Ice-hockey: Coach hunt is on for Kelman

Saturday, February 23, 2008

By Stuart McKinley

And the team's boss is already on the case to bring in a top quality replacement for home-bound Courtenay.

It is two weeks since Courtenay reacted to questions about the make-up of next season's Giants team by declaring: "It's not my job in the summer, it's whoever is taking over."

There is still a lot of games to play before he leaves Belfast though. Indeed the most important matches of the season are still to come when the Giants hope to give their coach a parting gift by getting their hands on some silverware.

Kelman hopes to be in a position to announce Courtenay's successor shortly after the end of the season and he is already putting the pieces of the jigsaw together.

It is the remaining games of the season that Kelman wants the fans who will head to Nottingham on the first weekend of April - hopefully to cheer them team to the Play-off title - to be thinking about.

And he hopes that the fans will put their trust in him to come up with a more than adequate replacement for 2006 Elite League winning Courtenay, with forward planning having already been put in place long before the coach made public his intention to quit.

"To think that I haven't been forward planning for next season would be a little naive," said Kelman.

"I am certain that every team in the league has been doing the same.

"Recruitment for players and coaches has never been a job that is reserved solely for the off-season.

"I have been speaking to coaches and players and reading over CVs all season long.

" Right now, it doesn't matter who will be coaching the Belfast Giants next season.

"What matters is this season and the fact that all of our players, our coach, our owners and myself are committed to winning as many games until the end of the season and rolling into the Play-offs with the intention of winning the Play-off title.

"That is why we play this game, that is why we love this game.

The Giants have eight games left to claim second place in the table as their own, with top spot almost certainly out of the question.

Ten points from their remaining 11 games will give Coventry the title for the second season in succession, but with third placed Sheffield having two games in hand on the Giants, the Belfast men aren't currently in control of their own destiny.

That makes next Thursday's home game against the Steelers a big one in terms of who finishes second.

It may, however, be that second place doesn't quite bring the rewards that it should do.

Although the Giants came from two goals down in the opening minute to beat Manchester Phoenix last Sunday night, Courtenay has already hinted that he isn't keen on facing Tony Hand's men in the Play-off quarter-finals.