The Fife Flyers continue to turn heads around the Elite League.
Quickly assembled over the course of an abridged offseason rebuild, the 2025-26 Flyers play an unapologetic style of hockey.
Bruising. Physical. And, in what is becoming a them, prone to overstepping the mark.
Garet Hunt will miss Fife’s next game, suspended by the Elite League’s Department of Player Safety for “being deemed the aggressor of an altercation in the final five minutes of regulation time.”
With five regular-season outings in the books, the Flyers are averaging more than 25 penalty minutes per night.
That trend continued in Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the Belfast Giants, drawing commentary from visiting head coach Adam Keefe.
Welcome to Around the Rinks: our daily summary of every team’s post-game media remarks.
Around the Rinks: Sunday, 19 October 2025
Fife Flyers 2-5 Belfast Giants
Jamie Russell, Fife Flyers:
I thought we were right there: it was a two-two game going into the third period. We have to find a way to be better in the third — we got away from keeping the game simple. There were opportunities to chip pucks out, but didn’t take them.
We talked and talked about how they’re a great team on the transition and that if you make a bad choice on the offensive blueline, it’s a four-on-one going the other way. And they don’t miss those chances.
I’m really proud of the the guys: we’ve got a lot of guys who are sick, we’re playing back-to-back, and there’s been a lot of travel.
Christian Purboo played back-to-back — which means getting home at 5am [from the away game in Belfast] and playing at 5pm the same day. That’s tough for a goalie and I thought he had a really good weekend.
Adam Keefe, Belfast Giants:
I thought it was a hard-fought game by both times. Obviously, Fife came hard, just like they did last night. We expected it to be harder in this building and it was. I asked the guys to push through in the third period.
They built a big, physical team — but we built a team that’s able to withstand that and score goals. They got chippy at the end — and that’s a result of frustration of Fife’s side — and it got the fans on their feet. But we’re here for the two points and that’s what we got.
Nottingham Panthers 5-3 Dundee Stars
Linton Grant, Nottingham Panthers:
It’s a tough schedule this week, thirty-two hours on the bus, but the boys showed a lot of resilience and dug deep. All we asked is that they played Panthers hockey and that’s exactly what we did.
Marc LeFebvre, Dundee Stars:
Nottingham were all over us in the first period, but we skated through it only down one-nothing. We made a great start to the second period to make it one-one, but then came five minutes of chaos — when they scored three times — and things settled down after that. We had a bit of pushback, but they scored on the powerplay — and any momentum we had was killed by the penalties that we took and we have to watch our discipline.
I’m glad that we didn’t quit when it was five-one, a lot of teams do, but we showed a lot character. We have to find a way to win in the league.
Coventry Blaze 2-1 Glasgow Clan
Kevin Moore, Coventry Blaze:
I thought we came out flying. Grayson Constable really set the tone for us and you could see that he brought an extra gear and really wanted to drag us into this right away. Everyone followed him and it was awesome — it was awesome to see the guys be more connected. I loved the effort and the grit down the stretch: the guys earned that.
Mike Sirant, Glasgow Clan:
We didn’t have the start that we wanted, but we should give Coventry credit — they’re well-coached, they play fast, and they really came out and set a high standard at the beginning of the game. I thought we had a better second period and had some chances to score. [Mat] Robson is an excellent goalie and he kept the puck out. We just ran out of time at the end.
Sheffield Steelers 4-1 Cardiff Devils
Aaron Fox, Sheffield Steelers:
We needed to bounce back at home and I was a little worried after the first period because we played so well, didn’t get anything out of it, and their goaltender made some great saves. For some reason, we’ve just had a hard time scoring goals in this building. It was nice to see [Mitchell Heard] get us rolling in the second, scoring a big goal and showing a lot of energy. We followed it up with a strong third period to close out the two points and advance to the semi-finals, which was a huge goal for us.
Paul Thompson, Cardiff Devils:
I was expecting to see a little bit more fire in our bellies today because of what was on the line. It’s a tight group. In the previous three games against Sheffield, we made it tough for them. If you let Sheffield play their game, they’re the best in the league at it — and we gave up four-on-two’s and four-on-three’s for three of the goals. That’s bad application and bad focus.
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