Last year, they limped out of the playoffs bruised and battered, having defaulted, unable to gather enough able bodies to play the final game of the Prince George Senior Lacrosse Association playoffs.
This time around, the Claude's Barbershop/BX Pub Bandits are healthy and hungry, seemingly headed for a rematch of last year's final against the two-time defending champion Westwood Pub Devils.
The Bandits still have some unfinished business to make that happen and hope to take care of that Monday night at Kin 1 when they face the Northland Nissan Assault in Game 2 of their best-of-three semifinal series. In Game 1 Wednesday they hammered the Assault 22-1. Backed by a near-perfect outing from rookie goalie Jon Wittmeier, who stopped 16 of 17 shots, and the usual lights-out shooting of snipers Drew Doig, Cole Paciejewski, and Damon Calfa, the Bandits rolled to an easy victory.
They scored early and often, building an 11-0 lead after one period. The lopsided result came as a surprise to Bandits veteran Brett Doig. During the regular season, parity was a more common theme among the teams in the six-team league, but that has not been the case in the playoffs.
"I think they won the first face-off and we kind of just swung the guy and got the ball back and took it the other way and scored and the first three face-offs after that we won them and went down and scored right away," said Brett Doig. "We had four goals in the first minute-and-a-half and I think that took the wind out of their sails. Hopefully we can keep that up and change the scenario around for us."
The Bandits already did that in the regular season, rolling to a 14-1 record, including three wins in three tries against the Devils (12-3), who came into the season having won 41 straight PGSLA games.
"I don't think we've seen them at their full strength yet, they're a pretty stacked team and obviously they ran off a million wins in a row," said Brett Doig. "I think the biggest difference this year is we just have more bodies."
The elder Doig, who keeps his age a closely-guarded secret, was convinced to come out of retirement after two years on the sideline, when his buddy Dan Martin asked him to rejoin the Bandits team he captained for so many years. The chance to play with his son 26-year-old son Drew, Martin, and longtime teammates Calfa, Jesse Huffman and Ryan Waddington proved irresistible.
Thursday night in Quesnel, the short-staffed Devils, with only 10 runners in the lineup, eliminated the Quesnel Crossfire with a 10-7 victory to complete a two-game semifinal sweep. The Devils won the opener 16-3 on Tuesday at Kin 1.
The Devils will meet the Bandits-Assault series winner in the best-of-five league championship series, which starts next Thursday at 8 p.m. at Kin 1. If the Assault beats the Bandits Monday, the deciding game will be played Wednesday.
