Lancashire Hawks 6 Murrayfield Royals 7 ; Telford Tigers 9 Lancashire Hawks 3

LADY Luck is no follower of Lancashire Hawks - another weekend of disappointment as the curtain dropped on ice hockey's Christmas Cup.

But not before Hawks had handed out a few belated gifts.

Firstly they allowed Murrayfield to snatch an extra time winner at the Arena on Sunday - before gifting Telford a goal within the opening seven seconds last night.

Hawks can do little right just now, results are going from bad to worse and it is going to take drastic action to revive a flagging season.

The Royals from over the border can usually be relied upon to finish second in a two-horse race - but not on Saturday.

The contest was all square at the end of period two at 5-5, Hawks attacked almost non-stop, managed 18 shots compared to the visitors' eight and still managed to lose! Royals winner came 58 seconds from the final bell. Hawks had twice held the advantage with Jeff Daniels the star of the show with a hat trick, but they couldn't turn ice superiority into goals result and the vast majority in a crowd of 750 could hardly believe their team had lost.

Last night down in Shropshire, Hawks trailed to the fastest goal they've conceded this season, Martin Smith doing the damage before Jim Pennycook's side had realised what was happening.

They never recovered, were four down by the end of the first period and, although they shared the second 202, they were comfortably second best in the third. Officials were today endeavouring to bring in a new face or two ahead of the transfer deadline, but the chances of success were rated as slim.

For the next three months Hawks face the daunting prospect of trying to pull themselves away from the bottom rungs of both the Northern and the National ladders.

Saturday details - Period scores: 3-3, 2-2, 1-2.

Scoresheet: Neil Abel 1+2, Jeff Daniels 3+2, Tim Dempsey 0+4, Simon Mills 0+1, Bobby Haig 0+1, Adrian Lomonaco 2+0.

Sunday details - Period scores: 4-0, 2-2, 3-1. Scoresheet: Jeff Daniels 0+3, Simon Mills 0+1, Tom Burridge 1+0, Adrian Lomonaco 2+0.

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