Losing streak

The Buffalo Bandits lost a game this afternoon.

In 1999.

Allow me to explain.

I received an email from Jeff Baker of the Bandits' public relations department today. He said he was working on a statistic and had found a problem with a fact from the past. It seemed the goals scored by the Bandits in 1999 had two different numbers, depending on whether one turned to the Bandits' media guide or the National Lacrosse League's media guide. They were two goals apart.

When Tom Borrelli died and I took over his duties of covering the team, Karen Borrelli gave me the pile of Bandits and NLL guides from his collection. So, I went back game by game and tried to find the problem.

In Game 11 of the season, the problem revealed itself. In the Bandits' guide of 2000, an April game in 1999 against Rochester was listed as a 15-13 win. However, the league guide had it as a loss. The league also had Buffalo's record as 4-8 instead of 5-7. Since the wins and losses add up correctly in the league standings, I could only conclude that it was the Bandits' guide that was wrong.

So ... Buffalo lost the game and thus finished that season with a five-game losing streak. That was the team record until this year, when the Bandits dropped six straight.

You know you are having a tough day when your record takes a loss 13 years after the fact.

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