Isles ready to stake claim as a great Flyers netminder

The summer signing believes he has what it takes to continue the club’s tradition of icing the best stoppers in the business.

Since joining the Elite League in 2011, names like Garrett Zemlak, Kevin Regan, Bryan Pitton and Shane Owen have all enjoyed stand-out spells and been integral parts of Fife’s teams.

Now, Iles is the man with the catching glove.

He said: “I hope to live up to the great goalies they’ve had at this club in the last few years, but my focus is doing the right things, being professional and getting better in each game.

“Being a goalie is a pretty easy job. We’ve only got one job, to keep our team in shifts and give us a chance to win every night.

“There will be nights where you’ll have a lot of work and other nights will be quieter, but you have to keep it on an even keel.

“I’ve been fortunate to play in front of good fans down the years, but I’ll bring the compete level and the energy and that will be my focus this season.”

Fife face English opposition for the first time this weekend, with the visit of Coventry Blaze on Saturday – a team they swept last season.

Iles thinks it’s a good thing to be able to put everything into their opening game of the league season after a pre-season that he has enjoyed.

He said: “It’s great to have only the one game this week.  Pre-seasons are awesome and you need the practices and the game time to get you ready.

“For us, we accomplished a lot in the pre-season and got to play against teams from different countries and test ourselves against different styles of play.

“We then played in the Scottish Elite Cup and got things going in the Challenge Cup to get more of a competitive edge going and see where we are as a team. We’ve really tried to be detailed about everything and I think getting a chance to lay it all out there for 60 minutes in one game is nice.”