SPEED and excitement, bruising collisions and pumping dance music. It can mean only one thing -- ice hockey. Blackburn has one of the North West's premier ice hockey venues and a team worth shouting about. Reporter SIMON HAWORTH went to his first-ever game and discovered a thrilling spectator sport for all the family. . .

THE teenage girls grouped behind me may have slightly different priorities for watching the Blackburn Hawks than other spectators in the Arena.

Certainly the skilful young men who glide, barge and bash their way through 60 minutes of ice hockey have generated their own teenage fan base.

Yet, each of the Lancastrians who cheer the Hawks through their ice-based battles on a weekly basis have their own reasons for attending matches.

And the crowd's wide age range, and approximate 50-50 male-female split, show it's a sport with broad, potentially mass appeal.

It was just half a decade ago that the Hawks were attracting thousands of fans to every game, played in the Premier League against the country's biggest sides, and had some of the game's top players.

Even though the attendances and standard of opponent have dropped since those days, the game still guarantees entertainment -- and the team are on the up.

The staging of tonight's contest is well thought-out, with dance and pop music geeing up the crowd -- obviously a trick borrowed from across the Atlantic.

I took my seat as the players arrived on the ice to much fanfare. A slap of the sticks and we were off.

The game itself is high octane stuff. The general gist of the sport is to get the puck into the opposing team's net. I've often heard that it's difficult to see the puck when watching ice hockey, but that's a myth as it's easy to catch as the players slap it about, and I was soon hooked into the rhythm of the game.

Then suddenly something happened which ice hockey is notorious for -- violence!

A Blackburn Hawks player got slightly hot under the collar and launched himself into the midriff of his opponent.

This resulted in a scuffle and a handy right hook from a Blackburn player into a rival's face.

Although I am among the last to condone any sort of violence the fracas was genuinely tame, and the armour protects against injury.

The bit of needle in the match seemed to heighten the atmosphere and did not upset the family occasion.

The DJ's choice of the Pet Shop Boys' song 'It's a Sin' as the offending players squatted in the sin bin summed up the tongue-in-cheek mood.

So, despite the fisticuffs, the game is essentially a family spectator sport.

Lisa Howarth, 34, a clerical officer from Old Hall Drive, in Huncoat, agreed.

Lisa, along with husband Andrew and kids Kirsty, six, and Zoe, two, was enjoying her first ice hockey game.

She said: "I'm really enjoying it and so is Kirsty. I would recommend it for other families. It's a good atmosphere and the fights are just a bit of argy-bargy."

Sadly, it seems the game is not attracting enough people to the Arena.

This seems strange considering that Blackburn appear to have a very good side -- they thrashed Bradford 8-3.

So, if you want to support a successful team of local lads and have a good night out, then get yourself down to the Arena and fill up the empty red seats beside the Hawks' groupies.