Kirkcaldy Ice Hockey Club kids take on best in UK in home arena

The Hockey UK tournament – back for a second year since its reintroduction following a 15-year sabbatical – will see defending champions Kirkcaldy take on opposition from Belfast, Solway, Leeds, Widnes, Kingston, Aberdeen, Lanarkshire, Dundee and Manchester in 20-minute round robin matches, with two games continually taking place simultaneously on half the rink.

Semi-finals and a final will then take place to decide the overall trophy winners, on a day when spectators can enjoy a cafe and bar and participate in a raffle.

When asked if she thinks Kirkcaldy – coached by John Simpson – have a good chance of winning the title again, club board member Joanne Scott, of Kirkcaldy, told the Fife Free Press: “Absolutely. I would say our biggest rival is Lanarkshire.

"However, we don’t really get to see the English teams as we don’t play them.

"We get to play the Scottish teams quite a lot and Lanarkshire have definitely been our biggest challenge to date this year.

"It was actually a Fife-Lanarkshire final last year.

“Hopefully a good crowd of spectators will be watching the matches, including mums, dads, grans and grandads.

"Hopefully they’ll be there cheering the kids on for the full thing but unfortunately some of them may have to dash away as Kirkcaldy under-14s are playing in a Scottish Cup semi-final up in Dundee later that day.”

Ironically, Joanne won’t be in attendance in Kirkcaldy this weekend as she and husband Stuart are in Latvia watching their son Kaiden Coles, 9, who is playing for an Elite British Select 2014 team in the Riga Cup.

"Kaiden is absolutely gutted to be missing the event in Kirkcaldy as this is his last year in the under-10s,” Joanne said.

"But I will be following it online from abroad and I’m really hoping Kirkcaldy can keep the trophy in Fife.”

Joanne, a Kirkcaldy Ice Hockey Club board member for three years, is also mum to another keen young ice hockey star in Kaiden’s younger brother Liam.