Tag: Sabres

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Sports Videos

Trade Deadlines and Free Agency


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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Sports

Luck

Sabres vs Thrashers
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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Sports

My Teams

As many of you know, I am a sports fan. Many sports, but not all sports. (You won’t find any baseball, golf, auto-racing, or gymnastics being discussed here…) Well, there’s a good deal going on with all of my favorite teams, so I thought I’d give a brief update to those who might be interested (or wonder what sorts of things I and the Campbell fam are doing these days…)

Buffalo BillsBuffalo Bills
Obviously I am following this team the closest, as I still have the number one Buffalo Bills show on the internet! 🙂 The Bills are also making it fun! Two weeks ago they benched last year’s starter – for good – and brought in the first year guy Trent Edwards, who after a 4-touchdown game last week is now 5-1 as a starter! That’s fairly amazing for a rookie, but when you factor in the unprecedented amount of injuries this team has suffered, and the already “green” talent that he has to work with anyway… that’s almost impossible!

Believe it or not, the talk around Bills country is that this team of injury replacements actually has a very good shot at making the playoffs! If they win their last three games, they will finish 10-6, and the best the other two teams they are contending with can do is 10-6. Now, if they all finish with that record it’s bad – crazy tie-breaking procedures – but, if just one other team is tied with them… the Bills will go to the playoffs. (I know… ridiculously hard to understand, but I do think I finally get it.) Basically, if we win all our games, and Tennessee loses just one… we’ll go to the playoffs for the FIRST TIME since 1999! Wow!

So, we’re pretty excited here, and had one of our most fun shows last night. If you’ve never checked out our Buffalo Bills show, click the link and check it out. You might like it even if you’re not a Bills fan. 🙂

Buffalo SabresBuffalo Sabres
I got to see a Sabres game last night – which is rare these days, since we’re not paying the outrageous price for cable just to get the channel that carries their games! – and it was … not so good. Strange, really. The Sabres (if you’ll recall) were the President Trophy winners last season. That means they finished the season with the most points and the best record. Of all the teams… they were the best.

BUT, this year has been very different. They are near the bottom. Were AT the bottom at one point. Bad bounces, players lost in the off-season, injuries, strange bad luck. I saw more of it last night. They outshot the other team more than 2-1, but only scored one goal! Goal posts, great saves, missing the net, more great saves… it was crazy. And so, they are 13-14-1. I don’t think they had 14 losses till March last year! 🙂

Michigan State UniversityMichigan State Football
Yes, my Spartans are in a Bowl Game! December 28th at 5:00pm you can catch the Spartans and the Boston College Eagles on some channel somewhere. 🙂 They have a pretty good team this year. Some stars on both sides of the ball… lost a lot of close games in a very tough conference. They hung with the #2 team in the country, Ohio State. (Or are they #1? I forget…) They are all a bunch of young guys, too… so expect to see them near the top of the Big Ten next season!

That’s a pretty good update for now. There might be more, but I need to get back to working on websites 🙂

Go Bills, Sabres and Spartans!

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Sports

Sabres Already??

Sabres Season Already??
The Sabres sent out an e-mail yesterday with an ad for pre-season tickets. The games start September 21st! Holy cow! I love hockey, and think it will be another fun season in Buffalo… but I can’t believe it’s hockey season already!

They are offering 50% off on kids tickets for the pre-season games. Click the photo for details.

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Sports

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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Sports

Sabres Schedule Announced

Sabres Schedule
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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Sports

Free Agency in Sports

Chris Drury and Daniel Briere
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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Personal Sports Videos

All Good Things…

Playoff Beard
Well, the time has come… the playoffs are over, and the Sabres are headed home for the summer. All good things eventually come to an end. Click the photo above for a little tribute video to the 2007 playoff… beard. 🙂

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Personal Sports

An Eulogy

Buffalo SabresLast night I dreamt that I was a member of the Buffalo Sabres. We were at some awards presentation. I was dressed in my full uniform, as were my team mates. I know for sure Ryan Miller was there, but I forget the other guys faces. All were bummed. Most faces were sullen, gloomy… although the reason for the gathering was to celebrate the season that was.

At some point it dawned on me, the Buffalo Sabres player that I was, that we were all privileged to be there, doing what we were doing. I said as much to my fellow team mates. We were Buffalo Sabres I said to them. We had all grown up as fans of the team (which, in reality is not the case, but made a good point in the dream…) and now here we were playing in the conference finals!

My emotional speech seemed to have a little effect on the guys as they all did manage to at least nod in agreement. It was almost time for us to take the ice and have a skate around for the fans when…

I woke up.

And the reality is, I’m not a member of the team, but we have invested a lot of time watching – and cheering on – the Sabres this year. And it was not wasted. They were fantastic. Tons of goals, tons of comebacks, tons of fun. Even the playoffs. It didn’t end the way we expected it would, thanks to a fantastic performance by the Ottawa Senators.

Let me tell you, I don’t like the Sens. They tend to play at least aggresive, sometimes nasty. They certainly have our number this year, winning 9 of 13 games in the regular season and playoffs. They’re the division rival you love to hate. BUT… I am very happy for them. Not happy they beat my team, but man have they had a rough several years. Let’s hope the Sabres don’t wait as long as they do. They have been fantastically talented but, “underacheivers” for several years running now. Perhaps this is finally their year.

Let’s hope next year is ours.

So, a season comes to an end. We “mourn” for a bit, but I already can’t wait for the next season! I’m sure the NHL will schedule Buffalo vs Ottawa at least as our home opener, if not the season opener. 🙂 Already looking forward to ALL EIGHT of those games!

84 games is a looooong time to wait for another run at the Cup, but assuming we keep the core of this team together (read: SIGN CHRIS DRURY) we should have another great season next year! Already looking forward to it.

So now we get ready for Bills football! 🙂

Go Buffalo!!

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Sports

What A Difference

Sabres vs Senators - 2007 Eastern Conference Finals
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!!!