Fife Flyers Ryan Nicholson: 'crawl, skate then walk’ – growing up in ice hockey
They say you can learn from your mistakes and setbacks. Fife Flyers endured more than their share in a tough and long, winless start to the season.
Defenceman Ryan Nicholson had a different take on that 18-match streak.
He brought up Thomas Edison’s famous quote "I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” That was his philosophy when trying to create a light bulb - in other words, setbacks are opportunities to learn.
“That is how it felt! We were never failing - we just discovered ways how not to succeed, and that went on to the next game and the next game.” he said.
That also explains why that breakthrough win over Manchester Storm at Altrincham was so important - and following it up by taking Cardiff Devils’ scalp, both in overtime, confirmed the team had reaching a turning point.
“The win in Manchester released all the stress we had placed on ourselves,” he said. “It was a bigger emotional experience than just winning the game. It broke the curse - we figured it out. It was great to have the Saturday off and go fresh into the next game, and to beat Cardiff was important. Not to devalue anyone, but we didn’t just go and steal points from a team above us, we took them from a recognised top four team.”
The goal now is to keep that momentum going as the second half of the season starts to appear on the horizon - and with it comes the race for the play-offs.
“It’s a short series. You need to peak at the right time - so, sure, grab eighth spot and you then have just 240 minutes of hockey to play to win the championship. That sounds absurd in my head but that’s the goal - clubs from one to eight go into the play-offs with the same value.”
There is a lot of hockey to be played before then, but life in Fife is suiting the native from Mississauga, Ontario, just fine.
And he’s been here before.
“I have family from Scotland who emigrated to Canada,” he said. “I was over here about eight years ago and went to Edinburgh and Glasgow and loved it. I realised the NHL dream was not going to happen so my dad encouraged me to look abroad, and let all the time I’d put in come back and reward me with travel round the world and the opportunity to visit places, and meet new people.”
That journey has taken the defenceman from the Ontario junior leagues where he iced with Oakville Blades, to Rochester University where he played across five seasons while studying advertising, marketing and business communications.
Coming from a hockey family - his dad and uncle both laced up - he started early.
“Crawl, skate then walk” he summed it up. “It feels more natural to skate than to run - running hurts!”
Studying for his Masters degree meant long days and night classes, but he then swapped textbooks for toolbelts.
“In summer I do heavy duty mechanic work on garbage lorries - a line of work that didn’t open up to me until three years ago. I get really excited about figuring out how to fix an eight ton truck, learning how it operates.” Last season took him to Scandinavia, icing with Finnish side Roki where the language barrier was another challenge to address.
“We had a decent team,” he said. “The guy on one side of me spoke English, the other less so, and the coach spoke Finnish so they were probably tired of hearing me ask ‘what did he say?’ I got a thumbs up or thumbs down, and figured if it was good or bad. Myself and two other Canadian players roomed together it as great to have people you could speak to in your own language.”
Coming to the UK removed that barrier at a stroke, and it also underlined, once again, how tight the circles are within the hockey world.
His first pro game with Savannah Ghost Pirates in 2023-24 saw him line up against South Carolina Stingrays - a team complete with Garet Hunt, who holds the record for penalty minutes in the ECHL, and who is now his captain.
Nicholson recalled: “Things can get tasty in that league. In the dressing room we were going through the line up, pointing out the other team’;s top points scorers, and the guys you might want to have second thoughts about going with. Garet’s name was on that list! The message from the old timers on my team was stay away!
“They say you are only five away from any individual. In hockey it has to be half that number…”