Fife Flyers forward Craig Peacock says the chance to play in the Elite Series helped prepare him for the rigours of a new season.
Peacock, who joined the Kirkcaldy side from Glasgow Clan, turned out for Manchester Storm in the short format tournament that played out of Nottingham back in April.
And he’s glad to be back in the routine of training through the week leading to games at the weekend again.
“Playing in the Elite Series earlier this year was significant because it helped to tide me over and without it, I would have gone a year and a half without having played at all,” he said.
“To get that was fortunate and it was an intense month, with the amount of games we played over a relatively short period of time, it didn’t feel too bad going back to work last week.
Peacock featured for Manchester Storm during April’s Elite Series (PHOTO: Mark Ferriss)
“There is a bit of rustiness there, whether it’s three months away or 18 months away and that was always going to be the case. No matter what you do off season, it always going to be different when you step on the ice.
“The warm up games helped with that and help get you back into the swing of things.
“It’s great to be playing again after a whirlwind 18 months of everyone’s lives being turned upside down. Just being in the locker room around the guys again is what makes it and it’s great to be back to some kind of normality.”
Flyers are off to Coventry Blaze on Saturday for their opening league game before heading home, where they’ll host Belfast Giants in their first Challenge Cup tie of the season.
Peacock will make his competitive debut for Flyers this weekend (PHOTO: Flyers Images)
Peacock admits it’s as tough a start as they could have expected, but he says he and his team-mates know they need to step it up after last week’s pre-season games with Dundee Stars.
“It’s a pretty tough start for us and we’ve already discussed the step up there needs to be for us after the warm up games with Dundee last week,” he added.
“We’re up against two very good teams and Coventry are always a team who are good in their own rink. They’ve brought back a lot of players who did well for them before.
“Belfast are always up there as well so it doesn’t get much tougher for your opening games. You have to play everyone at some point so we might as well get them out of the way early.
“We were short on bodies last week, but two of our defencemen – James Isaacs and Kristian Blumenstein – have arrived and that gives us more support going into these difficult games.”
