With the Christmas decorations safely packed away for the year and the grandparents peeled off the sofa, empty sherry glass clutched tightly in their hands, focus can turn, once again, solely to the Elite League and the race for the playoffs.
Two teams expected to be there come the end of March met over the weekend as Sheffield Steelers ventured across the Irish Sea for the final time this season.
Irish hospitality is famous the world over but such warm welcomes were lacking in the Odyssey Arena as Belfast Giants collected both sets of points over the Friday and Saturday double header.
The Steelers held the lead after the first 20 minutes on Friday night but that would be the last of the good news from last season playoff champions as Belfast found the back of the net in both the second and third to claim a 5-3 victory.
That triumph was to be added to the following night and just as the home town Giants registered goals from five different scorers 24-hours previously they would have six on hand to add their name to the score sheet on Saturday and leave Sheffield heading back home with no points and a 6-3 defeat to show for their final visit of the season.
The four points helped move Belfast up to second on the Elite League, leapfrogging not only the Steelers but also keeping Cardiff in their rear view mirror.
The Devils had hoped to call second place their own come Monday morning and they did everything in their power to ensure that would happen, first seeing off Hull by a 3-2 score line before returning to the bay to deal Fife an 8-5 loss thanks to a hat-trick from Jesse Mychan and two goals each from Andrew Hotham and Joey Haddad.
That defeat in the Welsh Capital would put the seal on a fruitless weekend for the Fife Flyers as before they headed south they couldn’t stop table topping Braehead capturing both points at the Fife Ice Arena thanks to a pair of strikes from Scott Pitt which started and ended the scoring in a 4-2 win.
So it’s Braehead who sit atop the Elite League. The Clan recording a perfect three out of three weekend with a shut out 5-0 win in Edinburgh and a nail-biting 2-1 triumph at home to Dundee to add to their success in Fife.
Much like their Scottish neighbours the Edinburgh Capitals are also back in training wondering what might have been, as well as their 5-0 defeat at the hands of the Clan, the Caps also couldn’t stop a rampaging Nottingham Panthers who bagged two points in a 6-1 win that won’t be remembered for the goals or the score line but for the altercation midway through the third period that saw Joe Grimaldi thrown out of the game and subsequently suspended by the league for one match after collecting 67 penalty minutes in one major incident with Nottingham’s Maxime Langelier-Parent.
Finally, Nottingham were unable to add a further two points on Sunday as the weekend drew to a close with a 2-1 shootout defeat at the hands of the Coventry Blaze.
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