BOBBY Haig has pleaded with local ice hockey fans to get behind Blackburn Hawks against visiting Nottingham at the Arena tomorrow night (face-off 6pm).

Player-coach Haig, bitterly disappointed with the performance in the 4-1 defeat last time out against Altrincham, has promised a "much-improved" effort from his team. Hawks go into the English League Division One (North) encounter looking for their first home win of the new season.

"We fell short of the standard against Altrincham, well short of it." stated Haig. "We know that we can play better than that and we want to show the fans just how much better we can be. Hopefully they will stick by us and be as vocal as they were against Altrincham."

Haig is confident the Hawks can turn things around this weekend: "To be honest I don't know an awful lot about Nottingham, but we know we have the players here to give any team a match at this level.

"We have to remember that we played teams of a much higher standard last season and we must use that experience to our advantage."

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