In this season’s battle between the Dundee Stars and Fife Flyers, there is no room for “family-friendly nonsense.”
They are the words of Dundee head coach Marc LeFebvre, who experienced a rollercoaster of emotions in gameweek three, with the Stars splitting a back-to-back series against Fife.
“The physical play and the fights, that’s what you want in a rivalry game,” he told rinkside media on Sunday.
“Not this family-friendly nonsense that we keep preaching: we want tough physical hockey and that’s what we’re seeing across the league this year.”
There is no doubt: toughness is on the agenda.
Welcome to Around the Rinks: our daily summary of every team’s post-game media remarks.
AROUND THE RINKS: SUNDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 2025
Glasgow Clan 2-4 Belfast Giants (Challenge Cup)
Jordan Kawaguchi and Nicolas Guay fired the Belfast Giants to an early 2-0 lead, before the Glasgow Clan made a contest of it on Sunday evening.
Tristin Langan and Colton Poolman found twine for the Clan, but their efforts were overwritten by Mike Lee and David Goodwin.
Belfast are now in pole position to top Group B, sitting just one point behind the leading Dundee Stars with a game in hand.
Adam Keefe:
I thought it was another good game of hockey. The Clan are a good team and we were prepared for them to be a little bit harder to play against tonight. They were — but I thought our guys turned up as well.
I liked our third period: Glasgow obviously made a big pushback, but Jackson [Whistle] stood tall and we competed hard defensively in our zone. We bent, but we didn’t break. We’ve been trying to have a complete weekend — and it’s nice to finally have that. Hopefully, we can build on that next weekend.
Corey Neilson:
I thought we were pretty good, to be honest. Like I said yesterday, Belfast are a good hockey team and we did a lot of good things.
We changed a couple of things, moving to our pressure system, and that was really effective. We turned over a lot of pucks, generated some good chances out of it, and I thought our defensive zone play was good.
Sometimes, it’s just a matter of a couple of bounces here and there — and that third goal was devastating for us. We were pulling ourselves back into the game [only for the puck] to ping off a couple of guys and into the net. Bounces went one way [tonight], they’ll go our way next time.
Dundee Stars 5-4 Fife Flyers — Overtime (Challenge Cup)
Spencer Naas, Dundee Stars (Image: Derek Black)
The Stars overcame Fife in a cagey affair, with Matt Berry notching the overtime winner.
Jackson Desouza, Bradley Schoonbaert, Kameron Kielly, and Spencer Naas each tallied two points for the Stars, who bounced back after an ugly defeat to the Flyers the night before.
Marc LeFebvre:
After last night, we needed a response and that’s two massive points for us. I thought we carried the play for most of the game, but they made it frustrating for us and they’re a tough team to play against.
They clog up the slot and they have a really good goalie in Shane [Owen] who keeps them going most nights. We capitalised on a lot of our chance, but so did they and that sent the game to overtime. Obviously, we needed those two points and it’s going to be a good rivalry against those guys this year.
The physical play and the fights, that’s what you want in a rivalry game — not this family friendly nonsense that we keep preaching. We want tough physical hockey and that’s what we’re seeing across the league this year. I think that’s the style of hockey that fans want — and that’s what we saw from the Cardiff versus Manchester games this weekend. When we play Fife, it’s going to be like this all season long.
From our perspective, I thought it was a pretty decent performance, with a lot to clean up. It shows that there’s not a lot between the teams — all ten teams are going to be good this year and nobody is going to be getting a night off. It’s nice to have those two points: it was a good challenge for us.
Jamie Russell:
I don’t think it was a disappointing night at all. I thought it was a really good hockey game and we knew that we were going to be facing a desperate team after beating them back-to-back.
They played with a real sense of urgency tonight and they took momentum from us, especially from face-offs, and that put us on our heels a little bit in the second period. We’d lose a face-off, Shane would freeze the puck, and the cycle would repeat. We showed good resiliency and mental toughness to score a couple of goals — and it was a game that could’ve gone either way.
I’m not disappointed at all — our guys, for the first time this year, put in a real solid effort in back-to-back games and we competed hard. It’s a good step in the right direction.
Coventry Blaze 0-3 Nottingham Panthers (Challenge Cup)
Mitchell Fossier, Nottingham Panthers (Image: Panthers Images)
It wasn’t to be for the Coventry Blaze, who were shut-out by Kevin Carr on home ice.
Matthew Marcinew, Chase Pearson, and Zsombor Garat scored for the travelling Panthers.
Kevin Moore:
I thought it was pretty even for most of the game: we came out flying and outplayed them in the first period, but we couldn’t push one through. There were a lot of good things [but also] a lot to correct and address for next week. We’ve talked about having the puck more and how that will help us establish our identity. There’s just so much time to keep getting better.
Danny Stewart:
I thought Coventry were the better team in the first period, they generated more chances and we were a bit sloppy with the puck.
We were lucky to get out of that period with the lead, but we were much better in periods two and three. We were a bit better defensively, [Kevin] Carr was good when we needed him, and we won face-offs at important times before we got the empty netter.
There were a lot of key shot blocks and little intangible things that help you win a hockey game in a tough barn
Guildford Flames 3-4 Sheffield Steelers — Overtime (Challenge Cup)
Paul Dixon’s Guildford Flames showed signs of life after a string of deflating loses.
However, it was Sheffield Steelers defenceman Jordon Southorn who secured the bragging rights, winning the game 4-3 on 63:43.
Paul Dixon:
I thought it was a really good game. From our side, we had to dig deep. We talked about our consistency and level of play: it hasn’t been great and we’ve been trying to address that. I thought the boys really brought it tonight against a really good hockey team.
It was really promising, despite being short-staffed, and we had to dig in really hard. I was happy with the effort level, which wasn’t there in our last home game, and I’m pleased with how we addressed that.
Hopefully, the boys know that this style of play is what we’re after and, if we can compete like that, we’ll start to put some wins on the board.
Aaron Fox:
Both teams had opportunities to dominate that game and it was a little bit back and forth. After we went behind, I felt that our compete level escalated a bit and our third line carried us a bit.
In the third period, both teams made sure that they didn’t give up anything off the rush and Matt made some big saves to keep it tight. It’s nice to get the extra point in overtime, but I think there’s still room for improvement in our game overall.
We’ve still got some guys who need to offer us more, but that’s part of the process early in the year, with our league campaign starting next week.
