Interview with Team Canada’s Micki Dupont

eurohockey.com's Andreas Reiner: Did you spend Christmas up here in Davos with your family and Team Canada or did you come up later?

Micki Dupont: I played with Kloten (Flyers) the 22./23. December and on the 24th around noon we drove up to Davos, there was a big dinner, everybody meet up. Every year it's exciting, you have some guys you know like Brett McLane, Marc-André Pouliot, Joel Kwiatkowski, Biron Ritchie and a lot of new guys from the AHL as well.

AR: How many times have you played at the Spengler Cup?

MD: This is my 8th year, 6 years with Canada, once with Kloten and once with the Eisbären Berlin.

AR: How is it to play together with guys you normally play against in the National League A?

MD: The first couple of games and practices you have to try to learn each others habits and get some chemistry but Guy Boucher (Coach Team Canada) did a really good job of putting a system in place and finding some structure so everybody knows what to expect, where to be. It's a little easier that way.

AR: How happy are you with your performance so far?

MD: Well, I thought we had a really close game against Davos (Canada lost 2-1) we gave up a couple of goals that were, I don't want to say lucky but just kinda breakdowns that happened really quick and they scored but hopefully we can clean those up (in the upcoming games). But tonight's game was good as well, it was kinda funny, there's a bunch of Canadians too (KHL Medvescak Zagreb has 11 Canadian born players on their roster), so it was a similar style of hockey and I thought we played well and as I said we try to build chemistry every day and get better.

AR: Do you know any guys from their team?

MD: Yeah, a couple of guys played at the Spengler Cup for Team Canada previously like Curtis McLane, Pascal Pelletier, Mark Popovic. Hockey is such a funny world, I played Junior hockey with Shaone Morrison when I was 18, 19 and I haven't seen him since. And the Zagreb assistant coach, Alan Letang I played with him when I was 22 and obviously Doug Shedden, their head coach too.

AR: You played in the Champions Hockey League with the Kloten Flyers this season. What's the difference to playing against international Club teams compared to the Spengler Cup?

MD: In some way it's pretty similar because it's teams you usually don't play against. In the Swiss League, you know exactly what Davos is gonna do, how Geneva will play, you know how this teams will play. But when you play against a Swedish or a Finnish team you haven't played against them before so you don't know what to expect. So you just try to play your game and take the game to them.

AR: So what's up next, will you be spending New Year's eve in Davos?

MD: Not quite sure, probably go back to Kloten as soon as we can.

AR: You guys pick up the League pretty soon again, right?

MD: Yeah, our first game is on the 3rd (against Fribourg-Gottéron) so we'll get back and prepare for the game.

AR: It's been a difficult season for Kloten so far, how does that make you feel being in such a situation?

MD: Yeah, it's been a tough year in Kloten, we had a bad start and ever since then the confidence in the team has been down. It's been tough for everybody, I mean, everybody's not playing to their top level but now with Sean Simpson coming in (Kloten released Felix Hollenstein and Kimmo Rintanen before Christmas) I think he's a really good coach and he's gonna push us hard and put more structure in place so I'm really looking forward to it, I'm excited and I think it'll turn our team around but it's gonna take a lot of hard work by the players, it's not just gonna happen like that.

AR: What do you do personally to shake off those negative feelings and put it behind you and how do you focus on the future?

MD: Like I said, this season started bad and it kind of snowballed. I think it's really important that the players and coaches on the bench stay positive, if somebody makes a mistake you don't just shake your head and put your head down, you really try to support each other, give a guy a tap on then shin pads or the shoulders and say "let's go buddy, let's go, keep going, keep pushing!" just keep the energy up! When things aren't working everybody gets really tense and that's not what you want, you want to stay loose but also aggressive so you have to find that balance.

AR: Thanks Micki for your time and good luck for the Spengler Cup and the upcoming games in the NLA with the Kloten Flyers.

Tweets by @eurohockey