Blackburn Hawks are in confident mood as they switch to the English Cup tomorrow night to face Flintshire Freeze at the Arena.

Having won their last three English National Ice Hockey League (North) games and both their previous English Cup ties, Hawks' assistant manager Graham Lomax sees no reason why they cannot beat Flintshire (face off 6pm) and go on to win the competition.

"We are in very good form at the moment and we want to keep up the momentum. It is important that we maintain this kind of form and, if we do, we have a good chance of winning some silverware this season.

"We had a fantastic win last weekend against Whitley Warriors which has really got the lads fired up. We went to Flintshire in the league a few weeks ago and beat them so a repeat of that would be nice."

With no new injury worries, Hawks have a full squad available with new boys Bob Chalmers and Chris Gracie looking to continue their impressive start, so selection is likely to be tricky.

The local lads have already accounted for Sheffield Spartans (6-3) and Kingston Jets (5-1) in the Cup.

"The competition is going well for us and everyone wants to play so that makes the competition for places particularly fierce," said Lomax.

"All the lads are playing well and some of the younger players are pushing for places, which makes things even more difficult. Nevertheless, it's a nice problem."

Despite beating rivals Whitley and sitting three points from the top of the league with a couple of games in hand, Lomax said Hawks were not getting carried away.

"I never read too much into the league table - especially at this relatively early stage - all that really matters is our points total at the end of the season."