Sabres fans are still sad to see Soupy go west to San Jose, but the guy we got in return had a decent start… TWO GOALS and an ASSIST in his first game! (He score the first two goals!) Ha!
Highlights above…
Tag: NHL
It’s that time of year again, in fact this year it’s one week of craziness in my two favorite sports.
On the one hand, the NHL has set tomorrow at 3pm as the deadline to deal players. A couple trades have already occurred, more will come tomorrow. The NHL is pretty good at keeping things fresh, to be sure. People get caught up in the frenzy of the deadline as Sabres’ GM Darcy Regier says above.
The main name on the board for the Sabres is all-star defenseman Brian Campbell. (Note: had my sister have been a boy, that would have been her name!) Campbell is fantastic, and could be a foundational piece for the Sabres for years to come, but for some reason, they have not come to terms on an extension. He’s set to be a free agent come July 1st of this year, so the Sabres are certainly considering a trade in order to get something out of losing him (if he were to choose to leave).
On Friday, we have the other side of things. Free agency begins Friday Feb 29th for the NFL. That means players whose contracts have expired can shop around to the highest bidder. Last season the Bills knew exactly who they wanted, and they got them within half a day of the free agency period starting gun! Will that happen again? Not sure. We had some big name guys who were set to leave last year, not so much this year. And there aren’t a lot of big name players on the market who have generated the press you might expect leading up to such a deadline.
One deadline ends with a frenzy, the other begins with a frenzy. And all in one week!
So, stay tuned, I’ll probably have a report here, and definitely on my Buffalo Bills site.
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Why The Super Bowl Is Not A Big Deal
At least, not to me. And, I actually mean that more as a compliment than a slam. Let me explain.
When it comes to the playoffs, and especially the finals of most sports there is an intensity like no other time during the season. The players step it up, the fans step it up… the atmosphere and the play on the field, court, ice are electric. There’s a big difference for example between a regular season hockey game and a playoff hockey game of any level, let alone the Stanley Cup Finals or especially a Game Seven of the finals!
Other sports are the same way. Looks at the fantastic athletic event that is March Madness in college basketball. Play in the regular season may be exciting for die-hards, but come March, tiny schools who weren’t even on the national fan or media’s radar are suddenly playing like – and becoming? – champions.
There’s just a different level to the playoffs in most sports.
Except the NFL.
I don’t mean that as a knock on the NFL players, coaches, fans or anything. Again, it’s really more of a compliment. I don’t know if it’s because there are fewer games, or because of the sheer intensity of the sport, but I believe every NFL game offers the same level of competition, energy, atmosphere, and fun for the fan. Now, there are some that are a small step up. The Bills hosted their first Monday night game in over a decade this past season and their stadium was rockin’! Fans were totally pumped up. The team played out of their minds. But what for? Just a regular game.
This is my point. The NFL has the best overall product because every game can be – and usually is – as intense as if it were for the ultimate championship.
But then we have the Super (Hype) Bowl. Two weeks of incessant media hype, covering every story from every possible angle ad nauseam. We don’t watch much TV around here lately, so actually I haven’t been bombarded as much this year as past years. But it’s still there. I’ve caught the fringe stuff. And tonight there will be all the flashiness that the NFL wants to bring to their “showcase event”.
Does that make it better? Does that make it a more competitive game? Do we really need all that stuff?
In the end, I’ve already seen all the best games this season. (I could be surprised, but usually the Super Bowl does not live up to its hype…) The Patriots vs Dallas, Indy, and even Jacksonville in the playoffs. All the Bills games… 😉 And a handful of other very exciting competitions. Probably were better games than tonight’s game will be. At least they were better than some other Super Bowls I have seen.
So, I’ll stick with my vote for the NHL playoffs, March Madness, and maybe even a few others as being a bigger step up in the post season than the NFL offers. I’d rather watch most any NHL playoff series than the Super Bowl most year.
(Of course, it would help if my team was in the Super Bowl… then I might be saying, “This is going to be the best game EVER!!) 😉
Nah. Gimme some NHL playoffs and March Madness. I’m good to go.
Last night Jen and I played a new card game called Tunge. (Not sure how you pronounce it.) She discovered it on a blog she reads and wanted to play it with me. I’m always game for a new … game. 🙂
So, we figured it out pretty easily and had a good time playing. Mostly. That is until I noticed that this game – as with many card games – is almost entirely won by luck. You just have to get the right card. “By the luck of the draw.” Those aren’t my favorite kind of games. I like knowing that I won (and you lost) because of my skill and cunning and craftiness.
🙂
But what all that reminded me of was my Buffalo Sabres.
See, this year, the Sabres – who last year finished the season with the best overall record – are not doing as well. At a quick glance, you might even think they were bad. I don’t remember if they were ever officially last in their conference… but they were at least second to last. (That in itself is deceiving as they were still only 6 or 8 points or so out of a playoff spot.) Most people do assume that the Sabres are just a shell of their former selves, losing their two captains from last seaons, Chris Drury and Daniel Briere.
It’s true that they miss the leadership and production of those two guys, but it’s not true that they are as bad as their record would indicate. Hockey is certainly a game of skill, on many levels. But it also involves a good bit of luck.
The bounces have not gone the Sabres’ way this year. They have outshot teams many a night, and come up losing by a goal. The goalie has made incredible save after incredible save, only to have a puck bounce off the boards behind him and either into the net, or right to the lucky opponent standing near the crease to cash in. Goal posts have rung, goals have been disallowed, injury after injury after injury have plagued this once-feared team.
We do not have cable this year, and so have only kept up with the team via radio (over the internet) and reading at sabres.com and NHL.com. We have also caught the occasional Sabres game on Versus.com. But from everything I have seen, this team is still very good. Very young, but very good.
I try and catch the post game interview with Lindy Ruff after every game. (Subscribe to the podcast at iTunes.) I like to hear what he’s got to say. He’s seen this team be the best, and now struggle through a year of seeming mediocrity. When things are bad, he says it. This year he has not said it. Almost every night he has nothing but positive things to say about the players and their effort and the chances they have created. He usually says something like, “It just didn’t bounce our way.” That has been my observation as well. The Sabres have just as much fight in them, just as much skill (though, more injuries to be sure) but they do not have as much “success”.
It will come. Luck works both ways. At least over the course of a whole season. The Sabres are coming out of a horrendous stretch of two wins in fourteen games. They have won three games in a row, looking for four tonight in Atlanta, where they play a Thrasher team that is tied with them in the conference standings.
Perhaps this small streak is the beginning of things starting to go our way. Maybe the Sabres will be on the more fortunate end of bounces, calls, injuries, etc.
If we’re lucky… 😉
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Tape Delay
So, you just gotta love TiVo. It’s so easy. You watch what you want, when you want to (or can) and you can even fast-forward the commercials!
I love hockey! Versus carries at least one NHL game on Monday and Tuesday nights. I’m busy every Monday night, and somehow we are usually busy on Tuesday nights, so I have gotten in the habit of TiVo-ing them.
Well, tonight after recording the show, I picked up where I had left off when I went up to the office to record. Thing is, Jen was there, too. And, while I like hockey… I like talking with my wife more. So, we did.
At one point I finally noticed that the hockey game I had recorded was playing in the background while we chatted and snacked.
Do you find that odd too? Who records something in order to not pay attention to it? 🙂
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NHL Hockey… Outdoors?
Rumor has it that the Sabres/Penguins game scheduled for January 1st, 2008 in Buffalo could be held outdoors at Ralph Wilson Stadium!!! How cool is that?!? We would really like to be there, if that ends up being the case.
[Read the Buffalo News article that mentions this possible location for the game.]
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Sabres Schedule Announced
The Buffalo Sabres today announced their 2007-2008 schedule. (Didn’t they just finish playing the 2006-2007 season??) 🙂 We were really hoping that the Sabres (1) would play the San Jose Sharks this year, and (2) that they would play IN San Jose, and then (3) that it would coincide with our trip out there this fall.
BUT, alas… they will be on a road trip during that week… and they do play in San Jose this year… just, not at the same time.
November 15th is already circled on my calendar. First game against the Senators. The first games against Drury and Briere’s new teams will be interesting as well. The season opens with a “home and home” against the NY Islanders, whom the Sabres ousted in round one of last year’s playoffs.
Bring on the hockey season! (Football first… but hockey a close second!)
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Free Agency in Sports
As you most likely know by now, Chris Drury and Daniel Briere have moved on from the Buffalo Sabres to $$$Greener Pastures$$$. They were signed by two different teams (Rangers and Flyers) for a combined $84 million!!! Holy cow, that’s a lot of moola! The Sabres were unable and/or unwilling to match that, and in the case of Drury, he just chose to go to the Rangers (they were his favorite childhood team) instead of stay in Buffalo (who would have matched the Rangers’ offer.
So, good for those guys… at least financially. But this brings up yet again the sad state of sports with free agency and salary caps. There are many factors, and I really don’t want to get into it here, but I do want to say that I am not a fan of free agency.
I understand that it is very cool for the player. They get more money for sure, they also get the chance to determine where they will play (like Drury). But both Drury and Briere were captains on the President Trophy winning Sabres (for the best record in hockey) and they left that behind (understandably, in many ways) to pursue their goals. Not those of the team.
Does any player care about the game, or the team, or the city anymore? Perhaps that is unfair. Both of these guys said they would like to stay in Buffalo. Particularly Briere. But in the end, he was offered $25 million over 5 years by the Sabres, and the Flyers offered him $52 million over 7 years.
Yeah, I would too.
I think. Part of me says I wouldn’t. I would take the “paltry” $25M and stay with the team that I had helped build. I would not move the family and start over again… I would be OK with $25 MILLION DOLLARS. But, why take $25M when you can double it?!? So crazy.
It’s sad that this is hurting sports in so many ways. Small market teams are unable to keep up as they can not charge as much for tickets, and don’t have other sources of revenue to keep up with the larger salary caps. It’s also just raising the price of tickets in general across all the sports leagues. Many sports writers are prediciting we’ll just be seeing another lock out in the not-too-distant future if the NHL continues this way.
What if players decided they love the game, and love to win, and build a championship team. What if teams fairly compensated those players who made a commitment to stay with one team for their careers? We will likely never see a team that can repeat what the Bills did from 1990-1993, going to four straight Super Bowls … mostly due to free agency.
It might sound like sour grapes, but even before we lost Drury, Briere, and even Zubrus a couple days later, I was not a fan of free agency. Maybe it’s because my team is one of those “small market teams”, but I think it’s cause I love the idea of buildinig a team of guys you know and can root for for at least a good chunk of their careers. Now when you buy a jersey (like, #23 or #48) it’s obsolete in 3 years or less.
Too bad.
The Sabres did manage to hold on to Thomas Vanek last week, matching an offer that came in from Edmonton. They were not going to lose another one! Good for them.
I read a great article on this at NHL.com today. Check it out if you’ve got time.
The Sabres will go on. As will the Bills, and every other team. It’s the path that pro sports have chosen. I do wish there was some happy medium where players could be happy, not at the expense of the team, city, fans, owner… and vice versa. I don’t think we’ve found that just yet.
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Ducks Take The Cup
For those of you following along with all of my previous Sabres’ posts…
Last night was Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals, and with the Anaheim Ducks leading 3 games to 1, it was rather shocking to see the game end with a 6-2 victory for the Ducks! It seems Ottawa, who had a very good season – certainly played fantastically against our Sabres!!! – and deserved to be in the finals, would have put up a bit more of a fight?
It was Anaheim’s series from the start.
So, we let the boys stay up last night for the whole game. Anticipating the conclusion of the NHL season. We were right, and it was fun to see all those guys toting around the most prized trophy in all of sports. Only one Anaheim player has ever been there before. Scott Neidermeyer has won 4 cups, actually (including this one). But everyone else, including his brother Rob, was experiencing the moment for the first time. It was fun to watch. 🙂
The only part that wasn’t fun was, as a Sabres’ fan, thinking, “This should be Chris Drury, and Danny Briere, and Max Afinogenov, and Ryan Miller, and Thomas Vanek…” But, it was not. Maybe we’ll get to stay up late to see that scene next season? Probably not with all of those same names, unfortunately 🙁
With the clinching of the Stanly Cup, the Ducks have ended the 2006-2007 NHL season. I miss it already! 🙁 But it’s not long till they lace up their skates again and the fast-paced action starts circling ice rinks near you.
For now, it’s time to focus on BILLS FOOTBALL! Whoohooo!! 🙂
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What A Difference
Since the Sabres pulled off the win in Game 4 this thought has crossed my mind several times: “What a difference one of those first three games would make right now!” If the Sabres could have won Game 2, where they jumped out to a 2-0 lead, and even came back to tie the game with only 5 seconds left, but lost for the first time in 47 opportunities when they had a 2-goal lead. Or, if the Sabres could have somehow gotten any of those dozens of blocked shots through to the net in the 1-0 Game 3 loss. If they could have taken even just one of those, the series would be 2-2 headed back to Buffalo, instead of 3-1.
What a difference that would make, eh?
But, it’s not. It’s 3-1. And the Sabres have a good chance to make it 3-2. Just go out and win this game. At home. Crowd behind you. Ottawa is a good road team, but I do like the Sabres chances in this game. If they do pull off the victory, Game Six will likely be the biggest challenge they have faced all year. Ottawa fans want a trip to the finals bad.
But then… so do Buffalo fans. 🙂
Can’t wait for the game tomorrow! We’re TiVo-ing it to make sure we get to watch it… as we’ll be traveling back tomorrow from our awesome vacation! (And there’s a birthday party we want to attend right in THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME tomorrow. That should tell you how much we love these friends….) 🙂
Go Sabres!!!