Belfast Giants Head Coach Adam Keefe is preparing for another season in charge after guiding the club to back-to-back league titles.
The 42-year-old Canadian has been behind the Giants bench since 2017 and has won five league titles as a coach, including four since the pandemic.
“I spent a lot of time with the family and my girls over the summer, and tried to spend as much time as I could decompressing after a very long and tough season last year,” said Keefe.
“But before long, you’re back to the grind to get the best possible team on the ice and try to repeat that process again, which isn’t easy. You’re also keeping up with how other teams are starting to look too.
“I think we’re set for a really exciting and competitive year. I think teams are going to take another step, and the league too, and it will be very exciting for everybody.”
After another league title-winning campaign, Keefe and his staff identified areas where they felt the Giants could still improve.
“Two of the areas that we identified from last season that we wanted to improve on were our physicality, in terms of being able to get in on the forecheck and turn pucks over, and I think a lot of that came from our lack of speed,” explained the Giants Head Coach.
“We think we’ve addressed some of that this summer. We didn’t want to sacrifice our hockey sense and our ability to play the game, or how we want to play, so we think we’ve addressed some of those issues that we wanted to.”
Keefe believes the balance between returning players and new additions gives Belfast a strong foundation, but he is clear that assembling a roster is only the first part of building a team.
“We have a good mix of guys who are returning, who understand what it takes to win in this league and to be a Belfast Giant,” he said. “Equally, we love the new core that we’ve brought in, who fit the mould both from a player and a character standpoint.
“Now it’s about putting it all together as a group, making sure that we hold each other accountable and build a team.
“I think on paper we’re good, but that doesn’t mean anything in terms of building a hockey team. We need to earn each other’s trust every day moving forward and try to build that true belief that we can be another Championship team.”
That process continues this week with two home games against Herlev Eagles of Denmark, before the Giants travel to Germany the following weekend for the Warrior Cup. For Keefe, those games are more about how his side performs than the final score.
“I think for the next four games, the process of getting to the result is more important than the win or the loss,” the five-time league-winning coach explained.
“What did we do to get the win or the loss? Did we compete hard? Did we play with intensity? What type of individual skillsets shone through in terms of us providing the opportunities for them to excel? We want to see that we’re competing hard defensively win or lose, but the process which we take to get to that result matters a lot to me.”
Photo: William Cherry
