began. The three mainstays in the lineup (Tommy Walsh, Tim Cook, Michael Jacobsen) have all been superb all season long. They have turned our defence from our weakest area of our team into our strongest. Along with the trio mentioned above, we have Shane Johnson who is consistently been one of the top defencemen in the league over his ten year career and then Kevin Phillips and Graeme Walton who have both been sidelined with injuries at different points in the season but they have been counted on to make up the best five man rotation in the league.
Up front, our forwards have been grabbing most of the headlines for their ability to put the puck in the net, but we have forwards that understand the importance of team defence and that their jobs are at both ends of the ice, not just in front of the opponents net.
When we are on our game, I doubt any team can touch us this season, and these next three games are all tough tests for us in our quest to bring a title back to Belfast. Sheffield are finally finding their stride after a rough start and Cardiff, who we play on January 2nd have dramatically improved their team in the last few weeks by signing former Steeler Ryan Finnerty. They are a definite contender now and we are in for a battle when both of these teams hit the ice at the Odyssey this week.
In the meantime, enjoy the matches over the Christmas break and hopefully we give you plenty to cheer about tonight and for the rest of the season.
Todd Kelman
General Manager
© 2008 Belfast Giants Limited, unless otherwise stated. Imagery © Michael Cooper Photography.
