After last week’s dominant display down in Solihull, the Blackburn Hawks welcomed the league leading Billingham Stars to the Hawks Nest. Armed with a sizeable travelling contingent of fans, the atmosphere inside Blackburn Arena matched the importance of this crucial fixture. A still under construction Hawks side travelled up to Billingham for the first game of the season back at the start of September, falling 3-1 to the Stars. Since then, the Stars have mounted a sizeable lead at the top of the division, losing only once before Sunday’s face-off. However, after a sensational pre-game performance from Stan the Sax, the Blackburn Hawks came out ready and raring.
Blackburn score early. Anyone who follows NIHL 1 knows that by now. That being said, even the most optimistic Hawks fan wouldn’t have dreamed of Jacob Lutwyche opening the scoring 25 seconds into play. This goal left the visiting side reeling just seconds into the game and barely three minutes later Lutwyche would strike again. With another assist provided by Andy McKinney, the Hawks doubled their lead with the forward’s 18th of the season. All was going according to Head Coach Dom Osman’s plan, as he stated ‘We wanted to get on them quickly after their long trip to Blackburn’. The home side’s intensity continued to overwhelm the Stars as the first period ticked on. With five minutes left, young talent Daragh Spawforth made his mark latching onto a pinpoint Aaron Davies pass and slotting coolly past Billingham goalie Jacob Hammond. At 3-0, the Hawks Nest was joyous, but that euphoria was tempered in the dying seconds of the period when James Hellens buried a crucial goal for Billingham, trimming the lead to 3-1 and offering the visitors a glimmer of hope heading into the break.
As the second period commenced, Blackburn’s goalie Ollie Thomasson continued to deliver a stellar performance between the pipes. Coach Osman explained his decision to rotate his goaltenders: ‘With only four games this month, I wanted to split the action between the keepers and give Ollie some game time. They’re a great goaltending duo, and we want to make sure both keepers are getting time against top opposition’. Thomasson repaid that faith with a strong showing, but as the second period wore on, the relentless pressure from Billingham began to take its toll. At the halfway mark, James Moss finished off a well-executed play to make it 3-2. Immediately after Moss’ goal, there was only one man who could resurrect Billingham’s chances of winning and spark a second coming. The Stars talismanic frontman Iain Brown was having a quiet evening until halfway through the game, where it was as if the Hawks defenders were made of stone as the Star spectacularly danced around them. Brown jubilantly celebrated his 33rd goal of the season in front on the Blackburn fans, with the game now well and truly back in the balance. Analysing the collapse in this period, Osman admitted: ‘I don’t think they did anything particularly different in the second, we just ran into a bit of penalty trouble, and while I don’t think we took a step backward, we just didn’t come out with the same energy as the first’.
With the score tied at 3-3, the tension in the third period was palpable. The on-ice action was truly end-to-end as any mistake or magical moment carried the weight of potential victory or defeat. The man to break this deadlock would be none other than Daragh Spawforth. Returning from an international tournament, the 16-year-old looked like an experienced veteran as he recreated the tidy finish of his first goal. The Arena was in hysterics as the puck hit the back of the net, with Blackburn back in the lead. Billingham responded with a furious onslaught, desperate to claw their way back. In a pivotal moment, Hawks defender Devids Jurinenoks delivered a jaw-dropping defensive play, diving across the ice to strip Chris Sykes of a breakaway opportunity. The Hawks fans celebrated as if Jurinenoks had scored a goal himself. The Latvian’s diving defensive display would eventually lead to a similarly spectacular moment up the other end of the ice. After receiving a beautifully weighted pass from Lee Pollitt, Hawks forward Josh Crawley thrived under the pressure situation and fired home Blackburn’s fifth. The young talent wheeled away in triumph, perfectly mocking Iain Brown’s overexuberant celebration, as the Hawks fans cheered the roof off the Arena.
The feistiness of the fixture reached close to boiling point near the end of the game, with each team accumulating 5 penalties each over the duration of the contest. However both sides’ strong penalty kills meant that the offending players were spared their blushes. This came to an end however in the final period, as Blackburn capitalised on Billingham’s reckless play. The first of these penalty punishments was eventually put in by Adam Barnes. The Hawks perfectly produced powerplay led to a large amount of traffic in front of Hammond. Andy McKinney found Barnes in the chaos, who dispatched his shot with ease. The game now well and truly slipping from Billingham’s grasp, Michael Elder took a nasty slashing penalty as the desperate Stars hung on for dear life. Up stepped up the Hawks powerplay yet again, and the same outcome occurred. Ending the game with the final goal of the match, James Riddoch was swarmed by his Blackburn teammates as the Hawks Nest erupted.
A truly tremendous 7-3 victory for Blackburn against the league leaders. Reviewing the fixture, Dom Osman stated ‘it was a really good game to be honest. I thought we came out right out of the gate which was our plan. We played to a high level in the first, we went down a level in the second and then went up two levels in the third’. This statement result brings the Hawks closer to Billingham’s premier position, with Blackburn closing the gap to just under 10 points. With each side having bested the other at their home arena, it is all to play for the next time the teams clash. Fans won’t have to wait long, as the Hawks-Stars rivalry continues on the second week of December with a blockbuster double-header. Speaking on the prospect of facing off against the Stars again, Osman notes how ‘Billingham are a good team. They’ve got some great players and they’re top of the league for a reason. They might have been abit short tonight but at the same time, they had a lot of firepower and I don’t think the two guys they were missing are going to make that much of a difference. At the end of the day we focus on our game and don’t bother too much with the team that’s playing against us. We’ve got the talent to do that’. However before the rivalry is reignited, the Hawks must first travel to Elland Road for a match-up with the resurgent Leeds Knights 2….
The Blackburn Hawks will play against the Leeds Knights 2 @ Planet Ice Leeds on Sunday 1st December, Face-Off: 6:00pm
Article Courtesy of Nathan Dove
FEATURED IMAGES PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Pollitt and KIPAX