Ice Hockey: Coventry Blaze fold as Edinburgh Capitals deliver third-period fightback

The 29-year-old Great Britain defenceman latched on to a pass from razor-sharp Simon Lambert and gave Blaze netminder Peter Hirsch no chance with a sweet strike which bulged the net with less than four minutes left.

The fans burst into song. "Top of the league, having a laugh," rang around the disappointingly empty rink at Murrayfield, a dig at Coventry's lofty league position.

Frankly, the stay-away fans missed a treat but their failure to attend has serious financial implications for Scotland's only top-tier ice hockey team.

Owner Scott Neil did not pull any punches in his programme notes entitled "The Harsh Reality" and he hinted that player cuts could be made imminently.

Neil added: "Despite the recent great results I am sad to say that things are still not great for us financially at the moment.

"In fact, they are worse than not great. The reality is that we are just not getting enough people in to watch us every week and that is really starting to hurt us.

"We have tried to attract new sponsorship but the current financial climate is making this really difficult at the moment.

"We did have some interest from a company just before Christmas but, unfortunately, they were not prepared to commit to us at this moment."

The bleak statement took the gloss off what was a wonderful win by the injury-hit team who were once again minus skipper Martin Cingel (shoulder), Darius Pliskauskas (hand), Michael Beynon (concussion) as well as player/director of hockey, Doug Christiansen (knee).

Every one of the players was a hero and happy Horne summed up the mood in the dressing-room.

The 29-year-old, Kirkcaldy-based refuse collection supervisor, said: "The guys in the dressing-room work for each other.

"There is a tremendous spirit here and we are going places."

Currently, Capitals occupy sixth place in the eight-strong league with 30 points from the same number of games.

Win No.13 means they are three points clear of Sheffield Steelers, who have played two more games, and 11 ahead of rock-bottom Hull Stingrays who have also completed 32 fixtures.

The victory certainly lifted spirits after Saturday's 4-3 overtime defeat at second-top Nottingham Panthers and Sunday's 8-0 thrashing at Sheffield and Horne admitted: "We needed that."

The father-of-two added: "I knew it (the puck) was heading for the net as soon as I hit it. Simon (Lambert) saw me and provided the pass and I hit it sweetly.

"We deserved that win. We played them off the ice in the first period but had a bad second period. Two goals in two minutes from Simon got us back on top and we were rewarded with the points.

"The guys worked really hard and it showed the spirit there is in this team when we came back from being 2-1 down after leading 1-0 early on."

Ben O'Connor opened the scoring after 26 seconds with a deflected goal in Capitals' first attack.

And it took Coventry, who were minus top points scorer, Adam Calder, whose wife is expecting a baby, until the 25th minute to level on the power play through skipper Dan Carlson after Capitals' netminder, Cody Rudkowsky, had been penalised for delaying the game.

Greg Owen made it 2-1 for Blaze nine minutes later as the visitors dominated the middle session, but Capitals were a different side in the final 20 minutes.

They opened strongly and Owen Fussey missed a gilt-edged chance in the opening two minutes. Coventry kept their cool but up stepped Lambert.

He squeezed the puck home in the 51st minute from close range after netminder Hirsch provided a sharp rebound chance.

One of the key moments of the match came when Rudkowsky snuffed out Chambers as the forward skated clear of the Capitals defence. That save lifted the home side even further leaving Lambert to put the home side 3-2 ahead in the 53rd minute with Horne the provider.

And it was the former Fife Flyers defenceman who swapped roles on a power play in the 57th minute to score, his only disappointment being that his father, Kenny, was not there to see it fly into the net.

O'Connor netted his second with 43 seconds left to make the scoreline 5-3, the former Coventry man seizing his chance for glory with an empty-net strike from behind his own goal line after Blaze had withdrawn netminder Hirsch to give themselves six skaters.

Ex-Scottish Eagles hit-man Jonathan Weaver pulled one back on a four-on-four play with six seconds left but, by then, the fans were in dreamland and ready to party.