French Open success showed why I’m now number one: Halep
call that not only took his career in a totally different path, but his life too.
“I was going through a tough time in the American League,” said Keefe.
“The American League and the ECHL, it’s a tough one for players. Sometimes you are a piece of meat to teams.
“It’s tough mentally on players there and I was going through a tough time that summer where I thought I had a contract in Grand Rapids when they fired the GM.
“At that point I was 27 and I had been doing what I was doing for about six years, it wasn’t working out in my favour and I thought that I would like to get to Europe and see the world while playing before it was too late.”
The Belfast Giants had just lost out on the Elite League title by a single point and coach Doug Christiansen set about refreshing his team. He had remembered Keefe from a fight a few years before — even if Keefe didn’t recall the contest.
“I couldn’t remember that I fought him until he told me. I guess it was more memorable for him than it was for me! He did send me a photo that was very kind to him,” said Keefe.
As thing began to line up for him the move across the Atlantic became more and more attractive to Keefe. He wanted to try something new, Christiansen did a great job in selling Belfast and the Giand ants the words of a friend convinced him to make the jump.
“I got the call from Doug at the right time and I just thought: ‘let’s go, let’s do this’.” he said.
“In terms of Belfast I didn’t know much about it. I knew that Theo Fluery had been here — I had heard about.
“I tried to find out what Belfast was like, what the league was like and Doug did a good job in breaking down, in terms of money how much the British pound was worth compared to the Canadian dollar, the taxes and all that kind of thing. “He was pretty thorough. He could sell ice to Eskimos.”
Seven years later it’s not just Northern Ireland that Keefe has fallen in love with. A year ago, just days before he was due to start his first season as Giants coach having been appointed in May, he married Belfast-born Colleen. For someone who had to fight for everything he got on the ice, his personal life just seems to have fallen into place and his is something of a ‘what was meant to be’ story.
“I would be lying if I said I thought I would come to Belfast and stay here. I thought it would be a stepping stone to move on to another country or another city, but here I am seven years later and I don’t see myself anywhere else,” said Keefe.
“When we won in my first season it was just a great year and I didn’t want to leave. Maybe I was looking for a place to settle down and enjoy.
“When Doug left he tried to entice me to go to Sheffield with him and the respect I had for him I listened to him, but my heart was here in Belfast and my loyalties lay here in Belfast.”
By that time he had already met his future wife and after getting married and setting up home in north Belfast he claims to be ‘a full-blown Northern Irishman now.’
“I actually met her through the team. She was our physio in my second season. It was just one of those things, we met and we hit it off. I’ll probably get myself in trouble for saying this, but I never thought that four or five years later we would be married.
“I’m happy to be here, I’m happy my life has turned out this way and I’m happy to be in Belfast. My wife is here, the team, the house and I vacation back in Canada. That’s the real difference.
“When I first came here I was going home for four months in the summer and now I’m down to about two weeks. It is funny in life that you don’t know where you’re going to end up. I am just grateful that I was able to play hockey, it brought me here and I was able to meet Colleen.
“Crazy things happen.” SIMONA Halep believes this year’s French Open victory has helped justify her position as the women’s world number one, with the Romanian saying she was now playing pressure-free tennis and motivated to add more Grand Slam titles to her CV.
The 26-year-old also earmarked US Open champion Naomi Osaka as a huge prospect for the future after the Japanese player made her major breakthrough in New York.
“My dream was to become number one and I managed that last year and then my goal was to win a Grand Slam because some consider that a sign of being a true number one,” Halep, who has topped the rankings for 46 weeks in total, explained.
“So my motivation was to win a major after I reached the top of the rankings and now I feel relaxed after achieving both. I am still motivated to win every match and now the pressure feels off, I can just feel the pleasure of playing.”
Halep knows all too well the pain of losing a Grand Slam final after suffering three failures in as many title matches before she rallied past American Sloane Stephens in Paris to prevail 3-6 6-4 6-1 on her favourite clay surface in June.
The mental and physical exertion of that triumph seemed to take a toll on the base-liner midway through the season but Halep believes her form in North America indicated she was close to playing her best tennis.
“It wasn’t a huge disaster after I won the French Open. I won in Canada and reached the final in Cincinnati in consecutive weeks,” she said.
“That meant a lot to me and gave me confidence to believe my level is still there, but in the Grand Slams... at Wimbledon I was really tired and emotional, and grass is always difficult for me.
“I did have a match point in the third round (loss to Hsieh Su-wei) and Kaia Kanepi just played really well at the U.S. Open and I just couldn’t put it together to win the match or make it closer,” she added of her first round loss in New York.
“I feel my form is really good now but you never know, we’ll see... I am just trying to stay focused and do my best.”
Osaka (below) became Japan’s first ever Grand Slam champion with her impressive win over Serena Williams in a US Open final marred by accusations of sexism towards the umpire by the American after she was warned three times for various infringements.
Halep steered clear of commenting directly about the second set incidents but felt that women and men were generally treated equally by officials on the tennis court. “I don’t really see a difference between men’s and women’s tennis,” Halep added.
“I don’t really want to comment on this (the US Open final) but everyone gets the same thing. I have been fined for smashing my racket. The umpires respect the rules and I don’t really have much to add as it feels the same for me.”
Despite being just 20-yearold, Osaka managed to stay calm enough to complete a 6-2 6-4 victory over the 23-time Grand Slam champion, a performance that Halep believed made the Japanese player a big threat on the circuit.
“Osaka just won a Grand Slam. She’s a very good player, she’s very young and very powerful, has a great future ahead and will definitely be strong at the WTA Finals,” Halep added of the elite eight-woman event taking place in Singapore next month.