The Bruins get back into game action on Saturday, taking on the Belfast Giants Select club.
So just who exactly are the Belfast Giants?
They're arguably the top team in the Elite Ice Hockey League, currently sitting in first place in the United Kingdom's premier league with a 6-1-0-1 record (13 points). Founded in 2000, Belfast won regular-season titles in 2002 and 2006, the latter fueled by league MVP Theo Fleury, and the playoff title in 2003 while still part of the old British SuperLeague. The Giants also won the Challenge Cup and the British Knock-Out Cup in 2009.
That might not sound like much, but the EIHL is on par with one of the lower-level minor leagues in North America and does boast rosters comprised mostly of players with professional experience back on this continent, including some NHL veterans.
The Giants, who have been bolstered by a number of top players from other teams in the EIHL for this game, actually have four players who reached the NHL. That includes Ben Simon, who played 81 games with Atlanta and Columbus from 2001-06 and posted 3-1-4 totals. Rob Globke appeared in 46 games for Florida between 2005 and 2008 with 1-1-2 totals, while Owen Fussey had an assist in four games with Washington in 2003-04 and Colin Hemingway was scoreless in three games with St. Louis in 2005-06.
Hemingway, who has 1-5-6 totals in eight games this year with the Giants, attended the University of New Hampshire, as did his brother Brett, who has 6-2-8 totals this season in Belfast. Colin Shields is from Glasgow, but played at the University of Maine.
There are plenty of other New England connections on the Giants' expanded roster for this game. Mike Hoffman, a 6-foot-5, 248-pound tough guy who spent parts of seven seasons in the AHL, hails from Scituate, Mass. and went to the University of Connecticut. He was known more for his pugilistic abilities in the AHL, but leads the Giants with 6-3-9 totals in eight games this year.
Belfast has another Bay State native in Andover's Josh Prudden, who has 1-6-7 totals with the Giants. Defenseman Jerramie Domish, who has 1-8-9 totals in nine games for the Sheffield Steelers, played for UMass-Lowell before turning pro.
After the eight players from Belfast's regular lineup, Sheffield and the Nottingham Panthers are the most represented clubs on the Giants' expanded roster with each of those teams loaning five players for the game. Four more players come from the Coventry Blaze, while Scott Matzka is the lone player from the Cardiff Devils.
The 23-man roster is dominated by North Americans, as 10 of the players in the Belfast lineup for this one are from the United States and nine more from Canada. There are two players from Scotland (goalie Stephen Murphy and forward Shields), one from England (forward Jonathan Weaver) and one from Latvia (goalie Ervins Mustukovs).
There are also several Giants familiar to members of the Bruins. Defenseman Richard Seeley spent seven seasons in the AHL, including a 12-game stint in Norfolk in 2004-05 when his teammates included Boston tough guy Shawn Thornton. Belfast coach Doug Christiansen and Thornton are also acquainted, though on less hospitable terms. Christiansen dropped the gloves with Thornton in an AHL bout back in 2006 while playing for Manchester against Thornton's Portland Pirates.
Globke's time in Florida overlapped with the seasons Nathan Horton and Greg Campbell spent there, while Simon's stint in Atlanta put him briefly in the same lineup as Marc Savard.
Fussey and Johnny Boychuk were teammates for three seasons in junior with the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League, while defenseman Tim Cook played with fellow blueliner Matt Hunwick for four years at the University of Michigan.
Thornton, whose mother was born in Belfast and who will have 20 members of his extended family on hand for the game, may be the most popular Bruin in Belfast this week, but there are plenty of Boston players who will enjoy catching up with some old friends when they take on the Giants.
