The Brooks Bandits of the Alberta Junior Hockey League captured the 2013 RBC Cup on Sunday with a 3-1 win over the host Summerside Western Capitals.
Three former Prince George Cougars spent the season with the top junior A team in Canada - forwards Taylor Makin and Shane Pilling and goaltender Devon Fordyce. The 20-year-old Makin had 66 points in 67 games with the Bandits while Pilling, 19, had 60 points in 63 games. Pilling spent most of the 2011-12 season with the Cougars on the injured list dealing with post-concussion symptoms.
Fordyce, 18, left the Cougars last October, eventually joining the Bandits where he posted a 10-2-1 record and a .934 save percentage. The Cougars dropped Fordyce from their protected list during the 2013 WHL bantam draft and he was scooped up by Seattle.
The Bandits are the eighth AJHL team to win the national junior A crown and the first to bring the trophy back to Alberta since the 2001 Camrose Kodiaks.
Brooks finished the five-team tournament in P.E.I. with a 5-1 record, their lone loss coming in the round-robin in a 3-1 defeat against the Western Capitals. The Bandits spent most of the season as the top Canadian Junior Hockey League team posting a 53-4-3 record and going 12-2-3 during the AJHL playoffs.
Brooks advanced to the RBC Cup out of the inaugural Western Canada Cup in Nanaimo along with the BCHL champion Surrey Eagles. The Eagles were eliminated with an overtime loss in the semifinal against the Western Capitals.
The Bandits had seven players with major junior experience on their roster.
In May 2014 the Vernon Vipers of the BCHL will serve as hosts of the RBC Cup.
