Todd Kelman couldn't believe it. There was no way it could be true. Theo Fleury a Belfast Giant? You can't be serious. An Olympic gold medallist, a Stanley Cup winner with over 1,000 NHL points playing in the Elite League? It'll never happen.

It happened.

When Todd Kelman looks back on his hockey career, one year will always stand out. In 2005/06 he played on a Belfast Giants team featuring the likes of Mike Minard, Marc Levers, George Awada and, oh yeah, some short dude from Canada called Theo Fleury.

After his NHL career ended in controversy, Fleury arrived in the autumn of 2005 and single-handedly took over the Elite League. Dominated it - in every shape and form.

Kelman and the rest of the Giants just sat back and enjoyed the ride, soaking up Fleury's stories of the NHL and pinching themselves every day before practice in sheer disbelief that they were lacing up their skates next to an all-time great.

Favourite

Way back in the late eighties when Kelman was growing up in Calgary, Fleury was the skilful young superstar on the Flames' cup-winning team. Kelman would never have believed you if you told him that one day he would share a locker room with his childhood hero. And he still gives the impression that he can't believe it actually happened.

Kelman's got a lot to say about it. So I'll let him do the talking...

I was at home watching TSN, our version of Sky Sports News, in Canada. And something just flashed up along the lines of: "Fleury to Belfast."

And then immediately my phone started going with my buddies across Canada calling me and saying: "Did you see it? Fleury's going to play for your team." And I said: "There's no way that Theo Fleury's going to be playing for my team." And that was the initial thinking, then I kept watching the TV and like Sky Sports it comes around every half hour. So I waited and I saw it and I couldn't believe it.

Because to me, he was my absolute favourite player growing up because I'm from Calgary. And even looking through his book there's pictures of him from when he won the Stanley Cup and the Parade, which I was at.

I remember being 13, skipping school, going to the parade and lining up and camping out for Stanley Cup tickets. I went to all the Stanley Cup games at the Saddledome and I remember thinking: "Wow, he's my favourite player." And then you look at him there and he looks 13, although he was 20, but you forget how young he was when they won the cup. He wasn't a big 20-year old, he was a tiny person and he was already a superstar.

It's funny reading the book (Fleury's autobiography - "Playing With Fire"), because he told us a lot of interesting stories. At the time Theo was complete cold turkey and it was a battle for him, I just soaked him in as much as I could because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity chance to hear every great story from your favourite player.

After games I would go back to the hotel with him and his fiancé and I told him right up: "I'm going to ask you a million questions and you can tell me when it gets annoying." And he said: "No, I'll tell you every story, everything you need to know."

Embarrassed

I would sit there and pump him full of questions: "What was Lanny McDonald like? What was it like when you won the Cup? What was it like when you won the Olympics? Who was your favourite player?" Every question you could think of and you knew when we'd be on the bus and we'd get him at the back and we'd just say: "Tell us your favourite Wayne Gretzky story. Tell us your best Mark Messier story." He was a great storyteller.

We'd get off the ice afterwards and he'd still be screaming and you'd try to calm him down and you just couldn't. I remember one game when we were playing Edinburgh and were beating them pretty badly and Ed Courtenay came in and said: "Hey guys, let's lay up here. We're playing against Tony (Hand) and he helped me get this job, and he's one of my best friends. I don't want to embarrass him in his own rink." And we all said: "Yeah, ok."

And then he walks out and Theo stands up and says: "Are you kidding me, we're going to embarrass these guys. No-one says we don't embarrass them. I want to score 100 goals against these guys."

That's how he was. When somebody said "Don't embarrass them." He'd just go out there and do it. He was cocky, but never talked about anything but hockey. Before a game he'd say: "I'm not going to score today, I'm going to make sure you guys score and I'll get five assists." And he'd go out and get six assists.

Before he even played his first game he looked at the stats and said: "Who's this Dan Tessier?"

At the time Tessier had 22 points in 16 games or something like that. Fleury missed the first month of the season and came in and said: "You think that's too much of a head start?" We all laughed, in a way like: "Yeah, yeah Theo we know you're the best."

Then he gets nine points in his first game.

Some of the stuff he did at the Odyssey, I remember when we were down 2 with fiveminutes left and his dad was watching. Fleury called us out because his parents were there and he didn't want to be embarrassed.

He went out and got the next two goals and assisted on the winner as we won 7-6. Going into the last minute it was tied and he goes into the centre of the ice to take the face-off and he just backed away from the draw and started raising his arms to get the staff and crowd to stand up. I was on the ice with him, getting chills and thinking: "This is what books are written about."

Next week: Part 2 of the interview with Todd Kelman, as he discusses Fleury's reputation in the UK, the incident with Vezio Sacratini and why he believes that the league missed a huge opportunity with him.

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