Fife Flyers: when one team makes up over 50% of your games the schedule is nonsense

When you have met four times in the Challenge Cup in a matter of weeks, it seems strange to then slot in an immediate double header this weekend in the league - games which will mark the Northern Irish side’s first of a new campaign.

Games against Giants account for more than 50% of Flyers games so far which is simply nonsensical.

Old-time hockey fans will recall the days when Flyers and Murrayfield Racers would routinely play each other over a dozen times a season - or even more if the clubs could come up with one-off competitions, knowing full well the games had an audience and rivalry that simply transcended any jadedness through repetition. Even when Fife contrived to get themselves relegated, the old enemies still managed to go head to head while in different leagues!

But, fast forward 30 years to the present day, and the imbalances have a much greater impact.

Confined to their bubble of the Scottish/Irish cup qualifying group, Flyers have yet to get sight of a chunk of the opposition south of the border, and that cannot be healthy, specially for a team that is packed with players new to this league.

The Challenge Cup remains a dog-eared mess of a competition - one in need of a major, radical overhaul instead of the tweaking which seems to be as far as the league is willing to go.

Maybe it’s time to bin the ‘regional’ sections, which are already imbalanced, and come up with a shorter, sharper format which teams can focus fully on before getting into the nuts and bolts of a league campaign.

But, structure aside - and I’m not holding my breath for the EIHL to suddenly get all gung-ho with some out of the box thinking here - there is another point to be consider.

Jamie Russell, head coach, has had to up against Giants with the same short bench issues due to key injuries. It is a tough ask to go head to head time and again when you’re struggling to find goals and patching up lines with two first line wingers on the treatment table.

“Catch a team like Belfast over and over in the schedules when you are carrying injuries, it would be nice if there was some balance so it is not the same opposition that gets the benefits,” he said.

A 2024 survey conducted by the EIHL more feedback on the Challenge Cup than any other topic - even DOPS! - and confirmed that spectators really didn’t much care for it.

That led to some changes, but Flyers will still be half a dozen games into their league campaign before their final qualifying tie looms large, and that makes for a clunky, cluttered format.

In theory, if we solve the shortcomings of the Challenge Cup then, at the same time, we address the repetition of teams meeting six times in as many weeks – Russell joked he has now sailed across the Irish Sea so often be could probably take over from the captain and steer the ferry.

Any cup final appearance notwithstanding, the bad news is he has two more trips still to make, including one on Boxing Day. The scheduling Gods really do conspire to make a right mess of things at times …