Posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 4:05 am
It is 4:00am and I just finished watching the Red Wings beat the Blackhawks to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. And you all thought you liked hockey way too much…
We are three months away from the season starting and already I am getting excited. We have some big plans for the 2009/10 campaign, which if you can believe it, will be our tenth season of ice hockey here in Northern Ireland. That in itself is a massive accomplishment considering the fact that many people in the sporting world said we wouldn’t last a year.. The fact that we are still around is down to all of you. We could not have lasted without the support of our fans, whether they come to one game a year or they come to every single game, that is what has kept us going for the past decade and will hopefully get us to the 20 year celebration in 2020. I think that was the year Shane targeted for his retirement anyways, so we will have plenty to celebrate then as well..
I’m sure our fans are wondering what the overall make up of our team will be next season, and although we had a great deal of success this year, we will struggle to bring back the majority of our import players from a year ago. I would have loved to have that entire team back, but healthy for the full season because I still believe that was the best Giants team we have had since the Elite League began. The truth of the matter is, we cannot afford to keep that team in tact and we knew this when we put our team together a year ago. Some players were here for school and once they finished, they wanted to move on and make more money, which is fair enough. Paul Deniset and Andrew Martin were two of the best players in the league last year and we expected them to get offers from other higher paying leagues. You can never blame a player for chasing more money. If this were the NHL and the guys were all getting rich playing this game, than expectations of some sort of loyalty may come into play a bit more, but when a player can possibly double their salary, you cannot compete with offers like that.
We can actually use that as a recruiting tool because if players see our players actually moving on after a year, they will see the opportunity to get to Europe and although we may only have them for a year, we get a great player and hopefully a reputation of placing players into better leagues. That is why I always shake my head when other teams put out stories about what the Giants spend on players. To me, when teams are pointing the finger at other teams, they are trying to deflect something away from themselves. Still, I always find it amazing that some teams can re-sign their top imports for less every year. From my experience, when players have good years, they are looking for more money and when you can’t pay it, you have to let them move on. We lost Martin, Deniset, Robins to leagues that can offer more money and although we tried to make them a competitive offer, we couldn’t come close, particularly with the strength of the Euro these days.
Still, I am not worried. We will have a team that is very similar to last season, which was our most successful season yet of our first nine years. Two Cup Titles, two championships out of a possible four, which was a great success. We already have signed a defenceman who will likely be the top d-man in the league next season and we have just signed a player that I think will contend for the league scoring title next year. No name for you yet, just waiting for a faxed contract to come back in, but this player is new to the league and has come highly recommended by former coaches, players, opponents and teammates. He is young and hungry to become an impact player here in Belfast and in the Elite League. We may only get him for a year because he too is looking to move on from here eventually, just like Deniset and co., but he will be fun to watch for the time he is a Giant.
Todd Kelman
General Manager
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