Cardiff Devils vs Belfast Giants 10th October

Belfast Giants 5 - 3 Cardiff Devils

The Cardiff Devils faced the Belfast Giants a week after dumping them out of the quarter finals of the 20/20 hockey fest; sadly the game was not to be a repeat of the devils come back that night, albeit they came close.

The game fired into action when Shawn Mcmorrow and Brad Voth got involved in a tussle for the first time this season, Mcmorrow came away with a morale boosting victory taking Voth down with a few punches that fired the Odyssey arena crowd into action. The Giants only took 5 minutes to capitalise on this momentum shift when Shane Johnson slotted past Lyle at 5:07.

The remainder of the first period followed a similar pattern with the Giants free flowing while the Devils struggled to even get out of their own zone and a bad first period turned into a disastrous one when impressive youngster Craig peacock coolly slotted home on the power play to make it 2-0 Giants at 10:53, this was followed 6 minutes later by Defenseman Michael Jacobsen who sent the home team into a scintillating 3 goal lead, this was however thankfully cut down to a 2 goal lead when the Devils first line power play unit came to life, and the ever impressive Wes Jarvis hit a shot home with under a minute left in the period at 19:01.

If the first period was about under performance then the second period was all about heart break. The Devils took their momentum shift from Jarvis goal into the second period and after only 4 minutes of the re start the Devils struck again, once more on the power play through Matt Miller assisted by line Mate Max Birbrear. The Devils were on a role and it was up to Captain Brad Voth who took the puck at the top of the circle and threw the puck past net minder Stephen Murphy in the Giants net, showing that a loss of a fight doesn’t diminish his offensive importance to the Devils side.

Then the heartbreak came less than a minute after Voth had dragged the Devils back from a 3 goal deficit to tie the game, Pat Bateman who was a Devils target in the summer decided to bite the hand which wanted to potentially feed him and shot past Lyle to give the Giants the advantage again at 4-3. This is how the second period would end.

The 3rd was a bit of a non event of a period with the Devils heads down the game petered out with only a strike from Colin Shields at 52:04 being the major talking point, as the Giants recorded a 5 -3 victory over the Cardiff Devils, a solid win for the Giants after a stutter start, but they may be disappointed that a ‘my dad’s bigger than your dad’ debate has taken place over Mcmorrow and Voth’s pantomime tilt at the beginning of the game has glossed over what was a workman like victory.

The teams meet again at the Odyssey arena on the 14th of November