Ice Hockey: Gordon salutes flying Ayr

Rhett Gordon, of the Ayr Scottish Eagles, underlined his side's pride at their stunning 5-0 Challenge Cup triumph over Belfast Giants on Sunday night, describing the Eagles' win as "a huge accomplishment".

Having lost seven of their eight-game Superleague series against the eventual champions Belfast Giants – the other was a draw – and playing in front of a 7,000-capacity Irish crowd, few gave Ayr any chance of success.

But the Eagles read a different script as they produced their best performance since their 1998 grand slam to run away with a fabulous victory.

Gordon, the former Team Canada forward, grabbed two goals and an assist with Ed Courtenay, Jonathan Weaver and Dody Wood also scoring.

"Belfast have played exceptionally well all year and have been the No 1 team," Gordon said. "So to come in their home arena and beat them is a huge accomplishment for us, everybody played well and it's a pretty proud hockey club right now."

The Belfast coach, Dave Whistle, says his side will need no picking up for the season-ending play-offs which start tomorrow. "It's going to be a difficult play-off run, but we will refocus ourselves on the rest of the year and hopefully get to the final four and finish off the year in pretty good style," Whistle said.