So that’s a wrap on the 2024 NLL season. The Buffalo Bandits began the season with a loss to the Albany FireWolves and after a mid-season 3-game losing streak (including another loss to the FireWolves), found themselves at 5-6. The Championship repeat looked awfully unlikely at that point. But then things took a major turn, as they went 11-1 over the rest of the season including the playoffs, and by the time they got through semi-finals against the Rock, the Championship repeat looked all but inevitable. The FireWolves put up a solid effort in their incredible turn-around season but by that point, Buffalo was too strong, too confident, and just too good to stop. Congratulations to the 2024 NLL Champion Buffalo Bandits.

Awesome

Both games!

You’ve all seen the games or at least the game summaries, so I won’t repeat them all here. But here are a few thoughts on each game.

Game 1

Goaltending was amazing, as predicted. Dhane and Josh vs. Alex and Tye was amazing, as predicted. The first three quarters were so close that no team had so much as a two goal lead at any point but in the fourth, Matt Vinc was just a little better than Dougie Jamieson, and the veterans on Buffalo were just a little better than the young players on Albany. But the FireWolves kept pushing and never gave up, right to the final buzzer. I suspect that’s a trait from that team that we will see a lot in the years to come.

Game 2

Goaltending wasn’t the story of game two. Both goalies played well, and Vinc was just a bit better than Jamieson again, but this was more about the Bandits offense than either team’s defense. Byrne and Smith were strong as usual, but the damage was done by the offense as a whole. Chase Fraser, Tehoka Nanticoke, Kyle Buchanan, and Chris Cloutier were all strong in the offensive zone, whether their actions showed up on the scoresheet or not. There were hard picks, there were loose balls, there were guys taking hits in the middle so that other guys could get open, all the types of things coaches want to see from the offensive unit.

Game two was also more streaky than game one. Buffalo had runs of three, four, and five straight goals while Albany had a run of two in the first to get them within one, a run of four in the second and third to get them within one, and another run of four to end the game to get them within two. But each time they started to get close, the Bandits closed the door and wouldn’t let them tie it up.

Other notes:

• The hidden ball trick is always awesome. It’s pretty rare that you see a game where nobody tries it, and yet it’s very rare that it actually works. In game two, it worked to perfection for Josh Byrne and Chase Fraser.
• Connor Farrell didn’t do the “Faceoffs matter” crowd any favours. He won only 26.1% of the faceoffs in game one. He was much better in game two, winning 46.9% of the faceoffs. This means that Joe Nardella won 62% of the faceoffs in the two games combined, and yet the Bandits are the Champions, not the FireWolves.
• Matt Vinc was asked point-blank after the game about his plans for next year, and he basically refused to answer the question. You can’t blame him; he wants to celebrate this victory now and worry about next season some other time. This is especially true if he hasn’t decided what he’s going to do yet or if he has already decided to retire – now isn’t the time to announce that.
• I mentioned a few weeks ago that the players on the losing team should be left alone and not interviewed within minutes of the game ending. I’m sure my article wasn’t the reason for it, but I did notice that it didn’t happen, so kudos to the people doing the interviews.

Not Awesome

Attendance in Albany

Attendance numbers in the post-season aren’t always what you’d expect. For regular season games, the team has months to sell tickets and drive up the hype. In the playoffs, you might have two weeks if you’re lucky. In this case, they were lucky since there were no games between May 5 and May 17. And yet only 5,032 showed up in Albany, and a good chunk of those were Bandits fans. Yes, it’s more than they drew at the Semi-final or Quarter-final games they hosted, but 5,000 just isn’t much. The Bandits got almost four times that attendance the next night for game two. Now, comparing attendance in just about any NLL city against Buffalo is kind of unfair. The Rock managed to get 7,000 out to their playoff games, and that was with only a week’s notice, though to be honest, I was a little disappointed with that size of crowd as well. I don’t think I mentioned it during the quarters or semis, but San Diego only getting about 5,000 out to their playoff games was pretty Not Awesome too.

Buffalo averaged just under 17,000 people per home game this season. Albany, San Diego, and Panther City combined for an average of 11,333 people per game. All three made the playoffs. All three are exciting teams with star players, elite goaltending, and a very bright future ahead of them. The Seals have at least four future Hall of Famers in Dickson, Dobbie, Rubisch, and Merrill, and Panther City has one in Crawford. And yet nobody in their respective cities cares. It’s so disappointing.

Bandits fans booing the FireWolves

I’ve said it before: every team claims to have the best fans in the NLL but only one can be right, and for the most part, it’s Buffalo. But that said, just before Brett Frood presented the Cup to the Bandits, he congratulated the Albany FireWolves, and the Buffalo fans started to boo. Note that this was not a couple of fans here and there, it sounded like the majority of the arena. I didn’t hear any cheering at all. In my opinion, this was seriously disrespectful. Frood basically said “Oh come on people, give them some applause” and then there were scatterings of applause throughout the crowd, but honestly, if you have to be instructed to be respectful, you’re not respectful.

If you want to boo the opposing team at the beginning of the game, fine, go ahead. But after the game is over, that’s a different story. You just won the Championship, and you don’t have the class and sportsmanship to applaud the other team, particularly a team that was 3-15 and dead last in the league just a year ago? The Bandits players and coaches had already gone through the handshake line and gave every single FireWolves player a handshake, a hug, and a “you guys played a great game”, and the fans think it’s “soft” to even clap? The FireWolves and Bandits even tweeted their respect for each other a couple of days later. Presumably all of those people who booed will not be renewing their season tickets next year, since the players they support are a bunch of softies.

I honestly didn’t think this was that big of a deal at the time. Enough of a big deal to tweet about it, and I would probably have mentioned it here, but that’s about it. But after I tweeted about it, I got a bunch of negative responses. In one or two cases, the person explained why they disagreed with me (i.e. “having a discussion”) but many were just insulting, calling me “soft” or a “baby”, or posting gifs of people crying or such, and some were even worse than that. One guy said they should be booed not because of the team or players, but because he didn’t like the City of Albany itself. Luckily twitter has the mute option, so I will never see any further postings from such people.

No more NLL games until December

I’ll be around during the off-season when there are trades or other big news, but otherwise enjoy the off-season everyone! Have fun watching WLA, MSL, PLL, or other lacrosse games, whether live, on TV, or streaming, and always remember: