Stars looking to defend national title

The Windsor Stars are heading to Red Deer, Alberta looking to repeat as national champs.

"A great bunch of guys. They all get along." said Stars' manager Ron Smith. "It's gonna be a tough tounament this year. We got a couple of extra teams in there. Quebec's gonna be an all-star team. These guys are ready to take on anybody anyway. Win, lose or draw we're gonna lay it all on the field.

The Stars picked up one player to bring with them. For the second straight year Chris Horvath of the Tecumseh Thunder will cross over to the other side of the county to play for Windsor. "We play against these guys all year round. It's always a tough battle going back and forth. To be able to come out here and still represent not just Ontario but the Windsor area is a great feeling."

Veteran Tony Dufour, who has been to nationals seven times, says the team is feeling loose heading in and believes the Stars have the team to go deep in the tournament. "This group it's different. We pitch. We hit. We got power. We're stealing bases. Defensively we're good. There's this thing in the dugout where every guy is doing it for each other. It's a lot of fun."

The fun begins Thursday night when Windsor opens against host Team Alberta at 7pm (MT). "It's really exciting." said Mitch Hudvagner. "A group of the guys the other night got together and we were talking about it after our golf tournament there and we can do something special here."

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