Fife Flyers coach Todd Dutiaume was pleased with this sides opening game in the Rapid Solictors Elite Ice Hockey League match with Coventry Blaze, but was quick to point out that the 9-0 loss the following evening in Coventry will only be an anomaly.
Flyers opened their league campaign against old BNL rivals Coventry Blaze and went down 2-0. "There was a lot of mixed emotions on Satruday compared to that of the previous week. And both sets of fans should tremendous respect in how they held a very tough minute silence for the 1000's lost in 9/11 and the players and staff lost in the recent KHL plane crash."
"As coach, I have never hidden how hard this step up was going to be to both my players and the fans. This is going to be a tough process and there will be no quick fixes, we will be in for a lot of tough nights but things will get better, we are learning every time we step out on to that ice, in training and on match nights."
New netminder Garrett Zemlak arrived in Kirkcaldy only on Friday afternoon after a long journey over from Canada but was able to get in to the rink and have a skate before he took to the ice on Saturday evening.
"Matt, who we had been anticipating the arrival for a few weeks now, arrived in on Friday morning, so he had a little extra time to get a skate and some rest in". Dutiaume confirmed.
On Sunday, Flyers travelled to Coventry, in which they lost the game 9-0. "There was a big difference in the performance on the Sunday at Coventry to the performance we put in on the Saturday up here in Fife, other than the just the score. The guys worked remarkably hard on Saturday and paid a little for this on the Sunday as you could see they were still a little tired. The Coventry Skydome Arena has a smaller ice pad in comparison to FIA so we also had to try and adjust to that."
"Garrett played well again on the Sunday but some of the other guys where not identifying who they needed to pick up and that left us exposed. Coventry cranked it up a notch and wanted to prove something to their own fans after having lost heavily to Nottingham 10-1. Panthers beating Coventry will probably turn out to just be an anomaly, and I think that this 9-0 loss will be the same."
"The more training sessions we get under our belts as a whole team, the better we will become and we don't want to be known as the team who beat Dundee's record last season." Dundee Stars lost 16 straight after making the step up to the EIHL last season and Dutiaume is keen to avoid such a long pointless streak.
"The guys are not taking either of the weekends losses lightly, we have been a winning team week-in week-out for the past 5 years, and losing does not come easy to anyone. It is the coaching staffs job to keep the guys chins up and we will be doing that, whilst we continue to work on our lines and making adjustments to them and some of our systems."
