Deeside Dragons turned in an impressive display on home ice on Sunday as they ran out 8-2 winners over Blackburn Eagles.
After coming in for criticism from player-coach Steve Fellows for a lack of fight in recent weeks, the Dragons built on last week’s 8-8 draw with Telford Tigers with a morale-boosting win.
In front of a healthy 500-plus crowd at Deeside Ice Rink, a brace apiece for James Parsons and Paul Davies and solo efforts from Marc Lovell, Chris Jones, Andrew Chappell and Aled Roberts secured a welcome success.
“I think the momentum from the Telford game carried over into the Blackburn game and it was a really pleasing performance from us,” he said.
“There were more than 500 people there and the guys responded to the backing and they battled well.
“There was a great atmosphere. It was almost like a pantomime the amount of booing that our supporters were doing for Blackburn.
“I think that those fans who turned out to support us would have gone home happy at what they had seen.”
The Dragons flew out of the traps quickly against the Eagles and found themselves 4-0 up inside four minutes before notching a fifth on 19 minutes.
Blackburn pulled two back but the Dragons made the game safe with another three goals without reply to lift them up to sixth in the Laidler Conference ahead of a home clash with Nottingam Lions on Sunday (6.45pm).
“We came out absolutely flying and the energy was right straight from the off,” added Fellows.
“There was so much positivity from us at the start that we just dominated the opening period.
“It was such an improvement on where we were a few weeks ago and we need to keep the momentum going for Nottingham now.”
Like Deeside, the Lions have been dogged by inconsistency this season and lie in seventh spot, one-point behind the Dragons having played a game more.
But Fellows is taking nothing for granted and has challenged his side to repeat their high-energy performance against the Eagles and is hoping for another good crowd.
“Nottingham will be a tough game but we can take confidence from the win over Blackburn,” he said.
“Hopefully some of the fans will have enjoyed the game enough to come back again and cheers us on against the Lions.”
