A new sound has begun to echo around the streets of Belfast in the last two months. On pre-arranged nights, thousands of people are making their way to a meetingpoint where a public showdown is about to take place. But in a city renowned for political and religious division, such gatherings do not reflect historical differences. Instead, the chants and anthems are in support of a cause which is neither orange nor green, Catholic nor Protestant.
Belfast has discovered the robust sport of ice hockey and the recently-opened £91 million sterling 7,000-seater Odyssey Arena simply cannot cope with the demand.
Belfast's adopted Sekonda Superleague team, the Giants, arrived in the city in September last year. While waiting for the Odyssey to be finished, they lost 11 of their opening 15 games, all of which, of course, were played away. At that stage, the Giants' first season in the professional Superleague, up against established UK clubs, was looking decidedly shaky. But since the completion of the Odyssey last December, public indifference has evaporated, as the team has strung together a sequence of nine consecutive home wins. The surge in support is now so great that 5,000 of the 6,000 tickets for next Thursday night's Challenge Cup semi-final against Sheffield Steelers were sold within 20 minutes of going on sale.
There was, at first, a general unease at the early marketing slogan, underlining the game's physical nature, with the slogan: "Torvill and Dean it ain't". It hinted that ice hockey was about providing violence as entertainment in a controlled arena. That campaign has since been abandoned, and the fans, growing increasingly familiar with the game's finer points, are beginning to hail the players as their new idols.
"We realise that we're something positive for the city," says Giants' captain Jeff Hoad, whose ice hockey career started out with the Brandon Wheat Kings in Manitoba, Canada. "While many of us have been playing in England, this is a new experience for most of the team. We're amazed at the way we have been accepted and how people have taken to what we do."
A night out with the Giants is a family affair. Mum and dad, kids and grandparents come along and sit in state-of-the-art comfort for the three-hour spectacle. In the countdown to faceoff, the team makes a grand entrance, gliding into the arena like a scene from Gladiator or Rollerball.
Ice hockey is a fast, six-a-side game with few rules and lots of stoppages. When the action halts, the music producers in the control room pick up the beat with a deafening snatch of music. It can be anything from the appalling but hilarious Hockey Song to the Queen classic, We Will Rock You. When there's a fight on the ice, players penalised for slashing, hooking or roughing trudge to the shame boys' box to the strains of Why Can't We Be Friends? or Hit the Road, Jack.
Corny it might be, but the customers love it. Sisters Paula and Lisa Watson from near Banbridge in Co Down were there on an office outing and plan to come back with their husbands and children. "We're not sporting people," says Paula. "But the arena is perfect for families. There are lots of children here and you feel that they are in a safe environment."
Stephen, from north Belfast, and his friend were on a scouting mission. "It's a test run to see if we should bring our families," he says. "People are polite. There's no hassle, though the drink and the food is pricey enough. I feared it would all be a bit over the top and too American. It is, but the atmosphere is superb and we'll be back."
ALL of the 18 playing staff, with one exception - a player from the US - are Canadian. They come from places with wonderful names like Medicine Hat, Mississauga, Thunder Bay, Oxbow, and Fort St John.
The Giants' managing director, Bob Zeller, a political science graduate, grew up in Montreal before settling in Britain in 1984. As a correspondent for the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper, he mixed coverage of sport with politics, dance and opera.
"Five years ago the Superleague had just been created and I wanted to get into it," he says. "When the chairman of Guildford, the team I was running, decided not to join, I started looking elsewhere. I only left journalism to drive a hockey team."
Zeller sought backing from the Northern Ireland Sports Council, which showed him plans for an arena at a derelict site on the banks of the River Lagan.
"When it was clear that there would be an arena which could be rented, I was able to make a commitment to buying the Belfast franchise from the Superleague for £285,000," he explains. The £2 million sterling investment in the team is financed with the help of Zeller's partner, Dutch-Canadian businessman Albert Massland. On the evidence so far, there should be no problem with the repayments.
Belfast City Council, too, is delighted with the public's reaction to the Giants. "The team gives us a focus in other cities," says council chief executive Brian Hanna. "We haven't had this sports dimension since the Ulster rugby team won the European Cup."
The Giants' tenancy at the Odyssey is merely part of a much bigger development plan for the former coal quay and scrap metal yard adjacent to the Harland & Wolff shipyards. The area, known as the Titanic Quarter, will soon have a multiplex cinema and a shopping and restaurant complex.
"We want to work on getting more people from the Republic to come up. If we have something they don't have, they will travel here," says Hanna.
Zeller's upbringing in Quebec, which has its own separatist issue, has made him acutely aware of the North's difficult journey to peace and the small part his team is playing in it.
"It's a dreadful way to put it, but part of the bonus of coming here was that if the peace policy failed, there would be people wanting to recreate the process," he says.
"People want to make a statement. They want to do something that shows they are part of a new Northern Ireland. Everyone can unite behind the Giants."
Zeller sees ice hockey as crossing all social boundaries. "We cater for the blue and white collars. A working guy with tattoos up his arm is just as likely to be sitting beside a company director with both of them doing the Mexican wave. Our pricing structure is careful not to exclude any grouping," he says.
Head coach Dave Whistle moved his family to the Co Down seaside town of Bangor from Bracknell in the English Home Counties where, last season, he coached the local Superleague team. "Sure I had reservations," he says. "I spent a few days checking this place out, talked it over with my wife, and we haven't regretted it.
"This is the first home we've bought in 10 years. The place has the feel of Canada. London was expensive, there weren't many green spaces and it's safe for my kids to go out and play [here]."
There is a real feeling that the Giants have a genuine interest in getting to know new people. The players stay around after games to talk to the supporters and even bring their own families along for the occasion.
"We're just ordinary guys like everybody else," says Kevin Riehl, as he keeps an eye on his toddler son Cody. "We want people to have a good time and go home happy."
Riehl will go back to Alberta in April and spend the summer months farming 250 head of beef stock with his father. But by mid-August it will be time to get his skates on for the new season with the Belfast Giants.
