Taro T

Didn't mean to sound QUITE as harsh as it came off. Sorry. But what I was getting at, for that game in Buffalo last year, the Sharks had an incredible jump because they were playing with their superstar for the very 1st time. I can't think of a single time off the top of my head that a team didn't come out screaming the 1st day they had a top tier player in the lineup. The Sabres looked like they'd win the Stanley Cup the day that Lafontaine 1st wore B&G. Thornton had EVERYTHING to do with that game. When he rang the puck off the goalpost ~10 seconds into the start of the game, there was no looking back. Yes, Buffalo was a little flat in that game, and it probably was due in part to the game in Montreal the previous night. But the way SJ had been playing heading into that game, a flat Sabres team would have beat a Thornton-less (Joe, not Scott) Sharks team and a Sabres team that had its usual jump would have won big. SJ had not won in 10 consecutive games heading into Buffalo. They had gotten thumped by Detroit 2 nights earlier 4-1. The team appeared to be, at least from this outsider's perspective, a mess. Which was very surprising, because before the season started, I would have thought they would probably be the team from the west to make it to the Finals. If they hadn't picked up Joe, the team would have had a Chicago or St. Louis type of season. Buffalo had won 8 of their previous 9 games and the only loss they had in that span was a shootout loss to the Strangers when Noronen hurt his leg and Marty had to come in cold to finish the shootout. As I said previously, without Thornton that game is 100% different. I also don't deny that Thornton is fantastic in the regular season. But, until he actually shows 1 time that he will show up in the post season, I will consider him another Yashin type player. One that will not bring it when it matters most. Grier and Bell are good acquisistions for you, but the loss of Scott Thornton will ofset their gains to a degree. If Grier can make Thornton show up in the playoffs, he'll have been a great pickup. I seriously doubt though that anyone can do that.

The guy who put this together is obviously an idiot. Anyone who thinks fans in Houston are better than those in Buffalo has his head up his bippy. I lived in Houston when the Oilers were in the midst of a 7 year playoff run. The SOB's couldn't sell out ANY games in a 65,000 seat stadium in the 4th largest city in the country with a playoff caliber team without the local grocery store (Randall's) buying between 4-8,000 tickets.

Doctor Formerly College Guy, Congratulations. It is an achievement that few attain. Over the years, you will find it was definitely worth it. I hope your future endeavors are as successful as this one was.

I got mine today as well. I was actually very impressed by the Sabres Bucks not having the abominable snot smear on them. The letter that was sent out was finishing up the Shatanic Goathead stationary, which I also appreciated. The ticket books, yeah they have the abominable snot smear across the front of it. But it is so small and so high on the ticket, that you can rifle through your tickets without seeing the abominable snot smear.

Yeah, they were REAL friggin' road weary. You might have noticed that that was the 1st game a Mr Joe Thornton played for your team. You might not have, I don't know how closely you follow your team, but if you thought they were road weary, you obviously don't follow them very closely. Heck, that team that day could have beaten the '77 Canadiens, the '83 Isles, or any of the Oiler Cup winners. You may also have noticed that same Mr. Thornton who played so well for you in the regular season all but disappeared in the playoffs, just like he did the last time the NHL played for real. And, not to bust your bubble, but just like he most likely will do this season.

Jay and Rockpile, Thanks for setting this up. It was good to be able to place some faces with names.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. My Name is Earl.

He definitely had a good day on ST's. But I would have had him as runner up. Moorman had the fish starting at the 10 or worse 4 times and inside the 20 another time. That is a seriously good day.

(Apologies to all who are sick and tired of Sabres logo posts (especially on a BILLS board), but here goes.) If that's the case, I hate the logo even more. If you look at the logo from different angles and stare at it for a really long time (which is something I don't recommend prior to consulting your opthamologist), you can see a couple of things that Picasso might have used to represent a saber and a few things he might have used to represent a B. (So I now know how we ended up having this abomination forced down our throats, the designers were on an acid trip.) If the spin doctors are that desperate to try to get people to look at the abominable snot smear in a favorable light, then they truly are starting to realize just how horrible it is. I heard about 5 minutes of D'ohopp's spin in the car today. He was claiming that the only negativity towards the abominable snot smear were imaginary protests on the internet and not in the real world. He was using the selling out of 100 sweaters at the Sabre Store as proof that the masses love the sweaters. After a lady called him on it, he explained that he was being such a jackhole about the subject because the "haters" are being so "aggressive". Huh?

Obviously stopping the pass. On a running play, after he whiffs on the tackle there will typically be someone else there to help out (about 20 yards downfield). When he whiffs on a pass, it's a Touchdown for the bad guys. After Bowen comes back, I don't mind Coy staying on the team because he IS a good STer. Even before Bowen comes back, I am not happy with Coy playing safety. Heck, even Meathead was smart enough to exploit his being on the field on a play or two.

Yeah, but Sully wasn't over the top praising JP. It actually read as a well thought out article, which is not now, nor has it ever been, a hallmark of a Sully newspaper article or radio broadcast. I will give the jackhole credit. (I doubt I will have to do it again for another 10 years, but he did surprisingly write an article that didn't read like it was written by a petulant 6 year old.) And to be fair, he didn't start to read like a petulant 6 year old when TD took over. He's been that way since at least the late '80's.

For Wings, I would go with the Bar Bill, Buffalo Brew Pub, Elmo's or Duff's. (I haven't been to the other bars mentioned, so have absolutely no comments on them.) Elmo's and Duff's are kind of out of the way from where you're staying and opposite direction from the Stadium, but the Brew Pub isn't too far from your hotel. The Bar Bill isn't too close to your hotel, but it isn't too far (~10 minutes) from the Stadium. It's been a while since I was able to get to the Brew Pub, but it had TV's near the bar (might have more now, I just don't know), let you throw your peanut shells on the floor, and had an excellent selection of beers, including several of their own brews. It was one of the 1st 10 microbrewery pubs to open up in the US back in the '80's. (I can't remember if it's the 4th or the 8th.)

We will never know whether he is right or not about that. (My gut feel is that he is wrong, but that is just as speculative as claiming that he IS right.) But either way, since the Bills were certain that they wanted Whitner and were reasonably sure that other teams had at least an interest in him, I don't see a reason for them to trade all the way down to 15 to get one extra pick. If they could have dropped to 9th or 10th, it may be a different story, but a lot can happen (trades, somebody having their 1st choice grabbed so they settle for 2nd / 3rd choice, etc.) in those 6 picks between when the Bills did draft vs #15.

For Beef on Weck, it has to be Schwabl's in West Seneca. It's a VERY small place, no TV's, and there may be a wait; but it is definitely worth it. It's on Center Rd about 100 yards East of Union. So it's very easy to get to from either the hotel you are staying at or the stadium. Schwabl's Restaurant 789 Center Rd West Seneca, NY 14224 (716) 674-9821

You've gotta love the tagline to the TSN article about the game. The full article is here. I'm not happy about Danny suffering a "mild" hip flexor injury. I'm hoping he doesn't start becoming injury prone. He was rarely, if ever, injured prior to the lockout.

I have a meeting at 10:00 in Penfield that day. If it's done by 11:30-11:45, I'm in.

Actually, you could open nearly any high school history textbook and realize that the Arab & Muslim world was far ahead of the Europeans at that time. Were it not for them, Europe would have lost most if not all of the history of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. And your post should actually be a reminder and/or wake up call that Western civilization, while dominant today, won't necessarily be dominant in a few hundred years. I'd actually expect either China or India to become dominant if I had to have money down, but if we don't win the war vs. reactionary "Islamo-fascists" (a stupid term that does have a nice ring to it) then we actually could end up back in the 12th century.

You trying to get people to forget you cheer for the fishies? But I do like your decision to not capitalize loafs!

Just remember, although my team has the league's ugliest unis, yours still only has 1 good d-man and RE(t)sche is listed as the #1.

Well, he can still suggest it. It doesn't mean they'd necessarily follow his suggestion.

Well, TD did bring in some good players. He also made some very bad personnel moves. But is there any reason to believe that Meathead or whatever former coordinator with no head coaching experience that TD would bring in to replace him would be able to get more out of the players than Jauron is getting? Marv does deserve credit for hiring an experienced coach. TD never did that, ever. Heck, IIRC even Cowher had no head coaching experience prior to getting the Steelers job.

Yep. I wouldn't put him in Tasker territory yet, but he is a very good returner. I found it very interesting that Sylvester couldn't lather enough about how bad Lindell's kick that was fair caught on the 31 was, but then raved about how great the next kickoff that went to the endzone and resulted in the fish starting out around the 37. Isn't the measure of how good a kick was the place where the other team starts with the ball? I liked the 1st kick because it kept the ball away from Welker. I know the fish scored 17 against Pittsburgh, but weren't most of those points set up by Welker returns and catches? He was the one guy I was actually worried about on their team.

I would be very interested in hearing the original question that Vermeil came back with "9 players, the QB ... and 1 reserve." I can't stand those commercials.

I agree that Reebok (or some other group not directly affiliated with the Sabres) is most likely the driving force behind Hurricane Snot Smear. Just like a tropical storm this thing was big, overblown, and all wet and there was nothing the little guy sitting in his shack could do to stop it from hitting. But, the Sabres can't be absolved of all responsibility. In the end, THEY own the copyright on the snot smear. Since they are the owner, they hold the final responsibility to say "NO, this logo is a piece of %!%!%!$^@#". I thought it was very telling that the Sabres creative director said it was EASIER to start from scratch rather than pay homage to the original logo. Since Reebok was in the design meetings and outsiders (read: fans) weren't involved, and Reebok definitely appears to love this snot smear, the meetings would run a LOT smoother (read: easier) if the Sabres just said "OK, you win, you've shown us 80 designs, none of which are any good, we've said "NO" 79 times. We're tired and frustrated with fighting you; we realize for whatever reason we have to work with this design team and you will never come up with anything better, so we'll take the snot smear." (My gut feel is that the NHL was a driving force behind Reebok being chosen to design the unis, so I don't know that the Sabres had as much say in whether to dump the design team as they should have had. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt until I hear otherwise.) It is still very possible that Larry was the driving force behind this, but until I have some proof of it, I will blame Reebok 1st, the Sabres marketing group / design team 2nd, the NHL 3rd, and Sabres management (not involved on the design team, if any) last.