8:55am Wednesday 24th February 2010
Blackburn Hawks climbed to fifth in the English National Ice-Hockey League table with back-to-back wins at the weekend.
Wayne Slater scored five as Hawks thrashed basement club Kingston Jets 10-0 on Saturday, before they shared out the goals in a 6-2 win over Telford Titans on Sunday.
The four-point weekend sees Hawks pull clear of the relegation zone and move to within touching distance of fourth-place Coventry Blaze.
Even with three first team regulars missing, Hawks travelled to Kingston in confident mood, eager to end a run of four straight league defeats and banish the memories of the previous weekend’s 11-3 hammering away to Whitley Warriors.
And they did just that with Slater (five), Jared Owen, Sam Dunford, Matt Viney, Rick Hughes and Aaron Davies finding the target in a stroll to success.
Hawks headed into Sunday’s home encounter in high spirits and the first period saw them continue in the same fashion as the previous night.
Chris Butler opened the scoring on a power play after six minutes and Craig Rogers added a second with a fine solo effort two minutes before the break to put Blackburn well on the way to victory.
Karl Downey bagged the only goal of the second period, while strikes from Davies and Owen, against his former club, extended Hawks’ lead to 5-0 by the 50-minute mark.
Telford briefly rallied with two late goals in the space of a minute, but Anthony Kinder eased the fans’ nerves with the decisive sixth in the dying seconds.
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