Stars and Clan open Cup Quarter-Finals

Scottish derby on Friday night

It’s Game Day in the Challenge Cup Quarter-Finals – and a Scottish derby to start us off! Dundee Stars host Glasgow Clan in the first leg of their Quarter-Final series at 1930 this Friday night.

While no team can advance to the Semi-Finals this evening, they could put themselves in a great position – or, conversely, and themselves in a hole.

Dundee won Challenge Cup Group A and as such had first pick of who they wanted to face from the other qualifiers. At the time of choosing, Omar Pacha’s team hadn’t lost to the Clan and, while they have suffered defeat at intu Braehead earlier this month, the Stars are unbeaten at home against their rivals from Glasgow. This season’s cup competition has been a welcome distraction for Dundee, whose league form got off to a very slow start. That said, the Stars have won their last three games in a row.

League leaders Glasgow didn’t have a great group stage campaign but nonetheless got through with a game to spare. Zack Fitzgerald’s team have won four of their last six games, but road form has slowly started becoming an issue for the Clan – they’ve lost their last four in a row, and only picked up one point in those games.

If the Stars are to be successful, then they’ll need Alex Lecerlc to maintain his Challenge Cup form. The Dundee goalie has saved almost 94% of shots he’s faced in this tournament, compared to 88% in the league.

“We are really excited about the big cup game and I think the team will be really up for it. We are expecting all the fans to be as loud as usual, and I’m sure Glasgow will bring a lot of fans as well and it will be a good crowd. We just have to do what we have been doing against them in every other game, which is outworking them and staying solid in the defensive zone - then we should win it.” – Duncan Speirs (Forward, Dundee Stars)