BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — After winning 10 straight games at home to finish the regular season, the Bakersfield Condors will need to match that success on the road to start the postseason.
The Condors are flying over 1,200 miles north to Abbotsford, British Columbia in Canada. Bakersfield is starting a best-of-three series in the first round of the Calder Cup playoffs on Wednesday, April 19.
“I think we're just all super excited to get going," said James Hamlin, the Condors' forward. "This is what we play for all year, so this is super exciting for us.”
“After game one, someone's backs are going to be up against the wall," said Colin Chaulk, the Condors' head coach. "You know we're ready for that challenge but right now there's a lot of belief in our locker room, our coaching staff management. We feel good about ourselves and we're gonna go put our best foot forward there in Canada and see how things go.”
The Condors had no lift under their wings during the Christmas break and a little after as well. They were seven games under 500 on Wed, Jan 25. They found a way to fly up the standings, however, winning 23 of their last 34 games to get them to the fifth seed in the division.
"Probably just coming together as a group," Hamlin said while explaining the recent success. "We've been through a ton this year, a ton of adversity. I think that adversity has kind of propelled us to help each other over a lot of these struggles throughout the year.”
"We have a different team now than we did those first three games at the start of the year," said Brad Malone, the team's captain. "We've been scoreboard-watching and we understand what each other is all about.”
Teams usually do something superstitious for the playoffs. This year, the Condors are growing some unique facial hair.
"We're gonna try and go with a little mustache and maybe handlebar situation but just kind of depends on what everyone's able to do," explained Malone.
