This week's Bandette of The Week is no stranger to anyone who's paid any attention to the squad at all the last few years. In her 6th season on the squad is Melissa, who's in her 3rd season as a co-captain on Meghan's line. She's been dancing since she was 2 and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. And she shouldn't...when she's performing seems to be when she smiles the brightest. In addition to her experience and leadership on the squad, she's also contributed to NLL.com as a writer when squadmates have gotten named NLL Girl of The Week in the past. She earned a degree in communications 2 years ago originally looking into journalism but switched her focus to Integrated Marketing and currently works as a development specialist coordinating fundraisers and working with the non-profit organization that the foundation she works for supports. Her foundation's gain is the journalism industry's loss but hopefully we'll still see the occasional article from her on NLL.com with more NLL Girl of The Week write-ups. Last month, the NLL gave her the honor herself, an award a long time coming. Check that article out at http://www.nll.com/article.php?id=4402 You can read more about Melissa at http://www.bandits.com/profileB.asp?bandetteID=200907
This week, we take a look at one of our longer-tenured vets on the Buffalo Jills as our Jill of The Week. Stefanie just finished up her 4th season on the squad and is heading into her 5th after spending last season on Eileen's line between Caity and Joya. Stefanie's had a pretty eventful career so far with the Jills, starting with 2 trips to the Middle East visiting the troops in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In addition, she's been showing off her gymnastic abilities most of her career with the Jills but had to hold off on that and performing in general early last season when she was sidelined with a foot injury. And who says cheerleading isn't a sport? But considering how focused she gets on the game when on the sidelines at times, one has to wonder if Stefanie wants to throw on some shoulder pads sometimes. Thankfully for those of us who don't want her to risk getting hurt any worse, she enjoys her squadmates and all the fun that comes with being on the squad too much to try to become the first female player for the Buffalo Bills. You can read more about Stefanie in the webgroup's files section.
Obviously, everyone knows (or should know, anyway) about 2005-07 Buffalo Jills Alumnus Amanda P out in Hollywood working on the If I Can Dream series. She had her 1st audition this past Friday and you can keep up with what's happening in her journey to becoming an actress at http://www.hulu.com/if-i-can-dream/amanda She has frequent video log updates and the entire show has a new half hour episode available each Tuesday with recaps of what's gone on in the house the previous week.
We also have a pair of alumni who are each working on their singing with some local cover bands. First up is one we've covered in the past, 2005 alumnus Ashlee A. She spent a few years singing lead for the Studio 54 Dance Band and currently sings for About Face, a local band that specializes in weddings and the occasional restaurant/club in Western NY. Find out more at http://aboutfaceband.com/ Ashlee's not giving up her dreams of stardom, however. When she's not singing with About Face or working at the martial arts academy that she and her fiance own, she's working on getting on the television show Glee. Her audition videos are up at http://www.myspace.com/gleeauditions?link=3681221 where, besides watching the videos, fans can vote for her to help her out through 3pm ET on Thursday by giving her a gold star.
For another look at her singing, view this video of her singing 2 summers ago at Buffalo's Italian Festival. Ashlee singing at Class Act
With looks like Penelope Cruz and the voice of an angel, who wouldn't want to see and hear Ashlee on TV every week?
Last, but certainly not least, we come to 2003 Jills alumnus Aimee L, seen here with the afore-mentioned Studio 54 Dance Band, where I finally got the chance to meet her myself. Aimee is no stranger to the spotlight in the Buffalo area after spending several years singing as the lead in the Disco Duck Band. These days, she's moved on from disco and sings rock, funk, and country with Naughty Dawg when she's not helping out her friends in Studio 54, feeding her disco and dance fix. http://www.naughtydawgband.com/
Finally, a little reminder for the high school seniors and juniors out there in Western NY who haven't decided on a date to the prom. 97Rock's annual Take a Jill To The Prom Contest is almost done accepting entries and at noon on Friday the 30th, all the guys competing in the contest will be voted on by the public. The winner gets a limo ride to his prom complete with the companionship of one of the Buffalo Jills. This year, the lucky winner has a difficult task to perform after winning...choosing his date between Gabrielle, Ruby, Alyssa, Courteney, Lindsay, and Valerie. The contest can be found at http://www.97rock.com/Article.asp?id=1760222&spid=21992
The 2010 Buffalo Bandits regular season, which started off rocky to say the least, drew to a close in an exciting fashion Saturday night as the Bandits needed a win to make the playoffs. Thanks to outstanding performances by goaltender Mike Thompson and forwards John Tavares (3 G, 4 assists), Mike Accursi (3 G, 3 assists), Mark Steenhuis (1 G, 8 assists) and Roger Vyse (3G, 2 assists), the Bandits turned in a 13-10 win over Boston, a city whose hockey team is also engaged in some action against Buffalo's own Sabres. The Bandits helped give Buffalo a 2-0 weekend over Boston, except that next weekend, after the Sabres and Bruins have finished up their NHL playoff series, Bandits fans will be rooting for the Blazers to win their game against Orlando while the Bandits handle their own business in Toronto against the Rock, a team they are 2-1 against in 2010. A Blazers win, in addition to the Bandits win, will bring the Eastern Finals back to HSBC Arena the weekend of May 7-9. After that, the Minnesota Swarm have to make it through the West for the NLL Championship to be played in Buffalo, barring any unforseen circumstances such as what happened in 2007 when the Rochester Knighthawks had to travel to Arizona for the Championship Game they were supposed to host if not for a circus scheduled at Rochester's Blue Cross Arena.
The Buffalo Bandettes have turned in outstanding performances all season long and started off their gameday with a dance clinic for dancers 16 and up where girls got to learn from the pros in order to prepare for tryouts or just to have some fun. When the gates opened at 6, the Bandettes were on hand to hand out Bandits and Bandettes posters to the incoming fans while posing for the occasional photo as well before putting on some solid performances during the game including one at the first intermission including Bandits mascot Rax and one in the 3rd intermission in which the girls sported player jerseys and drew lots of cheers spelling out Bandits with their poms. Afterwards, it was on to Pearl Street for their last regular season postgame party of the 2010 season. All but 2 of the girls were on hand as they mingled with fans and enjoyed a well-deserved dinner after all their hard work was done for the day. Buffalo Jills director Stephanie M even stopped by after enjoying the game and talked with some of the girls and posed with Jaclyn and Erin Y for a great photo.
The one negative to the night was a bit of bad news that we learned as 5th year vet and captain Meghan, whose contributions to the Buffalo Pro Cheer Blog have been a great asset, plans to retire from the squad as a dancer after the Bandits' run is over. She doesn't plan to be a stranger though, as she does intend to help out the squad a lot in the future as its been such a big part of her life the last 5 seasons.
Next up for the Bandettes, they're waiting along with the rest of Banditland to see if there will be another home game in 2 weeks as everyone roots on not only Buffalo, but the same Boston team they just defeated. If they do, it will be held the weekend of May 7-9, depending partly on how the NHL playoffs schedule is for HSBC Arena. As it stands now, that entire weekend is available.
Last year, with the 50th season celebration of the Bills and the AFL, the Bills threw a large season ticket holder draft party at the Ralph complete with locker room tours and appearances and performances by the Buffalo Jills. Attendance was much greater than expected with several thousand on hand. This year, with the switch of the draft from the traditional weekend event to a primetime event, the Bills found a way to still give some of their season ticket holders reason to make the trek to the Ralph with draft parties each day of the draft. They held one Thursday night for premium seat holders and while the response from that was mixed being on a Thursday, the parties on Friday night and Saturday for all season ticket holders drew a few thousand combined. This year's parties were held in the Fieldhouse and, like last year, included locker room tours and appearances and performances by the Buffalo Jills. The only negative was the bright screen behind the Jills as they performed. Word of advice to places staging a performance in the future...the light should be in front of the performers, not behind.
Coming up next for the Jills are a series of smaller appearances including an appearance at Coca-Cola Field in downtown Buffalo for the annual MS Walk and one at Tioga Downs in Nichols, NY. Both appearances take place Saturday, May 1.
After that, the Jills go to Jamaica the week of May 24-29 to shoot their 2010-2011 Buffalo Jills Calendar and if the test shots I saw of some of the girls are any indication, they'll need to include fire extinguishers with the calendars because the shots are that hot. You can see some of the shoot by going along on the trip, too. Get more info at http://buffalojills.net/Article.asp?id=1585512&spid=34534
Finally, the next big Jills event is the Open Practice on June 1 at the Fieldhouse from 7-9pm. Young cheerleaders and dancers get to learn from the pros in an event that's open to the public. The Jills will show the youngsters a routine to perform right there. Cost is $5 per participants and $3 for spectators. Get all the info at http://buffalojills.net/Article.asp?id=1761903&spid=34534
This week's Bandette of The Week is no stranger to anyone who's paid any attention to the squad at all the last few years. In her 6th season on the squad is Melissa, who's in her 3rd season as a co-captain on Meghan's line. She's been dancing since she was 2 and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. And she shouldn't...when she's performing seems to be when she smiles the brightest. In addition to her experience and leadership on the squad, she's also contributed to NLL.com as a writer when squadmates have gotten named NLL Girl of The Week in the past. She earned a degree in communications 2 years ago originally looking into journalism but switched her focus to Integrated Marketing and currently works as a development specialist coordinating fundraisers and working with the non-profit organization that the foundation she works for supports. Her foundation's gain is the journalism industry's loss but hopefully we'll still see the occasional article from her on NLL.com with more NLL Girl of The Week write-ups. Last month, the NLL gave her the honor herself, an award a long time coming. Check that article out at http://www.nll.com/article.php?id=4402
