A ‘Giants’ surprise for Trevor-Lee
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Andrew Martin and Paul Denniset from the Belfast Giants who called in to visit Trevor Lee McIntyre at his home in Seacon, Ballymoney on Friday. Included is Trevor Lee's good friend, David Gratton.
ARDENT fan of Belfast Giants Ice Hockey Team Trevor-Lee McIntyre got a fantastic surprise last Friday afternoon when two of the teams top players popped in to visit him at his home in Seacon, just outside Ballymoney.
Trevor-Lee was left speechless when Canadian hockey stars Paul Deniset and Andrew Martin were shown into the room by his Mum and sat down on the sofa beside him. They then presented him with a Belfast Giants flag specially autographed by every player in the team, with The Chronicle having been invited to record the moment.
A sufferer from cerebral palsy, he has had a number of difficult and painful operations lately and has been unable to get to as many games at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast as he would like so his mum and the Giants got together to help cheer him up.
The initial shock did not last for long however and soon he and his friend David, another keen Giants fan, were bantering away to Paul and Andrew about what its like to be in one of the top Ice Hockey teams in the UK.
The Giants are currently fourth in their league.
Obviously there is some arch rivalry going on between the Giants and Newcastle as Trever-Lee was heard advising the guys, "to make sure the next time you meet the Newcastle ones you stick the head in them," in the best bantering fashion.
“I'm a bit shocked, a bit star struck," Trevor-Lee admitted after an hour long discussion about the ins and outs of the game injuries, performances, league prospects. David said, "Its unbelieveable."
Tervor-Lee said "I've followed the Giants since they started in 2001 or 2. The fact that they brought Ice hockey over here from abroad meant David and myself could go to the games. It's a change from football." David, from Newtonabbey added, "It's so close to where I live. I've been to a couple of games and I intend to go to to some more now."
Trevor-Lee said, "I think some of them are fighting injuries, Andrew was out for four weeks this season." He went on, "I asked them if they had difficulty with fans coming up to them in the street, they said sometimes, but not all the time, people are pretty respectful."
Andrew and Paul also discussed arranging for the two lads to go to a match some time soon.
“They said that if we come down we would get back stage to meet the rest of the team." He continued laughing, "Paul said "We'll have to get security men ready to throw you two boys out!"" Asked who are his favourite players, he said "Paul and Andrew are my two favourite players now." "I'm definitely going to try and go to a few games this season. Holding up the flag he said, "This will be going up on my wall!"
Now who could have organised this special event? Well during the summer, Mum Elizabeth decided she wanted to do something special for her son so she wrote to the Giants asking for an autograph. She got a lot more than she had hoped for when Cheryl from Belfast Giants Fan Zone said that she would get a couple of players to drop in personally to deliver the autographs. Elizabeth said "I wanted to surprise Trevor- Lee. He has been through a lot recently with operations to try and straighten his legs out and he has more operations to come. Trevor-Lee is such a happy go lucky person, "there's always somebody worse of than me mum", he says. If you had seen his face when they walked in...its something he'll have for the rest of his life. The Giants are up top with Trevor Lee, you daren't say anything against them." Trevor Lee thanked his Mum saying "Mum has done a lot of kind things in life for me making my life a lot better."
Just before heading back to Belfast, Giants forward Paul Deniset from Winnapeg said "Its exciting for us to meet a fan that is so enthusiastic. When we were talking about things he was really up to speed on our team and the games. Its great to see it." Andrew Martin from Toronto also a forward added "Its great to talk to someone who gets so much out of it. We talked about the possibility of them coming down to see a game and hopefully we will get that organised some time soon."
Special thanks go to Cheryl from the Belfast Giants Fan Zone who organised this special treat. She has also promised to put the guys together a DVD of the Giants games and send it to them. So hopefully the two guys will get to their next match soon and can look forward to being specially looked when they get there. For anyone who is interested the next Giants home game is on Friday November 21.
