One week ago, the NHL’s Boston Bruins arrived in Belfast for the biggest game of ice hockey that the city has ever seen. Some of the world’s finest hockey players took on the Elite Ice Hockey League’s best in the shape of the Belfast Giants Selects. After months of hard work on both sides of the Atlantic, the magic of the NHL came and swept the city of Belfast before heading to Prague, Czech Republic.
In the weeks and months leading up to this magnificent event, anyone either involved or even just a fan of ice hockey in Ireland knew all about the big game. The game was covered everywhere from the Giants’ and Bruins’ websites to newspapers such as The Belfast Telegraph and The Boston Globe. Discussion forums light up with fevered conversations in anticipation of the arrival of the NHL’s superstars. Blogs and previews appeared on NHL.com and IIHA.org.
NHL fever had gripped everyone!
In the midst of all this excitement and preparation, an extremely well written preview of the weekend appeared on the International Ice Hockey Federation’s website, IIHF.com. The preview was under the heading of “Historic weekend for Ireland” and it was an in depth analysis of the importance of the game to all those involved. What makes this article special is that it was written by the IIHA’s very own Editor, Martin Grant. It is the first time that Martin has had one of his articles posted on IIHF.com.
Speaking this week to iiha.org, Martin said “I would like to thank Martin Merk, Editor and Webmaster of the International Ice Hockey Federation for all his help and support in the publication of this article, which highlighted the importance of the NHL visit to Ireland and granted international coverage of Irish Ice Hockey and we at the IIHA are grateful for his help and I aim to build a close working relationship with Martin in order to keep Irish hockey related stories actively appear on the IIHF’s site.’
The article can be found by copying this link into the address bar:
http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/news/news-singleview/article/historic-weekend-for-ireland.html?tx_ttnews[backPid]=955&cHash=90d5a0b683