Nottingham Lions 4 Blackburn Hawks 7

The Nottingham Lions ended their 32-game regular season with a 7-4 loss to the Blackburn Hawks on Sunday night at the National Ice Centre.

Goals from Gareth O’Flaherty, Nicky Balchin and brothers, Michael and Danny Rose were not enough to prevent the Lancashire outfit taking the points as they marched towards the play-offs.

Michael Rose - penalty shot goal.

With the Lions’ fate already sealed 24 hours earlier, as a Coventry ENL Blaze win condemned Nottingham to a two-legged relegation play-off and the Hawks having already qualified for the play-offs, this game had and real end-of-season feel to it with plenty of open play and lots of chances at both ends.

Blackburn’s Finnish import, Sami Narkia put the Hawks in front after four minutes, only for O’Flaherty to equalise two minutes later.

David Meikle gave the visitors the edge at the end of the first period, scoring with eight minutes to go.

At the start of the second, Blackburn looked to be in the driving seat, Jordan Bannon grabbed his first of three on the night before Narkia scored his second with seven minutes gone.

The Lions didn’t let their heads drop and fought their way back into the game thanks to goals from Balchin and then Danny Rose on the power play.

Meikle restored the Blackburn’s two goal advantage, before a penalty shot, coolly slotted past Hawks’ goalie Stuart Ashton by Michael Rose, again reduced the Lions’ deficit heading into the third.

Once again the Lions out-shot their opponents in the final period but couldn’t make that pressure count. Bannon completed his hat-trick with two goals. The first eight minutes in and the second putting a Lions comeback to bed, with three minutes remaining.

Marcus Maynard takes on the Hawks' Jordan Bannon.

LionsTV has post-game interviews with Matt Bradbury and Cameron Good as well as Blackburn’s Danny Brittle and Jordan Bannon – click on the link on the top of your page to watch them.

All thoughts in the Lions’ camp now turn to the two relegation play-off games with local rivals Sutton Sting. Game dates and times are to be confirmed, so keep an eye on nottinghamlionsenl.com for further updates.

Game Stats:

Danny Rose 1+1, Michael Rose 1+1, Gareth O’Flaherty 1+0, Nicky Balchin 1+0, Joe Wightman 0+2, Jack Clarkson 0+1, Marcus Maynard 0+1.

Period Scores: 1st 1-2, 2nd 3-3, 3rd 0-2.

Penalty Mins: 1st 4-4, 2nd 0-4, 3rd 2-2. Total 6-10.

Shots: 1st 11-8, 2nd 17-12, 3rd 17-15. Total 45-33.

Lions MOTM: Cameron Good.

Nottingham Lions 0 Blackburn Hawks 3

The Nottingham Lions were shut out at home for the first time this season as they went down by three goals to the Blackburn Hawks on Sunday evening.

The biggest crowd of the season at the National Ice Centre were hoping for a night of entertaining hockey, with the Lions looking for points to avoid a potential relegation play-off and the Hawks still within touching distance of first placed Billingham Stars.

Alas, the end-to-end, free-flowing play expected, never materialised as Referee, Rick Adams took centre stage by dishing out a total of 134 penalty minutes between the two sides, making 5-on-5 hockey something of rarity over the sixty minutes.

A scoreless first period saw Nottingham out-shoot Blackburn, 17 to 12, but they couldn’t find a way past Hawks goalie Danny Brittle, who was in fine form.

From thereon in, it was penalties and power plays that decided the outcome of the game, as a great many of Referee, Adams’ calls left both benches scratching their heads in bewilderment and leaving the players on the ice, massively frustrated.

Richard Hughes broke the deadlock with a penalty shot goal just before the half hour, despite Lions protests that Hughes was not in full control of the puck when he was brought down on his way to goal.

Chris Arnone got Blackburn’s second on the power play, two minutes later.

As play continued, numerous scuffles broke out in front of both creases resulting in a string of roughing penalties for both sides, and culminated in Hawks’ Jordan Bannon being thrown out of the game for abuse of an official with three minutes to go in the second and Lions’ Jonny Bell being ejected for cross-checking with nine minutes of the game remaining.

Hawks player-coach Jared Owen effectively ended the game as a contest with five minutes left on the clock, scoring Blackburn’s third on another power play.

The Lions now have just one more game remaining to pick up points to potentially lift them out of the relegation play-off place in ENL Divsion 1 North. Rivals, Coventry have two games left and Matt Bradbury’s men will be hoping that Blackburn can claim the two points at the Skydome next Saturday before retuning to the NIC on Sunday (18th March – 7.15pm) for a second game against the Lions in eight days.

Don’t forget, you can watch post-game interviews with Lions’ Matt Bradbury and Alan Levers as well as Blackburn’s Jared Owen and Danny Brittle on LionsTV – our official online TV channel.

Game Stats:

Period Scores: 1st 0-0, 2nd 0-2, 3rd 0-1.

Shots: 1st 17-12, 2nd 15-13, 3rd 9-15. Total 42-40.

Penalty Mins: 1st 2-16, 2nd 16-37, 3rd 59-4. Total 77-57.

Lions MOTM: Alan Levers.