Giants feature strongly in Elite League All-Star lineup

by UK American Sports Fans

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The UK Ice Hockey Journalists have released their annual selections for the top players in the Elite League for the 2011/12 season. The Stena Line Belfast Giants took 4 of the 12 spots on the first and second all-star teams with netminder Stephen Murphy and defenseman Jeff Mason being selected as First Team All-Stars while defenseman Jeremy Rebek and forward Robert Dowd were selected as Second Team All-Stars.

Below are the First & Second Team Elite League All-Stars.

Elite League All-Star First Team: Stephen Murphy (Belfast); Jeff Mason (Belfast), Corey Neilson (Nottingham); Jade Galbraith (Braehead), Jeff Legue (Sheffield), Shea Guthrie (Coventry)

Elite League All-Star Second Team: Craig Kowalski (Nottingham); Jeremy Rebek (Belfast), James Jorgensen (Braehead); David Beauregard (Nottingham), Robert Dowd (Belfast), Rene Jarolin (Edinburgh)

Stephen Murphy has been selected as the Best British Netminder for the 3rd straight season by the UK Ice Hockey Journalists after becoming the first netminder to lead his team to the Elite League Title. He finished the season with 7 shutouts, a goals against average of 1.92 and a save percentage of 92.3%. He led the Giants to a 17 game winning streak to finish the league campaign and his 47 wins this season is a new franchise record.

Teammate Robert Dowd was selected as the Best British Forward in his first season as a Giant after moving to Belfast from Sheffield where he spent the previous 3 years. Dowd led the Giants in goals with 37 goals and tied for the overall points scoring lead on the Giants with fellow Brit and line-mate Craig Peacock with 72 points. This is the first time Dowd has won this award.

Doug Christiansen has scooped Ice Hockey Journalists UK’s Coach of the Year award after steering Belfast Giants to their first league title since 2006. The 33-year-old American, in his second season at the Odyssey Arena, made it third time lucky for Giants, who had been pipped to the title by a point for the past two years.

Giants have led the standings since late September, and wrapped up the title in front of a capacity 7,000 crowd following a 5-1 home win over Sheffield Steelers.

Christiansen, who has been confirmed as Giants coach for the next two years, said: “It’s great to win such an award but first let me say it’s a whole team game. The only real effect I can control as a head coach is the effort and dedication I put into that position.

“First comes the budget to be able to choose players that would suit our needs. Then securing from that list of players, whose numbers aren’t vast, ones with a desire to play in Belfast.

“Those contacted must work well as a unit complementing each other and fit into a harmonious dressing room scenario. In short they must have harmony with each other alongside the rest of the back-room personnel.

“That takes real orchestration to find such players, which I started in Edinburgh after Scot Neil gave me a chance as player-coach. After a vertical learning curve in Scotland, where, yes, I did make mistakes, Todd Kelman, GM of the Belfast Giants, gave me a new challenge.

“We were four goals short of winning two trophies last year and one point out of first place but finished third. We had to do better this campaign. We did this as a total team performance.”