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Just a few short years ago it would have been a bit of a shock to see the words ‘Billy Dee Smith‘ and ‘offensive threat’ anywhere near each other, except for possibly in a description of an on-floor altercation. But if 2007 was the year of the subdued Smith, 2008 can be considered the season the hard-nosed defender learned to hit a team where it really hurts. The newly-minted transition piston takes time out from being Uncle Billy in the backyard with the Steenhuis Jrs to talk about how his game has evolved, how his reputation hasn’t, and whether or not we’ll be seeing a Mark Steenhuis mohawk.

Given that the Buffalo Bandits are the top seed, have home floor advantage, are considered the favourites, and haven’t won a championship since 1996, do you guys feel like you’re under a lot of pressure?
I don’t really feel like there’s that much pressure. I think we felt more pressure two years ago against Colorado. We just seem a lot more at ease this year. We’re confident but not over-confident, we’re not trying to do too much. What it comes down to is that both teams are 2-0 in the playoffs; the regular season doesn’t really matter. To be the favourites – that’s nice, but we’re not looking too far into it.

Is that the main difference between this year and two years ago? You’re more relaxed?
Two years ago I don’t know what happened. We were just so fired up. I took a stupid five-minute penalty, we all kinda did. Hopefully this year we can be more consistent. Our offense has been a lot more consistent this year, and during games if we go down by three or four goals we’re not down on ourselves, we’re still playing as a team, we keep our composure and we can fight back and get back in it whereas two years ago we’d get down and some guys would try to do too much, you know what I mean, we’d start yelling at each other a little bit. This year we’re doing everything as a team and as a unit and it’s working well.

Obviously you guys have played Portland this season and you’ve gone over the match-up I’m sure, is there anything you think gives you guys a leg up on the Jax in this game?
I’d have to say that if we can stay out of the box we have one of the best five-on-five offenses and defenses in the league, although the last time we met they scored almost all of their goals five-on-five too. I think the biggest advantage will be playing in front of our crowd, our crowds are absolutely crazy. It’ll definitely be a sell-out.

Let’s turn that question around for a second. What is it about the Jax that makes them a dangerous team?
It pretty much starts on their right side with Dan Dawson. He’s been big for them in the playoffs, scoring at least five goals per game but I know when we played them we kept him to one goal and a couple of assists so I think if we can slow his production down it will slow the team down as a whole. We’re also going to look for Ryan Powell, and [Derek] Malawsky is pretty dangerous too. Another big thing we can’t let them do is transition, I know Brodie Merrill likes to take off. We’re going to have to slow down their transition and take Dawson out of the game.

So Mike Thompson will be starting in net this Saturday. Does knowing which goalie is starting have an impact on the style of defense you guys play?
Not at all. We’re doing what we do regardless of what goalie is in net and regardless of what team we’re playing. That’s one of the good things about our team – we’re always on the same page in pretty much every aspect of the game. Whether it’s Mikey or Monster [Ken Montour] doesn’t really matter to us, we’re confident in both of them and we just try to play as best we can in front of them.

It’s easy to look at the Bandits and say, you know, Tavares and Steenhuis are firing on all cylinders and the goalies have been playing great. But who are the guys on the team that you would say are the unsung heroes?
[Kevin] Dostie doesn’t get that much publicity, for some reason. If he hadn’t gotten hurt I think he’d probably be leading the team in points or goals, I’d say. Clay Hill is definitely one of them. Delby [Powless] has been playing great, same with [Cory] Bomberry. There’s so many. The thing about this team is that everybody’s been playing their part and that’s been one of the great things about this season.

Turning the topic to you, I think it’s fair to say your game has definitely been evolving. Specifically over the past two seasons you’ve cut down on things like penalties and retaliations. Do you feel like the way you play is maturing?
Maturing? You think I’m getting old?! I definitely think I’m getting a little more mature. Before it was like every little thing would tick me off and now I realize that that hurts my team. It’s not just me in the box, it puts my team in the box. I’ve definitely learned my lesson about taking too many penalties and I’ve been trying my hardest not to but I’m still prone to getting called and I probably always will be because of my style and my aggression, but I’m getting to the point where I’m not getting so many penalty minutes. As for my game evolving, I just think that Darris [Kilgour] has so much confidence in me which makes me that much more confident with the ball. Playing offense or defense, whatever they want me to do — that’s helping me do it.

This season in particular we’ve seen your transition role increase, I think you scored seven goals this regular season, up from zero last year, and three so far in the playoffs. Is increasing your offensive production something you set out to do this year?
I didn’t really set out to do it. At the beginning of the year before Sean Greenhalgh was injured we had a transition line with me, [Roger] Vyse, Steenhuis, [Brett] Bucktooth, and Greenhalgh so we were going to play some offense. I’m a good one-on-one player and my coach has always known that and they’ve always wanted me to play more offense but I thought I’d be more valuable playing defense. I’m trying to make it a good balance and hopefully next year I’ll be playing both ways.

Does it ever get frustrating that you’ve put so much work in but so many people still write you off as a goon?
Yeah, it’s just subtle things, I always know that when I’m playing if I do one little thing or I go talk to ref I don’t really get any second chances. If someone gets a good whack in on me they’re obviously looking for me to retaliate. So it’s a little frustrating. I mean last year I cut my minutes by 20, 30 minutes so I felt like I didn’t really deserve it. I just have to keep trying to play smart lacrosse and I’m sure sooner or later it will work.

I hear you’ve got the playoff mohawk.
Yes I do! It’s pretty legit too.

What’s the status of the Steenhuis mohawk? Do you think that’ll happen?
He says he’s going to do it if we win. We all want him to do it regardless but he looks pretty funny with a shaved head, like he’s 16 or 17 years old, so I think he’s trying to avoid that. But I think if we win he’ll definitely do it.

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