The Land of Colin Shields

Posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 12:09 pm

Hello there all hockey fans and Giants enthusiasts! I suppose this is perhaps the second last summer blog of 2009, so I will try and make it a good one! Since I last wrote there as been a lot happening both in the Land of the Giants and in the Land of Colin Shields.

I guess I should get the Giants stuff out of the way, it was looking like a great summer for everyone, Steve had gotten his team pretty much signed and sealed when Davy threw everything off! I would like to say however how much of an achievement and what a great opportunity this is for him. To go over there to the Blackhawks camp and perform at such a level as he did and receive a contract offer is just amazing. I know myself and the rest of the Giants are thrilled for him and wish him the best for this year.

As for the team and fans alike, I don’t think there is too much to worry about. When you are part of such a great organization like the Giants you just know that they are going to do their absolute best to fill that hole. It always makes things harder when it is a British player as they are harder to come by, we are all confident that Steve will make sure that we have the best team possible on the ice that will have a great chance to build on our success from last year.

Ok now we got that out of the way back to me! My summer in Belfast, personally it has been a great summer overall. I think the weather ended up being much more pleasant than I thought, and better weather means more golf. I managed to play quite a lot for the first couple of months, thanks goes out to those who invited me to play at their course and sorry if I ended up winning! Killer and Mike from Stena (Stena Line is a major sponsor of the Giants in case you didn’t know!) have been my golfing partners as of late and Simon from Fonacab took us out last week as well. We have been trying to get out as much as possible as once we start our training camp there isn’t much time left for golf until April!

Early in June I was lucky enough to have a little holiday to New York City and the East Coast of the US for ten days. It was the first time I had been back on the East Coast in about 5 years and my Maine Black Bears days. I visited lots of old friends from my College and Pro days in the US, some who I hadn’t seen in 6 or 7 years. It was really nice to catch up and see what some friends are up to in their life after hockey. I was fortunate to visit a couple of Giants players, one from the past and one future Giant for this season. I had dinner with Steve O’Brien, for those of you who are unaware, Steve was a Giant in 05/06 when we won the league title. The new Giant that I met up with was Tom Walsh. I played with Tom in Fresno a few years back and he is going to be a big impact player this year, not only on our team but in the whole league.

Some other good news, my younger brother David is moving to the USA in a couple of weeks. He is not going over for hockey but for Golf. He is a scratch golfer and received a scholarship to a great school in West Virginia. I am sure he is going to do great over there and is really looking forward to the challenge.

I also wanted to thank Killer, Steve and the Giants for my recent contract extension. I signed for another 2 years on top of this one, so I am very happy to know that I am going to be in Belfast for the next 3 years. I think this is the best city to play in, a great organization and I knew that I wanted to be a part of things here in Belfast for the years to come. I will save some other juicy stuff for my last summer blog over the next couple of weeks! I hope everyone is having a great summer and is looking forward to this season as much as I am!

Shieldsy