Fife Flyers: derby tests against Dundee Stars in league and Challenge Cup

Dates for the head to head games have yet to be confirmed, but the real prospect of a place in the semi-finals is within Fife’s grasp.

The club has never made it to the last four of the competition and the ties could draw huge crowds to booth rinks.

By a quirk of fate the teams meet in Dundee on Saturday night with Fife setting their sights on another four-point weekend after a huge 6-1 demolition of Nottingham Panthers on Sunday, and a late victory on the road against Glasgow Clan last Friday.

There’s a sense of growing confidence around the rink as results start to drop for a team which has already established its credentials as a hard working unit.

Those wins took them into seventh spot, two points ahead of Stars, underlining the importance of a win on Saturday before Flyers return to home ice to host third-top Coventry Blaze on Sunday night.

The league remains incredibly tight and highly competitive, but Fife’s jump from ninth to sixth has added a spring to their step.

Todd Dutiaume, head coach, said: “To be in a play-off spot is what we want. We now have to keep fighting to hold on to it.”Dutiaume was delighted with the performance on Sunday which sent struggling Panthers to a hefty defeat.

“We were more clinical and the performance was much stronger than it was on Friday against Clan,” he said. “We’ve been in a host of one-goal hockey games and sometimes they don’t go your way. That can impact on you, but when we play with confidence and you hear guys on the bench saying ‘we got this’ you can sense that mentality changing.”Dutiauame tipped his hat to netminder Shane Owen for a stunning save which laid the foundations for Flyers’ 2-1 win over Clan.

“That was the spark - everyone was up and excited,” he said. “The performance against Clan was by no means pretty but we got the late goal.”

Off the ice, Shawn Cameron undergoes surgery this week after sustaining a season-ending a torn cruciate ligament.