When it comes to difficult days on the road, Steve Thornton knows better than to make excuses. He's been playing this game for too long to do that. He's spent too many hours on the bus and sitting around in airports to use a tough travel day as an explanation for a loss.

When you play for the Belfast Giants, the toughest road schedule in the Elite League comes as standard. And after a delayed flight on Sunday caused havoc with his team's game in Cardiff, Thornton knew it only too well.

Thornton: Travel nightmare

"These are the character-building games and we don't let excuses get in the way," Thornton told skysports.com.

"Guys are used to living with hockey bags in airports doing this profession."

After going down 2-1 against the Blaze at home on Saturday night, the G-men were gearing up to face the Devils on Sunday evening. The plan was to get a good night's sleep and be at the airport early Sunday morning to arrive at the rink in good time. Well, if you call walking into the Cardiff Bay Arena at 7:20pm "good time" then you know things didn't exactly go to plan, as Thornton explains.

Unpredictable

"On Saturday night we had a pretty tough game against Coventry and the guys went home thinking that we had to meet at the airport at 9.15am, which we did," he said.

"Once we showed up and checked in we saw that our flight was delayed so we made the decision to get another flight that got us into Bristol. Our flight left at 4:30pm so it was a real long day and we arrived here and started playing after a 15-minute warm-up."

The difficulties of Belfast's travel itinerary are easily demonstrated by the destination of their original planned flight - Luton! With few options available to make it to Cardiff in advance of the planned 6pm face-off, the Giants booked a flight to Luton and were planning to bus it back across the country to Cardiff, possibly braving the notoriously unpredictable M25 and then the M4 on a Sunday afternoon.

When the Luton flight was delayed, the Giants set about on a course of damage limitation. Whatever route they took next was going to seriously delay their arrival, but there was little choice.

"We had the bus and everything waiting for us in Luton and then they put our flight back to 3:00pm, which wouldn't have got us to Cardiff in time at all," Thornton continued.

"There was a flight to Cardiff, but we couldn't get on that one."

The G-men got off the ground later in the afternoon and arrived in Bristol before eventually entering the rink to a warm round of applause, albeit tinged with a heavy dose of sarcasm. Thornton quickly settled a face-off time with match referee Tom Darnell and headed to the locker room to get going.

Face-off was delayed until about 8:10pm. Although, time did pass reasonably quickly thanks to a couple of figure skaters and an All-Star game-style shooting competition from the Devils. Once the puck dropped though, the game started exactly as you would have expected it at 6:00pm - with Sean McMorrow offering Brad Voth out, although this time the Devils captain declined.

There was no denying that the presence of McMorrow and fellow heavyweight Jeff Szwez rattled the Devils and made them think twice when they were on the puck, except for menacing forwards Tylor Michel and Gerad Adams, who only seemed to be encouraged by it.

The Giants are a tough bunch this year and Thornton won't have to worry about his team being bullied - he's more likely to be reining his boys in.

Frustrating

While the physicality of the visitors dwindled as the game went on, the home side turned the tables as a huge hit from Adams led to Matt Towe's equaliser.

And despite their misfiring powerplay (0/12 - ouch!) the Devils withstood Belfast's aggression and came through thanks to Jay Latulippe's overtime winner.

Still, it showed what a different proposition the Giants are this year, especially in a small rink like Cardiff Bay.

"I think that's part of the game-plan for us," Thornton said.

"We've been bullied last season and we didn't have quite the right team and this season we're probably built for a rink like Cardiff's. We've got a lot of size and strength and guys who can move the puck quickly so we just wanted to eliminate that portion of the game for them.

"They were sitting here waiting for us and we wanted to let them know in the first 5-10 minutes that we're ready to play and weren't going to hand two points to them. And that was part of the game-plan: To get the puck deep, to finish every hit and make life as difficult as possible for them."

And that's what Thornton will hope his team can do again when it's the Devils' turn to travel to Northern Ireland on Saturday.

Following that disappointing weekend the Giants stand fifth in the league, although there's barely an inch between the top five right now. They may only have picked up one point from two big games against fellow title contenders, but Thornton could also see some positives.

"We played pretty well, but it's pretty frustrating when you look at the other results tonight as it was a first-place or fifth-place weekend for us," he said.

"As a coach you can be happy with some of the things in Cardiff. They had a rest-day on Saturday compared to our crazy travel day and we took it to them despite the penalties. I just wish we took the two points, instead of one."

Of course, when a game gets delayed by over two hours overtime is practically guaranteed. Latulippe made sure it didn't last too long, but Belfast's day wasn't over yet. Another three-and-a-half hour journey back to Luton Airport was waiting.

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