Giants play in 500th game

Today’s game against the Nottingham Panthers was no ordinary league game. Well it was, but there was an extra to it for the Belfast Giants -- today’s game was the 500th in the history of the club -- and although a 1000th game will really be cause for celebration, I didn’t want to wait until some time in 2017 to write about it. Forget about the pathetic score, this is a moment many people never thought they would see.

I would bet that if you asked the people of Belfast back in 2000 when the team started up, and there were many doubters around, the vast majority would not have forseen the Giants lasting this long. I would include many of the players and ownership in that. This project for them was probably not something long term, but enough fans believed in it and the players kept coming and here we are eight years on.

The first official competitive game took place on 16th September 2000 also against the Panthers in a game the Giants lost 5-1 – almost as bad as the defeat against the same team today! Since then the team has played in 500 games, winning 282, losing 154, putting up 10,122 penalty minutes and scoring 1747 goals. That is 3.5 goals per game and although I don’t have the facts I would bet that is a better ratio than any other team over those 8 years.

I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to get to the first ever game in Nottingham, and with the team playing the first half of the season on the road the first game in the Odyssey didn’t take place until December. Unfortunately again, I didn’t book tickets in time and so had to settle for the second game in the Odyssey arena against Bracknell Bees and that game still goes down as one of the best I can remember in the building. The Giants blew a two-goal lead in the final minute of the game only to win it in overtime. The fans were going crazy and in that sell out building and I still maintain there were a lot of people that night who went along for a one off curiosity viewing and who ended up hooked on Giants hockey and are still coming back to this day.

Eight years on and over a million people have come through the doors of the Odyssey to take in a Giants game and countless more have travelled to see their team on the road. One of the remarkable things about this club is the continued links to its history. Shane Johnson on the ice and Todd Kelman in command were both in the line up for that first ever game, the team has always retained a core of players through the years that have kept a style of play and a link to the fans that has remained constant.

Here is the Giants line-up for that first ever match with the starting line-up named first: Wilkinson, Wright, J.Bowen, Stevens, Karlander, Hoad; Searle, Johnson, Ferone, Ward, Riehl, Stewart, Schulte, Kelman, Cavallin.

Kory Karlander got the only goal for the Giants that night and 1746 more have followed up to and including tonight’s defeat to the Panthers.

So I now end this with a question: With 500 games down and the hope that we’ll all see another 500 to come. Where do you see yourself, the Giants and the state of the league by the time we hit the big 1000 in and around March 2017?

P.S. Just to make you aware, the 500 games does not include exhibition games and games that were later declared void when a team dropped out of the league. I sourced this material from my own site, Giants-History.com

Ricky Blayney

More News

Live Scores

League Standings

full table >>

Giants' Stat Leaders

Site Search