Lori

I went the morning after the Bills-Dolphins game up there, on my way out of town. Parked in a surface lot down on Lakeshore (as I recall), just a couple minutes' walk from the Hall's Yonge/Front location. There's also a great pub called the Irish Embassy a block further up Yonge if you're interested. (Aside: I had never driven in Toronto before, so I was a little apprehensive, but it wasn't all that bad downtown. Then again, I came in on Saturday and left early Monday afternoon, so I probably didn't see it in all its rush-hour glory.) Getting inside the HOF is sort of odd -- the original front entrance on the corner is sealed off, and you actually have to go into the Galleria next door, down the escalator, then back to the right to find it. Knew Tim had been there a couple of times, so I compared notes with him afterward. We agreed on the 'sacred space' feeling in the Great Hall -- he also thought the book with all the HOFers' signatures, John Hancock-style, was cool -- and that using the old bank vault for the original Cup was a stroke of genius. I was in luck when I went, because the main exhibit was dedicated to a Canadiens 100th-anniversary tribute. Amazing to see the memorabilia from the players I'd read about all these years -- Morenz, Vezina, Rocket and the rest, including my two favorites, Lafleur and Roy. (The flat blade on Richard's stick looks like it's about half the size of the ones they use now. How the heck did he ever score 50-in-50 with that thing?) Obviously, I also spent some quality time in the mockup of the Forum dressing room, seeing what it must be like for the current Habs to walk into work every day with all those legends staring down at them. Pressure? Heh. Planned on spending no more than two hours there, then driving all the way back to Pa. Quickly realized that was a mistake; think I stayed more like 3.5 or 4, and it was nearing sunset when I pulled into Amherst to camp out at my mom's place for the night. All in all, a good day.

I'd change it for you, but you probably wouldn't like my revision, either.

As I said (typed?) earlier -- playoff hockey in Montreal, and the AP wants you there. That's pretty cool, man.

http://safeweb.norton.com/report/show?url=...llsdrive.com%2F

The choices were all submitted as part of a contest, with the winner getting free season tickets. http://www.fcbuffalo.org/uncategorized/win...sports-history/

You're legal, Sage? Not end well, this night will. But if done right, memories to last a lifetime.

Spun, you will be awestruck when you climb the steps into the trophy room at the HHOF. Trust me on this. From the hushed, respectful tone of people's voices to the stained-glass dome, it truly feels like a sacred space. For those who worship the game, it is.

Ugh. All hands on deck when the prez visits, I assume?

The original one is at Sheridan and Millersport. The one he went to is in Depew, and there's another down on Orchard Park Road. And he apparently went there instead of the Anchor because he was more interested in good wings than "well-known" ones.

FC Buffalo goes national For those who might not know what Nick Mendola (aka Nick_BCFC) has been doing lately other than the WGR-WECK jump, he's also part-owner of a minor-league soccer club which starts its inaugural season in a couple of weeks. They're running a naming contest, and when people noticed that "Wolf Blitzers" was one of the choices ... well, things got weird. Fark jumped on it, the link showed up on SI.com, and today, Nick ended up explaining the deal on CNN. All in all, pretty cool.

Sal and Leo already know better than to subject themselves to the crap-flinging they'd endure here, and I wouldn't invite Matthews. Anything else?

The News was all over this visit, to the point where some of us caught one of the local TV stations reading aloud from their blog. (No attribution, of course.) http://blogs.buffalonews.com/live/2010/05/...amas-visit.html

That's where I'm at. Do what you want with the re-vote, but count me out. I'm getting close to concluding that Mortensen and Silverstein were the only two who got it right.

Now if you want to get into reasons for disliking the D+C, what they did to Pitoniak (and a bunch of other people) is at the very top of the list. Unlike this.

Bouchette did explain himself, just not to some "Houston Texans Examiner." http://plus.sites.post-gazette.com/index.p...stop-at-cushing I strongly disagree with his action, but he's entitled to his opinion. P.S.: Hat tip to Tim Graham for posting this link on his Facebook account.

Did you do a survey? 95 percent of TBD might be familiar with the story, but I guarantee that if you walk through the parking lot at a game this fall asking that question, you wouldn't get nearly the same level of agreement. The D+C lists a daily circulation of 125k, which is roughly 12.5 times the size of the entire Stadium Wall membership, and probably more like 150 times the amount of daily visitors to this board. Brees was in Rochester. It was worth revisiting for a Rochester audience. If I'm Steve Bradley (their SE), I'm absolutely assigning the same story.

Precisely. They merely provided some background for Brees' appearance at last night's Press-Radio Club dinner to their readers.

Okay, thanks for that correction. I know Amy Moritz has one of the votes in the women's poll. Wonder if the other one for the men resides in Buffalo or Syracuse (or perhaps someplace like Albany or Bingo, depending on the definition of "upstate").

I realize JW has already answered this, but here's how I had it explained to me by a guy from a bigger paper: "When AP began handing out awards (more than a half-century ago, in some cases), there really weren't that many AP employees. The AP was ... and is ... all of us." To prove his point, I believe every AP-affiliated paper which regularly covers a Division 1 basketball program -- yeah, even the little ol' Olean Times Herald, down here on the Bonnies beat -- gets a vote in the weekly Top 25 poll.

He also remained eligible for the All-Pro team. He merely didn't get enough votes this time to remain in the top four.

Some people may want to reacquaint themselves with this: http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/index.php?act=boardrules Specifically, this part: Regards, the management

"Guilty" of what? Of having an opinion you disagree with?

I wasn't going to dive back into the cesspool for a while yet, but ... The 18 voters who chose Cushing in the revote are certainly open to criticism regardless of their motives. And yes, The AP itself can be questioned for the act of leaving his name on the ballot, even though I'll reiterate that precisely ZERO of their employees have a vote. That said, ripping Mr. Wawrow -- who, again, has no more of a say in this matter than you or I do -- for their decision is just as idiotic as slamming Tim Graham for the content of ESPN.com's front page was.

Jackass, huh? Nice. You're entitled to your opinion of his work, but Howard Simon is one of the nicest and most generous people I've ever met.