Someone posted a comment on one of my blogs that they didn’t appreciate me taking shots at the Sabres. Well, you aren’t going to like this blog. I need to make my stance on my feelings on the NHL and the Sabres. I’m NOT an NHL fan, I’m a Sabres fans. Once the Sabres get eliminated from the playoffs or playoff contention, I’ll see you in October. You can say all you want on how great the NHL is and how Buffalo has become hockey town USA II. But in my opinion, the reason why there are so many hockey fans in Buffalo is because of having a professional team. If Buffalo had an NBA or MLB team, they would be saying the same thing. It’s all about people being obsessed with Buffalo having an identity. I know I’ve posted about 16 related Sabres blogs, and most of them have been fairly negative. Listed below is where my anger stems from.
My Sabres History: Before the Sabres run in 2005-2007, the team was nothing more then a niche sport in Buffalo. They didn’t sell out games unless it was against Toronto or Montreal (and we all know why, eh). All of a sudden they got hot and all the fans came out of the woodwork claiming they were hockey fans for life. We call them bandwagon fans. And I’m sure some of you may think I must have been apart of that group. To be honest, I wasn’t. I watched the Sabres through out the late 80’s and all of the 90’s. I lived through the Pierre Turgeon Era, the Lafontaine era, and the Hasek era. My 2 favorite teams during that era were the Mayday team (how can you go wrong with Mogilny and Lafontaine) and the 99′ team (no goal).
Sabres 2005-2006:At the time I was living with my roommate who was a Flyers fan. I had some extra money and was able to convince him to split the Center Ice package. I watched at awe on how the Sabres were able to come out of now where and have one of the most exciting teams that year. I remember talking crap to my roommate after we made Robert Esche “lose it” during game 1 of the playoffs against the Flyers. I still get shivers down my spine thinking about game 1 of the Sabres/Senators dramatic back and forth affair. Chris Drury was slow clutch in that game. I remember Danny Briere scoring in overtime against the Hurricanes and sending the series to a 7th game. But the biggest thing I remember is that after the Sabres lost to the Hurricanes in 7, I was very optimistic about how the team was going to be the following year. I even called the post game show on WGR from NYC, and said this team represented the start of something special. I stated that the team reminded me of the 1988 Bills team that went 12-4. We all remember that being the start of the team’s dominance of the 90’s. As far as Mulliquinn and Golisano went, I was happy they were the owners of the team.
Sabres 2006-2007: Going into the offseason the Sabres had a number of free agents on their roster. And to be quite honest, the team did a decent job in trying to sign most of their players back. They resigned Connolly, Max, Kotalick, and Pominville. In the process they did lose some core guys. Grier, McKee, and Dumont. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and the resignings don’t look too good today (besides Pommer), but the team did the best they could at that time when 3/4 of the team were due new contracts. Now that the contracts were out of the way, I didn’t need to get my roommates blessings to split the Center Ice Package because I was hell bent on watching this team play. I had Saber fever.
The Sabres stormed out of the gates tying the NHL mark for the best 10 game start to a season in history. The team was able to roll 4 solid scoring lines and lead the NHL in scoring, and winning the president’s trophy. But I noticed there was something different in the air back in Buffalo. Friends of mine who never gave a crap about the Sabres were talking about how they just purchased mini packs for the team. OK, that’s cool I guess. Success equals new interest. Then fans started going down to party in the plaza during Sabres playoff games. Hey, it’s a rally I get it. Then I started seeing the numbers. Season Tickets sold out and a waiting list of 14,000. Wow. 5 players in the top 10 in Jersey sales for the NHL were Sabres. Cha Ching. Then I heard how some Sabres fans waited over night just to get their first crack at medallions of your favorite players. That’s when I knew the Sabres had a product that rivaled the popularity of the Bills during the early 90’s. And if I took notice, you know Mulliquinn and Mr. Seles would too.
The Choice: During the whole season the big talk show topic was simple, Drury or Briere? Both were all stars and arguably the heart and soul of the team were going to be free agents at the end of the year. You heard every situation on what should the Sabres do. Do you want Drury because he’s a leader and has always been clutch or do you want the younger and more marketable Danny Briere? The Sabres put on their best poker faces and just stated the same thing. They would use those clever action words (you know, the top to bottom evaluation) that would make you feel good. Our goal is to sign both players and be proactive. They are the heart of the team. The longer the season went on, the more I believed we weren’t going to sign them. There was no dialog between both players besides the standard, “We want to sign these guys and I would love to finish my career in Buffalo.” I didn’t want to believe i
t. I wanted to think it was just the team’s policy to wait till the end of the season and would do their best to sign them.
Offseason 2007: The Sabres went on to lose to the Senators in 5 games in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Sabres went into the offseason with 2 unrestricted free agents (Briere and Drury) and restricted free agents Thomas Vanek and Derek Roy. My first impression was lose Vanek and Roy and maybe trade Max’s salary so you can use the left over money to sign the co-captains. We all know what happen next. Black Sunday. The Sabres low balled Daniel Briere without giving him a raise and claimed that Chris Drury chooses the Rangers over them. Sabres shills will say that the players cost too much to keep, but what the shills fail to realize is that if the Sabres had been proactive in signing their players back in September they would of signed them for half the price.
But back to black Sunday. Reading Sabres Edge that day made me want to weep. Posting after posting of Briere and Drury saying how much they would miss the fans and the city. My weeping turned to anger when a few days later the BTN broke the story that Chris Drury had reached a verbal agreement on contract extension with the Sabres, for a sum of 4.4 million dollars a year. But what happen? Drury never received the actual contract. Whether it got lost in the mail or the Sabres were dealing with damage control with the banana slug logo, I don’t know.
To make matters worse the Sabres were too inept to realize that Edmonton was closing in on Thomas Vanek. The Oilers offered the forward 52 million dollars over 7 years. Sabres had no choice but to match the offer. The worse part was had they signed Briere or Drury, they could of got 5 first round picks from the Oilers for Vanek. Again, they blew it royally. And it had nothing to do with the players wanting to leave or the market. It had to do with the fact that the team wanted to maximize profits and since they sold out the next season already, there was no need to resign the co-captains.
Mr. Seles: I’ll make no bones about it. I loathe Tom Golisano. I feel he had the city of Buffalo by the you know what, and blew it. The guy could have run for governor again and wouldn’t have to worry about carrying Western New York. At one point the Sabres were more popular then the Bills. Management decided to drag their feet when it came to signing their 2 best players, and then decided to low-ball their best defenseman, Brian Campbell. You would think that not being proactive in signing Briere and Drury earlier would of made them learn their lesson. Of course not! They had a deal in place with Campbell for 5 years 25 million dollars, which would have been well worth it. But once Darcy got the deal done, Mr. Seles got cold feet, and just like with Drury and Briere the market went up again. They could of had all 3 players at a cheap cost had they been proactive, and that makes me sick!
I said it in my Ralph Wilson column that Wilson did everything he could when it came to keeping the 90’s Bills together. Mulliquinn and Golisano didn’t see it that way. Why? I have no clue. Did they seem to think Derek Roy and Tim Connolly were going to replace the co-captains? The organization has done nothing the last 2 years and they constantly Bulls#$t the fans with their clever words of “we will make changes” and “top to bottom evaluations.” And don’t get me wrong; the Bills do the exact same thing. But at least the Bills can sell you hope with Terrell Owens, Drew Bledsoe, and Takeo Spikes. Even if they blew up in the fans faces, at least they are trying. I can’t say that about the Sabres. I don’t think they care. And I know it seems to be the norm to say that The Bills haven’t made the playoffs in 9 years, well the Sabres have made the playoffs only twice in the last 7 years. And I’ve heard the cheerleaders on WGR, mention that the 3 years prior to the lockout shouldn’t matter because of the bankruptcy issues. Check your facts people, the Sabres were in bankruptcy for 1 year. So I’ll give them the one-year mulligan that Larry Quinn thinks they deserved the last 2 years.
Now I know some of you will say that Golisano saved the team. And prior to the whole summer of 2007, I would of agreed with you. But lets put down the roses and poetry when thinking about the owner’s motives. He bought the team at a ridiculously low price. People forget when the NHL was going over the preliminary offers to buy the team out of bankruptcy (Like the Coyotes situation), Golisano didn’t offer enough money to buy the team and the bid went to Mark Hamister who ended up being full of crap about his finances. If Golisano had this heart of gold to save the team, he would of outbid Hamister. Once Hamister was out of the picture, Golisano was able to swoop in and buy the team cheaper then before. If he cared about what the fans thought he would of went out and tried to replace Drury/Briere, but instead replaced the scouting department with YouTube videos.
To make matters worse, Golisano decided to ignore the Buffalo News requests for interviews and only did stupid interviews on the Sabres hard hitting show, the Sabres Show. Where the owner would talk about his favorite movies and politics in Buffalo for about 9 minutes of the 12-minute piece. Then Golisano goes on the WGR and bad mouths Chris Drury by giving some sort of crappy analogy about his plus minus rating for the team. Thanks Tom, considering the Rangers and Flyers have made the playoffs the last two years, while the Sabres have been on the golf courses, you really need to shut it.
The tiny pep peeves : Since Buffalo is primarily a two media entities town (WGR and BTN), The only time I can hear Sabres coverage whenever I want to is by turning on WGR. Then I have to hear the Sabres shills on WGR defend this team on every single issue made about them. Mike Schopp dismisses Chris Drury’s clams that the Sabres had a deal in place with him by stating, “Bid deal so he didn’t get the physical contract.” Then I have to hear the shills talk about how the Sabres aren’t cheap and how I should get excited about resigning Tiny Tim and trading for Dominic Moore. Then the hosts pull a Golisano and take shots at all the Sabres players who have left. They try and act like the
fans should feel vindicated that Daniel Briere had an injury plagued season last year. Attention Sabres Shills, they never replaced the 70 goals between the two co-captains and haven’t made the playoffs since. I don’t care if Briere retires and becomes a GQ model for Quebec. Telling me that Roy and tiny Tim are going to replace that production is ludicrous.
Final conclusion: Maybe living in NYC has changed my mindset when it comes to my home teams. New York fans don’t settle for anything less then a championship. I’m not that extreme, but I want to know that my franchise has my best interest when it comes to entertaining me. The Sabres bottom line is selling crappy hopes and telling me it’s a work in progress and to keep buying those tickets. The Sabres always had me at hello, and then had me in bed with them during the two year run. But they were wolves in sheep’s clothing and weren’t about winning. But then I saw what their motives were and how it was all about making money and excuses. The NHL itself is pretty poor run sport when it comes to making money. The Sabres love playing the small market card, yet bigger markets like the Florida and Atlanta couldn’t give away tickets. I am a bitter person to be honest. I still can’t get over my girlfriend from high school dumping me. The Sabres dumped me and have never given me a new true love. Until they do, you won’t be reading blogs on how I’m excited about Tyler Myers and the mini pack options. You wan hack journalism, then I’m sure you know where to find it.
-Joe-
“I know it was you Tom, you broke my heart. You Broke my heart. “
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