Phoenix book their place in final

Ice hockey

DAVID Beauregard fired a hat-trick as Manchester Phoenix blasted past Basingstoke Bison to reach Ice Hockey’s Challenge Cup Final.

They won 6-1 last night to comprehensively win the tie 11-3 overall.

The Bison arrived in Altrincham looking to overturn a three-goal deficit but had no game plan to stifle Phoenix’ potent attack.

And once Bruce Mulherin opened the scoring after five minutes the game was effectively over as a tie.

Beauregard got the first of his treble when he backhanded past Kevin Reiter on the half-hour mark and did the same seven minutes later after good work from player-coach Tony Hand.

Corey LeClair pulled one back for the Bison in the third period, but Phoenix were well in control by then.

Mulherin notched his second following fine work from Nathan Ward, then Beauregard underlined why he is the hottest property in the game by profiting from Hand and grabbing his 46th of the season.

Kyle Bruce wrapped it up with five minutes left to leave Phoenix a two-legged tie with Belfast in the final.

On Saturday, Manchester cruised into a Knockout Cup semi-final meeting with Newcastle following an 8-3 aggregate win over Hull Stingrays.

Four up from the first leg, goals from Mulherin, Kenton Smith and Luke Fulghum - his 25th of the season - within 26 minutes gave them a 7-0 lead.

Konstantin Kalmikov, Jeff Glowa and Lee Mitchell made it look respectable for the home side, but a further marker from Phoenix’ Lucas Burnett demonstrated Manchester’s dominance over the two ties.

There was even time for back up netminder Adam Summerfield to gain more first team experience with a spell in-between the pipes for the final period.

Hand said: “I’m very pleased with the way my guys have applied themselves this weekend. We had good leads going into both games, but we took both games very seriously and got the job done because of a solid work ethic and a professional approach to the job.”