May Day 10

I have heard good information from a few places that friction with Kim was the biggest driving force/factor in LaFontaine's resignation. Basically he was president, but she would override his decisions over his head. Lots of little things, but it caused a huge meltdown when there was the Sabres parents' trip. Miller wanted to bring his wife and Lafontaine said no, it was a parents trip to help team building, and Kim Pegula overruled. Thats a big reason the Pegulas have been so publicly obsessed with communication, collaboration and all that in their hires.

My gut says the team is not for sale. I do believe they *at least, have looked into selling off some of the team to an equity firm kind of deal, but remaining the owner and managing partner. All noise from the team, media, etc seems to indicate that Pegula is very happy being the Sabres' owner. At the NHL draft he was front and center and seemed to be very engaged. Pegula has taken a ton of lumps in his 12 years of ownership. They are finally getting a lot of love in the local and national press... they may be finally turning the corner into a good stroke of playoff years. It would be a tough time to bail, and leave your era/legacy the past 12 years of awfulness. The focus will soon start to shift towards what the Pegulas' kids are going to do. I expect Matthew and Jessica and her husband at the very least start to assume prominent roles in the next several years. There is a lack of local buyer(s) to really make it work. I cant see Pegula deliberately selling the team to an outside interest, and without any safeguards of the team staying. That goes against everything we have witnessed, and his actions to date. If there was a local guy, say Bob Rich didnt have alligator arms... and he was willing to pay market price for the team, I do think Pegula would consider selling.

I lived in Connecticut for a few years and nobody liked or cared about hockey. I would ask people about it and this was the basic recurring reason. They never grew up watching or playing the sport and just couldn't get into it as an adult. This was about 10 years post whalers. Most people had fond memories going to some games with their families and such, but not really into it. More like anyone in buffalo would reminisce about going to bisons games. Hartford was never good, so I'm sure that is a factor

You also have to add in an NFL relocation fee as well as $ out of pocket to build a stadium. It adds up. I don't think the NFL will have an appetite to leave a city/state who just gave them nearly $1 Billion... at least within a couple decades. That is bad business. Tim Graham just wrote about this in the Athletic. Basically said nothing indicates the Sabres are being sold (in fact, they just announced Pegula is pouring some money into the arena). He seems to think this is just kind of cleaning up a lot of Kim Pegula's structure/excess she had with PSE and some of the staffing/redundancy.

The Sabres' lease is up in 2025. The 'good' news is the NHL doesn't have many other places to go at this point. They probably really want to hit Houston and maybe Atlanta, but I wonder if that will just be another round of expansion. And I agree. No way the league expands to or agrees to relocate a team to Quebec City. Almost no shot at any additional Canadian teams

Its 27 years old now. There has never been any significant renovation, which technically makes it about the oldest arena in the league. It is ugly/worn on the inside, the seats are decrepit and disgusting. It was also built much cheaper than arenas around the same timeframe, and the cheapness shines through over time. Most/all of its contemporaries 90s arenas have had major renovations in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The seating bowl is a terrible design for site lines, the concourses (especially in the 300 level) are horrible, the bubble roof sucks the life out of the place, and the outside of it looks terrible (and worn/faded). It is going to need a decent sum of money, and the public ask will be coming.

The Sabres are at a sketchy point. Their lease is up in 2025, and that arena is now arguably the most putrid in the NHL. It needs a lot of investment/money. They announced a new scoreboard, sound, and a roof, but that scrapes the surface.

he had a tough upbringing where the dog fighting crap was normalized and even glorified. He did real time in prison (during his playing prime) and his financial life was in ruins. His name and character was/is forever smeared. He went from one of the most electric athletes in sports to incarcerated. Whether or not you believe him. He seems to say and act as though he has learned from his experience. I believe him. This is a long time to keep his nose clean, out of trouble, and he has championed animal/dog laws. Made speaking appearances to teach young people through his lessons.

"Litmus Test"

Yes, that is probably true. Maybe it would be worse with a network of similar organizations, who knows? He did get busted and he lost a lot because of it. I understand if people are still angry with him/have no use for him/etc. I'm a dog guy, so when all this was happening and well into his 'return', I was frothing at the mouth with hate. Somewhere along the line, I forgave and believe that he changed.

I hated Vick more than anyone I think. I saw him get reinstated, make millions again, and looked forced doing appearances and stuff for community service. It disgusted me to see the media and Eagles fans spin this positive narrative. But over the years, I have noticed Vick doing good things, speaking to young people when the cameras are off and he has little to gain. He has stayed completely out of trouble. He paid the price for what he did, and I truly believe he learned his lesson and became a better person because of it.

That sucks. Sorry your guy passed away. I don't watch wrestling much at all these days. I watched for a short stretch when they were rolling out the cult leader thing. That looked like it had potential

I will say, 79 years old is pretty ancient for someone who had lived the life of Terry Funk.

One of the best ever. Never hit the glamour that came with the Attitude Era and what came just before it. Did a lot of hard work in Indies and ECW and such. A cult figure. My favorite Funk moment was the 'chair incident' in ECW and he was hit in the head with a chair from a fan and he sold it.

No idea why that creature thought he could continue to hang out in that region... and especially anywhere near Moscow. You would figure a supervillian like that would have much better instincts of self-preservation.

This hits the nail on the head. I don't think it is unbreakable like Cy Young's wins or Glenn Hall's consecutive games as a goalie or anything like that. But highly unlikely. A pass rusher can put together a few superb seasons, but they are going to get schemed out a bit. Players are held out due to health more, careers are shorter. Coaching is more technical than ever where a dominant pass rusher will be nerfed quite a bit over time. IMO the 'greats' will top out around 150 sacks.

Its tough to say. I don't think it would be eternal/infinite... but maybe could extend our consciousness well into triple digits. The problem is, are we going to damage the earth/each other, will there be a doomsday virus, etc? Maybe? Maybe not? Also, can/would humans handle the idea of doubling/tripling/quadrupling our lifespans? Will it be a perk sold only to the extreme wealthiest families in the world? If it is more widely available, would we have the guardrails to control the population levels?

He got some criticism from other fans because of his over the top goal calls and excitement. Also painting the other team as villainous thugs vs the righteous sabres when it came to fights... But I would always point out. If you listen to an opposing goal in a vacuum, RJ put 10x more into those goals than any other home/regional pbp announcer.

That was the perfect combo. A lot of people kind of hated on Lorentz at the time... he was kind of a dull captain obvious. But once he left, the Sabres couldn't ever replace that chemistry. Even with hall of fame Harry Neale, it was kind of a disaster. They couldn't have 2 goofballs. They needed the straight man to go with RJ. Kind of like the Don cherry/Ron Maclean chemistry. RJ and Lorentz just fit perfectly. Anyways, this is a day I have dreaded to some degree for about 30 years. In high school, I'm pretty sure I listened to more rj calls captured on cassette tape than any music album or track. He is every sabres fans' surrogate grandpa. It's a tough day. I also regret (although it isn't my fault), that other than 2 seasons, the Sabres were so dismal on the back 40% of his career.

I haven't watched ESPN (or any television per se) in several years. I guess part of it was the proliferation of so many sports channels including MLB/NFL/NHL networks. 20-25 years ago, the main NFL pregame theater was ESPN Game Day, then NFL Primetime was a must-watch. NBC took it over with their recap/pregame show (which they do a good job of). ESPN was pretty much the only sports channel for 2 decades other than RSNs that came along in the 90s. Also I am 100% streaming now and have been for a long time. The only sports I really consume are live sports (also watch old stuff on youtube). I would say that ESPN's live sports coverage is still really solid, and I could make a case that they do the best job with MLB, NHL, and NCAA Football. I have no interest in watching the ancillary programming like the 'debate' shows. Not that I hate it, I just dont have time for it. I flip around the radio and come across Cowherd and Rome and dont mind hearing their points of view even if I disagree. I do really like their app and program offerings, as well as their integration with Hulu. There is a ton of stuff on Espn+ and Espn3 such as Indoor Lacrosse that can be accessed with a click of a button. I think their app is great for scores/highlights/standings lookups and I am in the habit of using that. I think they get too much hate for sucking now. Its the natural progression. There is so much competition now. If they ran their programming they had in 1995 and showed the same sportcenter 6 times on loop (that many of us watched), they would be driven right out of business. What they need to do is look to the future and innovate to survive. Make an immersive and better-than netflix-style subscription app that is a must-have for sports fans and completely decouple from needing cable subscriber/carriage fees.

well, they did sign Aaron Judge to a $360,000,000 contract, and they are paying that Human Gourd Gioncarlo Stanton $32 Million/Year (and his contract goes through most of this decade). $80 Million in this year's payroll is sitting on IR. ($21 Million to Josh Donaldson?) Their payroll is still very high. Just not Mets-ludicrous. The money is just allocated poorly and they seem behind the times. Especially, much like the AFC East, the traditional doormats seem to have gotten their houses in order.

I listened in the back end of his radio days. Then I went to Sirius. His channels were a really cool thing for the time. I thought it was a really good show for awhile. Got repetitive in the later Artie days and suffered a bit more after he left and nobody filled that role. Sirius was quickly made obsolete by internet clouds, radio, and podcasts, they made it a huge pain to keep my bargain price and I ditched it 10ish years ago and havent heard Howard since

Classic Games is kind of a hobby of mine. I have all my old systems and games dating back to NES. Also have bought all the "classic" consoles that have been released from Atari to PS1. I created a Retropie/Raspberry Pi console that contains all games from the Ataris to PS1. Even the handheld stuff. My smartphone also has many games and I have a controller-dock and I can play any retro game handheld. It is interesting going back and seeing what games aged well, and seeing how challenging things are. There are games I used to play/succeed at that the older me is completely overcome by. Other games (Blaster Master comes to mind) I couldnt really get through, I am stronger at now. Its interesting seeing certain games that are absolute dog-poo and its amazing those cost $30-$50 back in the day

Yeah, that's what I meant. Essentially the separation between the power conferences and mid majors is going to be much more tangible.

So essentially, we are bounding toward a true minor league NFL tryout league that will decouple from NCAA. I get the evolution, but I hate it. I wish we could have gotten some releases of EA NCAA Football before it got ruined. Essentially, UB/the MAC is IA football now. The question is, would you rather be that? Or be the likes of Rutgers who will be a bunch of human pinatas in the big leagues?