Mirror of Merit: Kyle Osterberg’s name engraved on Fife Flyers trophy honouring great players over decades

Fife Flyers’ American forward’s name will be added to the quaich which lists all the previous winners dating back to 1951.

The Mirror Of Merit is a roll call of of players who have been at the very heart of Flyers’ team each season, and past winners include Vincent Lukac, Dave Stoyanovich, and Ryan Dingle as well as outstanding Kirkcaldy players including Gordon Latto and Iain Robertson. In recent years it has been dominated by netminder Shane Owen who had to settle for the runners-up slot for 2023-24.

Past winners include five former NHLers – Mark Morrison, Ron Plumb, Doug Smail, Dan Goneau and Brett Bulmer.

Winger Osterberg, 28, from Lakeville, Minnesota, made a huge impact in his first season in British hockey after joining Flyers on the back of six seasons playing across Europe and Scandinavia. He finished the seasons second top points scorer, just behind line-mate Troy Lajeunesse.

Tom Coolen head coach, paid tribute to the influential forward.

“He had been on my radar for a few seasons” he said. “A friend who had coached him and said he was a guy who played with a big heart, who played hard and backed it up with points. That’s the guy who fits the bill for mne.

“He was a big signing – we put him on a line with Troy Lajeunesse and they just meshed, I would have played Kyle at centre all year but we brought in Vitalijs Pavlos, and they both came to me and they wanted to play with him in the middle. They really enjoyed playing with him.

> Flyers end of season awards, hosted recently by Fife Flyers supporters Club, saw Troy Lajeunesse sweep the boards.

He was named players’ player of the year as well as forward of the year and the fans’ player of the year. Lucas Chiodo was the unsung hero of the year, Brady Pouteau took the top defenceman award, while netminder Andy Little was the British player of the year.

Flyers stats man, John Ross, and delivered a host of numbers top wrap the season.

The closing weekend saw Flyers face Sheffield Steelers in the quarter-finals of the play-offs - and the two games produced not one single penalty; possibly the first successive Flyers games without any penalties. Max Humitz with four goals ended the season as Flyers top scorer against Steelers in all EIHL competitions.

In all EIHL competitions this season:

Flyers have scored most goals in the second period and conceded most in the second. Their second periods produced most shots for, and the first period most shots against. The team was on the powerplay 201 times and the penalty kill 190 times.

They scored the first goal in a game 23 times and won eight times - and when Flyers lost the first goal they won 15 of 41 games.

Period losses for Flyers were first 28 times, second 27 times and third 25 times. When losing either the second or third period at home they were winless in 11 games.

On the special teams, Teemu Pulkkinen had most powerplay goals in the season with 10 while Johan Eriksson had most powerplay points with 18. The most even strength goals and points went to Troy Lajeunesse with 23 plus 29.

There were no ever present players for the first time in Flyers’ EIHL era but three players missed only one of the 64 games – Lucas Chiodo, Max Humitz and Aleksi Mäkelä.