Toronto Globe and Mail

‘The devotion is born from a few things. Buffalo exudes the closeness of a small town, and is also a place where sports teams have mostly failed. The Bills last won a league championship in 1965 when they were in the old American Football League. Does that count? The Sabres have been in the NHL a half-century but haven’t won a Stanley Cup. Buffalo was also home to an NBA team that never won there or in the other two cities to which it has moved.’

‘Again – there were 6,700 people in the stands, every one of them dressed up like they were attending a graduation ceremony at a clown college. Sixty-seven hundred is nothing. It’s as many people as used to watch third-tier rugby in Toronto. Bills Stadium can hold more than 70,000. But those ragged few created so much noise that Baltimore false-started, twice, back to back. It was glorious. In terms of fan impact, Charge of the Light Brigade stuff.’

‘Even a few weeks ago, asking someone to marry you at a Bills game would be the sports metaphoric equivalent of suggesting, say, the morgue. Or a slaughterhouse. But things are better these days. Now it’s just reasonable legal grounds for your future divorce.’