BROTHERLY love will be put to one side when Blackburn Hawks play their first league game of the season at Kingston Jets tomorrow.

Blackburn brothers Carl and Wayne Slater will be meeting up for the second time in the space of a week following last Sunday's English Cup clash at the Ice Arena.

That night Wayne, 22, came out on top against his 15-year-old brother Carl, who travels to Hull twice a week to train with the Jets, as the Hawks came out on top 9-4.

St Bede's pupil Carl joined the Jets to benefit from their youth system and he also plays for their under 16s and under 19s teams.

The lads' dad Andy said: "You get more ice time up there. It's no-one's fault, but at Blackburn you ony get an hour a week so Carl gets more time on the ice to develop quicker.

"It's a lot of travelling, but I share the driving with someone else from the area for the two midweek training sessions."

Meanwhile, Hawks assistant manager Graham Lomax is spolit for choice ahead of another action-packed weekend for the ice hockey side.

Last week, Hawks were forced to draft in players from the under 19s squad because so many first teamers were unavailable in what Lomax described as a 'fiasco'.

He said: "It made our games last week much more difficult because we had several of our regulars missing. It was lucky that we could call upon the under 19s at such short notice or else we would have been in real trouble."

Hawks should be back to full strength, with the exceptions of Greg Allen, who is suffering with long-term injury, and Craig Sharman, who will miss out through work commitment for their two games at the weekend."

Hawks kick off with an English Cup game against rivals Whitley at the Arena tonight (Saturday, face-off 6pm) and then head up to Kingston tomorrow.

Lomax added: "We will definitely be up for the Whitley game. They are one our rivals and we are doing very well in the cup so it would be nice to win.

"We have home advantage and that has proved successful this season."