Bez Hughes scored his first Wild goal of the season against Blackburn (Photo by Keith & Jenny Davies)
Saturday 25th January 2025 – NIHL Moralee Division: Widnes Wild 2 – Blackburn Hawks 6
The Widnes Wild NIHL team put in a battling performance against north west rivals Blackburn Hawks but ultimately lost out 2-6 at Planet Ice Widnes on Saturday.
Games between Widnes and Blackburn are always keenly contested affairs but, with the Wild struggling to draw clear of the cellar regions of the Moralee Division league table and second place Blackburn still in with an outside chance of the league title, this was always going to be a bit of a tough test.
Despite missing a few key players, Widnes gave as good as they got and it was a very close 0-1 at the end of the first period. The score was 0-4 at the end of the second - due mainly to a hat-trick from former Wild player Adam Barnes - and he added his fourth goal in the third period to bring the Hawks’ tally to 6 for the night.
A short-handed goal from Dani Haid and a strike from Bez Hughes – his first goal of the season - gave the final score a more respectable look and the Wild need not be too disheartened with their overall performance against one of the top teams in the division.
Widnes’s former Hawks player Ben McLellan was missing from the game after he was handed a 3-game suspension by the sport’s governing body for a check to the head in the away game at Nottingham the week before. Damarni James – another ex- Hawk - is also suspended with a 6-game ban for having reached the threshold of 15 disciplinary points after being thrown out of the away game against Leeds.
With fellow strugglers Sheffield losing 9-1 at Billingham over the weekend and Leeds losing 6-3 at Blackburn, Widnes remain in 9th place in the Moralee Division table, within sniffing distance of a play off spot with 11 regular season games left to play.
Borderline strugglers Nottingham Lions shocked Deeside with a 10-5 win on Sunday night that draws them clear in 7th place from the melee below them with a 12 point cushion
The Wild are next in action this Saturday 1st February when they take on Hull Jets at Planet Ice Widnes, 7pm face off.
