2 Years On: Still Defending Champions

 

Another year, another post celebrating the defending league champions.

The date was March 31^st, 2019 and the venue was a hotel where Giants players and fans had gathered to celebrate the annual end of season awards, as they waited for the outcome of the Cardiff/ Coventry game to decide the league champion for the 2018/19 season, Belfast or Cardiff.

When Cardiff had an 11-point lead over Belfast in the standings, you could easily have written off 2018/19 as ‘not our year’ for the league title and begin to look towards 2019/20. But, as the number of games left counted down and the gap narrowed, it was tempting to keep one eye on the Cardiff scores and hope that somehow, just somehow, we could pull it off.

The Keefe era had gotten off to a successful start in 2017/18 as Belfast had taken home their first piece of silverware in four years, barring the Intu Cup of course. They had beaten Cardiff in the Challenge Cup final and then in 2019 the defending Challenge Cup champions went on to win back-to-back titles, beating Guildford in overtime.

With the 2018/19 regular season drawing to a close, Belfast were so close to having their hands on the biggest title under Coach Keefe to date. The final week of action saw Keefe’s men go 3-0-0, beating Coventry 7-2 on Wednesday, Fife 7-2 on Friday and Dundee 6-4 on Saturday as Cardiff beat Milton Keynes 9-1. That was all Belfast could do apart from hope that Coventry, who didn’t even need to win the game, could pull off a great upset the following evening and stop Cardiff lifting the title on their home ice.

And Coventry did just that.

Coventry took a 2-0 lead and despite Sam Duggan cutting their lead in half, future Giant Ben Lake sealed the deal with an empty net goal in the dying moments of the contest with 61 seconds remaining to make it 3-1. The buzzer went, the sounds of Tell Me Ma echoed around Coventry and Belfast players and fans celebrated that WE WERE CHAMPIONS!

We decided to thank Coventry by kindly beating them 5-0 in the first leg of the Playoff Quarterfinals and 7-2 in the second leg…

2018/19 really wasn’t a bad season to be a Giants fan. Runners up in the playoffs and Continental Cup (where we lost in a shootout but clinched a Champions Hockey League berth). Repeat Challenge Cup Champions. And League Champions (which came with yet another CHL berth. You’re welcome Cardiff).

And Giants players were well recognized for their success with Tyler Beskorowany, Josh Roach and Darcy Murphy making up one half of the EIHL First All-Star team and Patrick Dwyer and Kyle Baun being named to the Second All-Star team. Also, Darcy Murphy was named Forward of the Year and was the top goals and points scorer in the league and the sensational Tyler Beskorowany was declared Netminder of the Year. And one can hardly forget the man behind the bench, Giants legend Adam Keefe who was named Coach of the Year in only his second season in charge.

#letsgogiants

2020 Post: Belfast Giants: EIHL Champions 2018/19. Looking Back A Year On.