Player of Week 4: Kevin Dufour

Dundee Stars' forward wins weekly award

What a weekend it was for the Dundee Stars - going to Belfast and beating the defending champions in the Challenge Cup, and then coming back on to home ice and winning against Manchester.

But it was also a pretty useful two days for forward Kevin Dufour. The Canadian scored two goals in each game for the Stars over the weekend, a tally earning him the Week 4 Player of the Week title.

"We'd had a good week of practise leading up to this weekend," began the 27-year-old. "We weren't happy with the how our previous games had gone, and although I thought we'd played well we didn't get the bounces. So we buried our heads for the week, worked hard, and came back strong."

He continued: "It's always nice to be able to contribute, but even better to do that with wins so this weekend felt good also as we got four points as a team."

With four weeks gone in the new seasons, how is life in Dundee? "I would say it's honestly better than I expected," said Dufour. "It was my first year going to Europe, and of course you hear stories form other players, but when I spoke to Omar (Pacha, Head Coach) he was very straightforward and honest. He's given me a chance to succeed here which I really appreciate, we have great fans, and we're treated really well as players outside the rink as well."

Dufour is a native French speaker, so how was the transition to Tayside? "I'm good now, but the first couple of weeks I had to fully concentrate to understand certain people," he joked. "But it's part of the culture and a good experience. Of course Omar coaches in English, and if it's just he and I on our own we'll speak French, but in general we try to be respectful to the other guys to speak English so everyone knows what we're talking about."

After a confidence-boosting weekend, where do the Stars go from here? "I think we've found out identity. We've learned that we we need to play good defensively first and foremost - we don't want to go running and gunning with teams who have a lot of offense. We have a really good goalie in Alex Leclerc, so if we help him out by taking sticks away and boxing out in our own zone then we can be successful."