Lancashire Raptors

The Lancashire Raptors are a British Ice Hockey team based in Blackburn, Lancashire. They are currently members of the English National Ice Hockey League, and have play in the North 2 division. Their home ice is the 3,200 seat Blackburn Arena.

History
In April 2007, the English Ice Hockey Association restructured the age limits for competing players, reclassifying the under 19 age limit as under 18. This left many 19 year old players in the country without a team to play for regularly. One such team affected was the Blackburn Ice Hockey Development Association (BIHDA), the junior development programme for the Blackburn Hawks; those that were deemed not good enough to play for the Hawks were left with the choice of either recreational hockey or giving up on the sport. This is were the Blackburn Junior Hawks committee stepped in with the decision to set up a second senior team playing out of the Arena alongside the Hawks.

This team, unlike the Hawks, would get no funding from the Arena: the players would primarily fund the team through monthly subs on the same basis as the junior teams.

Mark Ward was selected to be the Raptors coach after expressing his interest in running the team which alongside his wealth of knowledge of the sport, having been a previous coach of the Hawks and many years of playing, made him the ideal man for the job.

The Raptors have completed two seasons competing in the ENIHL North Division 2, following the split in the league for 2008−9.

Season-by-season Record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes.

Current squad 2009-10

 * 1 Matt Phair (N/M)
 * 2 Paddy Thomson
 * 3 Wez Nixon
 * 4 Jordan Owen
 * 5 Paul Burns
 * 6 Matt Milhench (N/M)
 * 7 Mark Gillingham (A)
 * 8 Peter Phillips
 * 9 Osvalds Grinbergs
 * 10 Shannon Lingwood
 * 11 Tom Gilbert
 * 12 Niall Pilkington
 * 13 Garry Fearon
 * 14 Gary Meikle
 * 15 Paul Mercer
 * 16 Ric Hulme
 * 17 Chris Preston (C)
 * 18 Janis Grinbergs
 * 19 Mark Ward
 * 20 Bobby Caunce
 * 21 Joe Hall
 * 22 Dan Etherington (A)
 * Steve Wilcock (N/M)
 * Mike Vigelskas
 * Matt Gibson
 * Ken Armstrong
 * Chris Hutchinson
 * Steven Amos (N/M)