Mo steps up to NHL with Anaheim Ducks coaching role

He has been named assistant coach with the Anaheim Ducks in the NHL.

He joins Randy Carlyle, former Manitoba Moose head coach and Stanley Cup Champion, behind the bench for the forthcoming season.

It marks the latest step up in a coaching career that begin in Fife and delivered unprecedented to the Kirkcaldy club.

Morrison – known to everyone as ‘Mo’ – was signed as a player to partner NHL star Doug Smail in 1994.

Jim Lynch identified him as the perfect foil for the speed and skill of Smail, and that proved to be one of the shrewdest signings in Flyers’ history.

Morrison’s work ethic made him a stand out player, and he went on to be an integral part of the club for over ten years.

In 1995-96 he stepped up as player-coach when the return of the club’s 1985 hero, Ron Plumb didn’t work out.

While the league structures changed and Fife moved from the Heineken era into the BNL and then NPL, Morrison remained committed to the team.

He led them to a Grand Slam, British Championship success and a host of silverware, and his reward was being named Coach of the Year three times – a feat which matched that of Flyers’ coach Al Rodgers in the late 1940s.

Off the ice, Morrison established Flyers’ long-lasting links with children’s hospice, Rachel House, becoming an official volunteer with them; a link that endures to this day.

He returned home in 2006 to take up a post of assistant coach with the Victoria Salmon Kings in the ECHL.

The club folded in 2011, and he moved on to the AHL with St John’s Ice Caps from 2011-15 and then Manitoba Moose.