Hockey

“It's great to have something that is completely neutral,” said Giants fan Natasha Johnson, “and everyone can feel excited, regardless of your background.”.

“The Giants don’t deliberately wear the badge of neutrality as a statement piece,” said Fitzpatrick. “We don’t go out to the great and good and say we intend to make a neutral difference. Goodwin said that while signing autographs at the team’s awards night, one gentleman told him “that before the Giants, there were a lot of Protestants that had never spoken to a Catholic until they came to a Giants game. The complex is owned by a novel entity, a self-funding and profitable charity, the Odyssey Trust, which has a high-energy local son as CEO, Robert Fitzpatrick. “But when I hear stories like that, it makes me recognize and appreciate the positive impact the Giants are having on the community.” And last year, with sports across Britain hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the team’s employees turned the SSE Arena into Northern Ireland’s largest mass vaccination center, ultimately delivering more than 360,000 vaccines. In a place where color carries huge weight — green signifies Catholic nationalism, orange Protestant unionism — the Giants chose a soothing and apolitical teal for their uniforms. “They’re not nationalist or unionists, or they’re a bit of both,” he said. This week the DUP said it would not join a government over objections to post-Brexit trading arrangements, which can only be resolved by leaders in London and Brussels. That could prevent a new government from being formed. In a land where ice hockey is a truly foreign game, and with a roster filled largely by Canadians and Americans, the Giants have defied expectations to become a U.K. sporting success. The party doubled its 2017 performance to finish third, behind Sinn Féin and the unionist Democratic Ulster Party (DUP), a dominant force for decades that now appears to be in decline. “All of these people will be much more important in the future because there’s not going to be a clear nationalist or unionist majority. The Giants have won five of the last 10 trophies on offer.