Four-midable!

The Coors Belfast Giants strengthened their grip on first position in the league last night with a convincing 4-1 win over the Coventry Blaze. Despite Player/Coach Ed Courtenays concerns over team inactivity over the Christmas break, last years Grand Slam winning Blaze were immediately put under pressure as Steve O'Brien scored with just 78 seconds gone in the game.

However the Giants were unable to capitalise and were forced into a more defensive game, killing off over one minute of a 5-on-3 penalty as Jason Bowen and Shane Johnson each received two minute minor penalties. It was not until five minutes into the second period that the Giants stretched their lead with Courtenay helping himself to a brace. He struck in the 26th minute thanks to a nice set-up play by Theo Fleury and Rob Stewart and then added his second in the 36th unassisted and on a powerplay.

Coventry Blaze did pull one back though just over a minute after Courtenay had made it 3-0, with Tom Watkins finally finding a way past Minard. Although Minard has a habit of going walkabout, he was immense between the pipes yet again and saved everything else that the Blaze thew at him, saving a further 12 shots in the final period.

Former Giants goaltender Martin Klempa could do nothing about Shawn Skiehars wrist-shot midway through the final period, which completed the Giants scoring and wrapped up the points. The game ended with Skiehar in action again, this time in a fight with Coventry's Graham Belak 14 seconds from the end which had the 4,500 post-Christmas crowd off their seats. The fight itself was probably a draw with both players landing bombs (one from Skiehar knocked Belaks helmet clean off his head), before eventually wrestling to the ice.

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