Taro T

Actually, that is the funny thing about this one. The "family atmosphere" part of it. I have never had a problem taking my children to a hockey game in Buffalo. I would never take my kids to a game at the Ralph, well not for a few more years anyhow. IF the Sabres get past the Canes, I will have my kids there for Game 1. As X asked, I am curious as to how the Sabres fans in attendance behaved last night. I haven't heard any complaints about them yet. My guess is, the combination of this being a weeknight game (less chance of a 4,000 strong several hour long tailgate party) and the Canes winning would reduce the likelihood that anyone caused problems. My guess is, again not having been there, that ALL the Sabres fans at Game 1 were loud many had been tailgating and that ticked some Carolina fans off. The fact that there were a few handful that approached the game as a Bills game rather than a Sabres game probably made it seem like there were more bad apples than there were. I've also seen it mentioned that several Canes fans entered the game after tailgating for a while before the game as well and that several came in with chips on their shoulders due to the "poor way they were treated by management". Add that to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. As I mentioned elsewhere, I have never seen the fans of the WINNING team start fights. I've seen some go over board on taunting, to incite fights, but 80%+ of the fights at stadiums / rinks that I have seen have been the result of fans cheering on the losing team getting frustrated that the #@$!#$@! over there won't shut up when his #@$@ team is getting lucky against our incredible team. Nearly all the rest occurred because that #@$@!$@! over there cheering on those lucky jerks spilled beer on me / my wife / sister / whatever and he'll pay @#$@!% for that.

Sorry you had a bad experience. One question, why didn't you get an usher to help you get the guy who was swearing in front of your kid to leave or at least stop swearing? Should you ever be in that situation again, you might want to consider it. Also, I have been to many Sabres - Loafs games, and while most of the fans are as other Carolinians describe them, there are a few bad apples in that bunch as well. I don't tar the entire Loaf fan base on my experience with a few of them. I'm sorry that your experience was such that you now view the Sabres fans as lower than Filly fans. As for the fights, I wasn't there so I can't comment much, but I am assuming the fights weren't between Sabres fans. Could there be any possibility that the fights were started by Carolina fans that were frustrated at seeing their team lose in a building that was cheering as loudly for the Sabres as it was for the Canes? I have never seen a fight get started by a fan cheering for the winning team. If Sabres fans were "taunting" the Canes fans, then it's their bad and I would not be shocked to hear there was some of that, but from what I have heard / read there was a fair amount of violence started by frustrated Caniacs. As for people throwing stuff at cars, that's stupid and it sounds like security took care of it. Lastly, it appears that fans of both teams and regions want to "talk smack". We've gotten quite a few of the blizzard, failing economy, Irish, Polish, Italian, etc., etc. jokes through the years and again in this playoff year. Most of us have developed a thick skin to deal with it. From everything I can tell, your region is doing pretty well. I would suggest you learn to laugh at jokes that you believe are ignorant (bunch of red neck, NASCAR loving, Mayberry residents, etc., etc.) or better yet, just laugh at the people telling the jokes. That's what most of us do.

Yeah, racism is why he isn't in the league. It has NOTHING TO DO WITH TURNING DOWN 2 OFFERS TO HEAD COACH!!! He claims to have been shut out for 3 seasons, but during that time he had turned down an offer from the Sabres to be HC and one from the Bolts. (IIRC, he also received an offer from the Isles to be an assistant.) The reason he is out of the NHL is because he is a pompous dolt that didn't accept opportunities presented to him. It has nothing to do with racism, although I do realize that he has experienced racism.

Typically JD is good (not RJ great, but good), but I think he may have been on medication for the flu or something because he was having a hard time keeping straight which team he was referring to last night. Doc corrected him once and then let the rest of them slide.

Fixed it right after I posted.

How many 1-1 series did you find in the NFL? Those must have been brutal playoffs that year!

A big part of why teams can only score on him from outside on deflected shots is that once a team sets up into the Sabres zone, that is all that the Sabres give the other team. The Sabres collapse back on the net far more than any other team that I have seen. The positives of that are the Sabres rarely let someone get a clean shot from in front of the net and oftentimes a blocked shot will bounce over to a spot where the Sabres can develop an odd man rush. The negative is that the puck stays inside the Sabres zone longer than we'd like to see as there is typically only 1 Sabres forward high challenging the D man with the puck. As the puck switches from D man to D man, the Sabres drop the now far side winger back low looking to block passing lanes and looking to pick up a deflected shot. When the other team is trying to cycle the puck low, the Sabres have an extra body in front of the net to prevent someone from walking in. They also typically have sticks and bodies in the way to prevent the pass over to the far side for the high percentage shot that the Sabres are so fond of trying to work. The Sabres typically give up, what, about 3 shots down low per game? The Sabres gave up far too many breakaways and odd man rushes last night, but I doubt that we will see many of those chances given up in the Mmarena tomorrow night or Friday. Also, there may be someone in the league that is better at stopping breakaways than Ryan, but if he is, it is just barely. Ryan's lateral movement and ability to block the entire bottom 1' of the net make him typically unbeatable on breakaways. The Sabres have played this style all season long and it has netted them 61 W's. As for the Sabres not throwing the puck at the net, that is also by design. Most teams still play with both the wingers fairly high to cover the point men. When the Sabres are skating hard and passing crisply, they can oftentimes get a passing lane open up to a high percentage shot. Unfortunately, when they are doing neither they will turn the puck over far too often, like last night.

He did not take the high road. He took the road of not getting fined. He followed it up with crying about Sabres dives. The SOB has the hockey world's all time greatest diver in Recchi and Stillman almost did a Triple Lindy when Jochen touched him. IF he is reduced to needing to try to play the diving card, the Sabres will win this series running away.

Yep.

Well, you can't really expect them to sell out the rink on a weeknight when most of the people who WANT to go to the game have to be back to work in Buffalo in the morning.

Call him by his proper name, Zdeno Chara. No wonder cavemen hate "normal" people, they get no respect. As for the idiot writer, if that ends up being the worst shot Buffalo, the Sabres, and the fans take, I can live with it. Everytime the Sabres or Bills are in the playoffs, some writer (or more accurately writers) feel the uncontrollable urge to take a dump on the city and the region.

They didn't change the definition, but they provided the linesmen the discretion to wave off icing if they felt the icing was due to a missed pass. The other rule change I haven't seen mentioned yet, is they went back to the "tag up" offsides. The main thing I see that doing is limiting the number of stoppages so the increased # of penalties called this season didn't translate into significantly longer running times for games.

Heh, heh, heh, silly little hamster.

Now, now, considering you have no possibility of passing on your silica gel improved genes on to a future generation, you should be looking for ways to improve your own standing within posterity. Poor typing will not look good to future generations. Simply becoming rude when someone suggests a way to improve your place in history will not improve your standing in the history books either.

Mr. Hamster, what the heck is wrong with you that you can't control your tail AFTER you have typed a word. You know, a lesser gerbil I could understand having his tail mess up words he has been spelling (flinging it here there and everywhere), but now that you have been injesting silica gel packs I would expect much better bodily control. I could see messing up occasionally on writing a period or semicolon, but why is it so hard to hit the spacebar without hitting extra characters? A gerbil would probably try to use his long tail to press the period button, and I could expect him to have this problem occassionally, but clearly would not have this extensive of a problem. It appears more of a case of you trying to use all 4 paws and getting your tail in the way when you use the back ones trying to hit the space bar. Ergo, you ARE A HAMSTER!!!!!

Ya know, if you'd take a laser beam to that tail of yours, you'd be a much better speller and correspondingly, people would take you much more seriously. Seeing as you've already had it once to the vital parts, it wouldn't seem that a second shot would be that bad.

I thought the goal of the chant was to give a boost to the Sabres. If the point is to piss off the locals, why not just wear caps that say "Junior drives a Subaru".

Being cleared to skate and being cleared for contact are 2 totally different beasts. I'll be shocked if we see Mr. Cole lace 'em up this postseason.

The DJ on WKRP? What in the world was he doing with him? The man was a school teacher for crying out loud!

A song parodied by Weird Al to be "Hey, Ricky" comes to mind.

STH's only get the discount on their seats. Any additional seats (limited to the # of ST's they have) bought are at window price minus $2. People who bought ST's after the 2nd round can buy playoff tickets but only as many as they have ST's and at window price (not sure if they get the $2 discount or not). My guess is that there will still be somewhere between 1,000-3,000 seats available IF the Sabres reach the Finals. Current STH's already have their tix for those games and I doubt that you will see several thousand people put deposits on next season's tix.

CTM, Where the heck do you keep finding these guys?

Carolina's pp has been ranked higher in the post season than Buffalo's, but if you take all 90 or so games played to date; Buffalo's is still ranked higher. I would actually say they are a wash or give Carolina a very slight advantage (because Timmy appears to be out). I do not give Carolina better health. Their 2nd best player (Cole) is out, has been out, and will stay out. Stillman gave Canes fans a scare, if he can't go; I'd give Buffalo the edge. With Stillman in, I'd call injuries a wash. Home ice? In this series it hasn't meant much. Buffalo is 1-0-1 in Carolina and Carolina is 2-0-0 in Buffalo. Carolina is the best home team in the East, but Buffalo is the best road team in the East.

Which makes sense. Did you expect them to bump a channel that they are currently using to show the game? (Maybe they would, but I would definitely doubt it.) As for nothing being there now, well if it is only supposed to be used to show a handful of the Sabres games, then why would it have anything on it now when the SABRES AREN'T PLAYING. Were you expecting to find out early how the Sabres were going to do on Monday?