ICE HOCKEY: Hawks twice tasted defeat this weekend with defeats at Kirkcaldy in the Border League on Saturday and at home to Flintshire in the English League Division One (North) last night.

Saturday's 6-5 defeat by the Kestrels was food for thought for player-boss Bobby Haig in his side's first game in the new league.

But Sunday's defeat at the Arena was a particularly bitter pill to swallow after beating the Freeze home AND away last weekend.

However, Hawks came very close to stealing a draw in a mouth-watering final period. At 4-1 down the game looked over, but Dan Mackriel popped up twice to set up a tense last few minutes.

But the visitors managed to hold on to condemn Hawks to their second defeat of the weekend. Haig was quick to thank the vocal home fans, but was bitterly disappointed with the result.

"We tried to do too many stupid things when we should be getting back to basics," said Haig. "We were terrible on Saturday and it continued tonight."

Haig's only comfort was a spirited last period performance from his young side.

"Eventually we got some fire in our bellies and decided to go out and play." and we turned the game round. We had a chance of winning it but it wasn't to be."

"We only have ourselves to blame, you can't just play for 20 minutes and expect to win. You have to play for 60 minutes or you get nothing."

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