Interview with Steelheads Captain Marty Flichel

Interview with Marty Flichel 4/10/09Q: We?re here with Marty Flichel, Steelheads veteran and captain of the 2008-09 team. Marty, you?ve been down this path a few times, have a Kelly Cup Championship under your belt as Captain of the team. Talk a little bit about how this team compare to the 2007 championship team?A: It?s tough to compare teams after a couple of years, you know, we have a few guys here who were on that team, Travis Wight, Kory Scoran, Darrell Hay and myself who were on that team, and you know there?s some older guys who will help try to lead the way. Up front we have three solid lines, good defense and obviously our goaltending is really good, and we have great group of guys, and you know it?s a special team here and hopefully we can make it happen.Q: What?s the mood in the locker room right now with Game 1 tomorrow night? A: We?re ready, I mean we?ve had a good week of practice. We?ve worked hard out here at IceWorld, gone over some systems and gone over some video. We think we?re really prepared for them. We know they?re going to play hard and try to redeem themselves from what happened between us in the regular season. But, we just want to drop that, this is a new season, it?s 0-0, so we?ll come out hard Saturday night and go from there.Q: Do you feel the confidence level is where it needs to be right now? A: I think so, you know we?re confident, but not too confident. Obviously we know what we have to do. We?ll play our systems and we know if we do that, we can beat them. You know, we know that they?re going to come hard at us and obviously we?ve got to be ready to weather the storm. They haven?t played for two weeks so they?ll be well rested.Q: You guys play a really long season. How much fun is it to finally get to this point of the season? A: It?s great, I mean the season is long and it seems like this will never come sometimes but now we?re here, it?s a new season and we feel rested and we?re just looking forward to Saturday night.Q: And, how are you feeling? A: I?m ready to go. Obviously everybody?s got little bumps and bruises but we put that on the backburner and you?ve got all summer to recuperate.