Kingdom Of The Giants :: Belfast Giants Fan Community, News & Views
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28-Aug-2007We are only 11 days away from the opening weekend of the Elite Ice Hockey League season and the excitement among all UK Hockey fans is building. The Coors Belfast Giants open their season against the Edinburgh Capitals, in hope of regaining the EIHL Title they lost last season to the Coventry Blaze.
Prior to that, however, the Giants travel to the Dundalk IceDome for a series of pre-season friendly games against Huddinge Hockey Club. Huddinge is a southern suburb of Stockholm and their hockey team play in the Allsvenskan, Sweden’s 2nd highest hockey league.
Over the years Huddinge has fostered some famous names in both Swedish and World Ice-hockey, not least Mattias Norström of the Dallas Stars. The Giants have previously taken on Swedish opposition in the form of Troja Ljungby and reigning champions of the Allsvenskan, Södertälje SK, during another pre-season tournament, the BT Ice Cup in 2002.
Ed Courtenay’s side will travel to Dundalk hoping to gell together a team that will once again challenge for the League title. However across the EIHL other teams are also putting in early games with the same thoughts and aspirations for the season to come. Former Coors Belfast Giants team-mates Jeff Hutchins and Curtis Huppe will come face to face as the reigning league champions, the Coventry Blaze, play a home and home series against a new look Mobilx Vipers side, this game will also see Jonathon Weaver, captain of the Vipers for the last number of seasons, face off against his old club for the first time since following Michael Tasker on the road to the Skydome.
Two more former Giants will come face to face this weekend, but in a different guise. Coach David Matsos will warm up his Sheffield Steelers team, firstly with a game against EPL side Sheffield Scimitars at IceSheffield tomorrow night and then with a couple of games against Tony Hand’s Manchester Phoenix. The table has been set for this match up by Brett Cloutier, former Sheffield Steeler, he moved to Manchester midway through last season having been released from his Steelers contract. Tony Hand has retained the enforcer for another season and Cloutier will be looking to put out an early message
Playoff Champions the Nottingham Panthers have made a number of big signings in the off season, signalling an intent to challenge for their first league title in over 50 years. PC Drouin has returned to his old stomping ground and will be part of the Panthers team that this weekend head out to Morzine in France. A training camp and tournament here that will see them face teams such as Salzberg and Dijon.
As these teams all get their acts together prior to the opening weekend, the fans of the Coors Belfast giants will be hoping to see all their new signings, from Trevor Johnson to Ryan Smith, as well as the returning Giants like Mark Morrison and Phillipe DeRouville set down a high marker in Dundalk, home for 4 regular season games this season. With a new General Manager in Todd Kelman, a new shirt design to be released this week, and a whole host of new names for the backs of the shirts, the fans will be hoping that one thing doesn’t change, the giants history of success.
And all this season, keep up to date on the Coors Belfast Giants with us here at your new look KingdomOfTheGiants.com, We’ll be bringing you regular game reports from Giants games home and away. You’ll always know the latest score thanks to our partners at ih-update.co.uk. All the hot topics from the Giants and the EIHL are discussed on our ever popular forum. If you can’t make games home or away, you can always pop into our chat room, where there is always a host of people chatting about games and keeping you up-to-date on the latest goings on in games up and down the country. Got any photographs of the Belfast Giants or the fans? Share them with us at our new Flickr group. And finally, download our podcast where Patrick and Aaron talk about all sorts of issues surrounding the Coors Belfast Giants and the EIHL, and generally wax idiotic about other topics as well. Its going to be an exiting new season, and you can find all the info here on KingdomOfTheGiants.com
Patrick Smyth
Live Scores
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Next SeasonLast Game
- Sat 07 Apr
- vs Devils, OTL 4-3
- Giants Goals: Rebek, Clarke, Hoffman
- Devils Goals: Matzka, Dobben, Piggot
League Standings
| P | TEAM | GP | W(OT) | L(OT) | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Giants | 54 | 46(0) | 5(3) | 95 |
| 2 | Steelers | 54 | 41(0) | 11(2) | 84 |
| 3 | Panthers | 54 | 38(0) | 12(4) | 80 |
| 4 | Devils | 54 | 32(0) | 12(10) | 74 |
| 5 | Blaze | 54 | 32(0) | 20(2) | 66 |
| 6 | Clan | 54 | 31(0) | 19(4) | 66 |
| 7 | Stingrays | 54 | 16(0) | 34(4) | 36 |
| 8 | Stars | 54 | 13(0) | 35(6) | 32 |
| 9 | Capitals | 54 | 13(0) | 37(4) | 30 |
| 10 | Flyers | 54 | 8(0) | 40(6) | 22 |
Giants' Stat Leaders
| Points | Robert Dowd | 78 |
|---|---|---|
| Goals | Robert Dowd | 40 |
| Assists | Craig Peacock | 49 |
| PIM | Adam Keefe | 247 |