Champions Hockey League: Belfast Giants set for biggest stage in European ice hockey

The Giants' only previous appearance in the CHL came in the 2019-20 season

Having reached the Champions Hockey League (CHL) for just the second time, the Belfast Giants' ambition is now to prove that they belong on European ice hockey's biggest stage.

The CHL, the sport's equivalent to football's Champions League, will see the Giants play some of the biggest clubs on the continent, having qualified as Elite League winners.

Czech powerhouse Ocelari Trinec, who have won the last three national titles, are up first for Adam Keefe's side on Friday.

"The message before the game is that we're not going there just to participate," Keefe said.

"It's some of the best teams and organisations in Europe and that's where we want to put ourselves; that's where we deserve to be, we feel that."

The Giants' only previous appearance in the competition came in the 2019-20 campaign, when they finished bottom of their group but did clinch a famous 5-4 win over Czech side Bili Tygri Liberec,

The Belfast side have returned to the CHL following an emphatic 2021-22 season in which they claimed an impressive league and cup double before agonisingly missing out on a historic treble in a Elite League play-off defeat by Cardiff.

Despite domestic success, Keefe's side will need to reach new highs if they are to become only the second Elite League outfit, after the 2017-18 Nottingham Panthers, to make it out of the group stages into the play-offs.

The CHL is European ice hockey's most prestigious competition

"These are the cream of the crop in Europe, some real elite talent from hockey countries that are just factories of producing NHL-calibre players," general manager Steve Thornton told Sportsound Extra Time.

"It'll be a shock to the system I think at the beginning, the difference in speed, but I think our guys will adjust well.

"It will be an adjustment, a lot of these teams train and play 12 months of the year so for us we do have that summer period and we bring guys in at the beginning of August and then they're kind of thrown to the wolves a bit, but I think we've got enough guys that will adapt well.

"The league every year is getting stronger and we take pride in the fact that we've been able to bounce some guys on to some of the top-paying leagues in Europe."

'It's going to be a fast pace'

The Giants will begin their European campaign with a new-look squad, hoping to lean on a solid foundation of CHL experience to propel them to a top-two finish in Group H.

Among the new faces is Canadian David Gilbert, who spent three seasons with Czech side Ceske Budejovice before helping French outside Rouen reach the quarter-finals of the 2021-22 CHL.

"I played a bit in the Czech Republic, they have a really good team. Big players, skill guys, it's going to be a fast pace," Gilbert said.

"A team like Trinec, they have really good skill guys, big bodies, they have a good system and they're really poised.

"I would say here we play more like a North American type of game, over there it's typical European, Russian, Czech.

"I think we're going to have to stay disciplined over there because if we give them a powerplay or opportunities, they're going to make us pay."

Two days after their opening match in Trinec, the Giants will host HC Davos at the SSE Arena before meeting the Swiss outfit and Trinec again the next week.

Their Group H campaign ends in October with back-to-back fixtures against Sweden's Skelleftea AIK.