BLACKBURN Hawks already know who and when they will be playing in the ice hockey play-offs...even though the Northern Premier League season hasn't yet finished!

Hawks are destined to finish in fourth position in the NPL irrespectivce of how results go on this the final weekend of league action.

The NPL will split into two groups for the play-offs - a situation complicated by there only being seven clubs in total.

Group One: Fife Flyers, Whitley Warriors, Dumfries Vikings and Castlereagh Knights.

Group Two: Paisley Pirates, BLACKBURN HAWKS and Murrayfield Royals.

The group matches will run on a round robin fixture basis with the top two clubs for each section going on to a second play-off stage, again on a round robin format.

The eventual top dogs will then meet the winners of the Southern League to find the overall British champion - that final to be staged at Manchester's Nynex Arena on Saturday, March 29. The teams who don't qualify for the second play-off stage will take part in their own separate competition - so Hawks fans are guaranteed plenty of action over the next few weeks.

Hawks play-off fixtures read:

Sat, Feb 22 - Murrayfield (H)

Sat, March 1 - Paisley (H)

Sun, March 2 - Murrayfield (A)

Sat, March 8 - Paisley (A)

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.