Two defeats in a row for the first time this season is surely reason to Panic!

Fully expect the Giants faithful to go into crisis mode tonight after the team lost their second game in a row for the first time this season. I will be honest and admit I didn’t see a single minute of the game, nor even score sheet, but I got a few text updates on my bus ride home from work and each vibration on my phone brought me Manchester Phoenix goals. The damming text was the one that described the performance as awful and the game as boring. How the free wheeling, high scoring Giants machine, of all but a week or so ago, have fallen.

I say all that in jest of course. Being over 3000 miles from the hockey mecca that is the Odyssey ice my opinion on all thing Giants is certainly restricted, but I have followed this team for nearly ten years now and I know a Giants fan in panic mode when I see (or hear) one.

You may think things have been quiet on the Kingdom of the Giants message board during the early going, and you would be right. Game threads have fallen off sharply in page numbers and people just don’t have a lot to say. The reason for that is that the Giants have been a winning team. People simply do not know what to do. But with a second successive defeat you can expect a surge in forum activity.

The first signs of native unrest occurred earlier in the week following a second crushing loss to the Hull Stingrays. Scape goat 08/09 was announced swiftly and the finger pointing slowly began to pick up pace. Stevie Lyle drew the short straw this year and the mole hill is slowly turning into a mountain.

With the latest defeat you can be sure Lyle will be joined in the fans doghouse very quickly.

Hold on a second . . . O.K. I am back, I just had to check the scoresheet so that I had some sort of material in which to talk about the game. So Malcolm MacMillan had the man of the match performance. He seems to be hitting form of lately just in time for the healing of his bad wrist that mysteriously passed everyone by when it came to early season complaints about his form.

Just glancing quickly at the league table shows the Giants sitting in third position after 20 games. In a 54 game league campaign there is a lot of hockey to be played and with the two teams -- Sheffield in first and Coventry in second -- just four and two points ahead of them respectively with an extra game played the Giants and their band of merry followers have no reason to worry about this minor blip on the radar of success.

Tomorrow night in fact the Giants hit the road looking to bounce back against them league leaders from Sheffield. A win there keeps everything very tight and a defeat just consolidates the Steelers lead at the top of the Elite League and gives us all flash backs to the good old days of the ISL when the Steelers were competitive and our main title rivals.

Either way, worry not people. We started the season so dam well scoring for fun that a slip up had to come along at some point. We’ve had a spell of injuries and teams are learning that the only way to beat the Giants in the Odyssey is to come in and try shut them down. For that reason we can be thankful tomorrows big game is on the road.

So long as the form picks up in time for the Christmas period when I will be home and looking to be entertained for a few games by my beloved Giants. Watching the Maple Leafs a few times this season will make you long for a winning team with sensible ticket prices, sensible beer prices (yes even in the Odyssey) and a noisy crowd, even at a quarter of the size! Just kidding all ye in Leafs Nation.

Ricky

Ricky Blayney

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