Fife Flyers set for training camp as players and coach begin to arrive in town

Coach Tom Coolen is due in Kirkcaldy, followed by a host of new faces ahead of training camp starting. It promises to be a busy week off the ice as players settle into their accommodation and find their place in the dressing-room.

The 2023-24 campaign has been billed as a new era for the club which has struggled since lockdown to get going, with crowds dropping as successive rosters failed to ignite on match nights, missing out on the play-offs and labouring at the foot of the EIHL.

For Coolen, there is much to be done before the puck drops in a double header against Dundee Stars on September 9 and 10. He will put his players through their paces this week ahead of an open training session in front of the fans at Fife Ice Arena on Thursday, September 7. It starts at 5:00pm and is followed by a meet and greet with fans in the curling bar. They will also have a first opportunity to order replicas of the new strips which were launched last week.

The team will then hit the ice for the first of four pre-season games which will lead up to the start of the 2023-24 EIHL campaign on September 23.

The players have started to arrive in town, and Coolen is busy settling into his office within the dressing room, and beginning the work behind the scenes to mould his signings - 17 imports in total - into a new look team. Only imports netminder Shane Owen and defencemen Reece Harsh and Jonas Emmerdahl were retained from last season’s roster.

Flyers’ pre-season campaign begins with a double header against Dundee Stars on Saturday 9 and 10 - the first game s at Fife Ice Arena - followed by exhibition games against Dutch outfit, Tilburg Trappers on Saturday 16th, and Romanian outfit CSM Brasov - complete with former Fife import Chase Schaber - on Sunday 17th. The EIHL season gets underway with an opening weekend double header against Glasgow Clan in the Challenge Cup over the weekend of September 23-24.