Taro T

I'm sure that I would listen to GR a lot more often if they'd move HS to afternoons and let him do the show the way it was on NSA and moved BR to mornings. I can't listen to MS more than about 5 minutes. When I can pick it up, I listen to Fan 590 out of TO.

Considering that Ralph has tried many times in the past to ban people bringing in food to the games unsuccessfully, the pat downs are rather half arsed, and it didn't appear that anyone was being patted down at the Club Seats / Luxury Box entrances; it sure does appear that the whole point of this (in Buffalo and league-wide) is to increase concession stand revenues. I'm sure the reasoning for no patdowns at the high fallutin entrance is something along the lines of "a terrorist wouldn't buy an expensive ticket".

No doubt.

You will some of the time. No data on how the NHL choses which feed to provide to CI. Over on the Sabres board they were saying that depending upon which provider you had you got either the TSN feed or the Tampa Bay feed last night (MSG feed only in WNY for that one). As for go/no go. I say GO. At a minimum, you get to watch nearly all the Sabres games for about what it would cost to take a date to one game (much less if airline tickets & hotel room are included). Best case scenario, watching Sabres, Ottawa, and other high flying teams' games, your roommates get hooked and chip in next year.

I've got it up to 0-20 (0-7 Sens, 0-5 Pens, 0-8 Bolts). They scored on their last pp vs Boston. For the record - Home 4-23 (14th) Road 0-16 (Tied for last w/ 4 others).

Don't people normally go up that creek without the paddle?

The thing about Mensa is: if you really are that smart, why do you have to tell people you are? Shouldn't your words and actions let the people around you know whether or not you are intelligent? Oh, silly me. I forgot that saying "I'm in Mensa" provide the words that let people know you're smart and that holding up a piece of paper that says "I'm smart" is the action that lets people around you know you're smart.

I guess I'm missing something here. Why would he automatically be a traitor for signing on with a media organization that has traditionally been unfriendly to US causes? Perhaps he is there to provide a different perspective on things. You know, kind of like the "Counter-point" in "Point/Counter-Point". Until and unless he is giving "aid & comfort to the enemy", I think this is or will be blown way out of proportion. It isn't like he joined the other Al...

LMFAO! Still, not one of the recipes called for the secret ingredient of pickle juice. I think they're holding out! But imagine how good retatta would be wrapped in raw bacon. Ummm, bacon.

You think they make that much? Wow, you must be counting the value of the free buffets at the Bills and Sabres games that those guys obviously partake in waaaaaay too heartily.

Well, yeah, if you're using 4,000 year old noodles; I can see it taking an hour to cook. F'ing hilarious!!!!

So you don't like ties. I have no problem with that. My questions are: why not have them play overtime to decide tie games like most every other sport? Do you think football should be decided by fieldgoal contests or baseball by homerun derbys? If not, why should a hockey game be decided by a single subsidiary individual skill? It is a team sport, shouldn't the game be decided by the teams?

As long as we are on absurd hypotheicals, how about one more? Suppose a liberal, while trying to make a point, stayed on topic and didn't resort to the sophistry of using absurd hypotheticals to make his point? Nah, too absurd and hypothetical. Sorry, my bad.

Agreed.

Why make the hypothetical something absurd? If the coach was Muslim and wanted the primarily MUSLIM team to face Mecca and pray to Allah to give them fortitude and the grace to win with sportsmanship and dignity, I would have no problem with it at all. If the coach is calling the other team infidels and asking Allah to smite them, shouldn't that be a hate crime? Oh, my bad, only white Christians can commit hate crimes. Your hypothetical has little or nothing to do with the present situation. The coach has said grace at the pregame meal and a pregame prayer for 23 years. Over 50 members of the team support him. (How many kids are on a highschool football team anyway?) There are a handful of parents/students that "feel uncomfortable". They get their way because the religion of Atheism is the only one acceptable to secularists. I don't know the prayers the coach was saying, but considering he's done it for nearly a quarter of a century with NO ONE complaining, I have to assume that they were probably rather nondenominational (this is New Jersey, not somewhere in the heart of the Bible belt). How do I know no one ever complained before? Because the pinheads on the school board didn't stop him in the past!

I came home from a meeting last night and the wife had the Flyers-Leafs game on. How cool is that? (Would have been the Sabres if they were playing.) I got her hooked on Sabres. She hasn't been able to get me hooked on college football (maybe if Buffalo had A college team).

What about playoff tickets? Or should that go without saying...

You run Willis on 1st 2 downs, behind Preston then behind Anderson. Try Kelly on keeper on 3rd, he only had to pick up about one foot. If somehow this hasn't worked, send Willis up the middle again on 4th.

I wasn't going to go there!

Yeah, but that's different. Bills and Sabres fans tend to have at least 1 screw missing.

Agreed. Although I think they just got caught up in Crosby fever like the rest of the NHL powers that be. "What, people might NOT want to pay premium prices to the Sabres play the team that was the worst in the NHL last time out, even on a Monday, during Bills season? You've got to be kidding me. Heck it's CROSBY, (Note: a guy who one week ago had as many career points in the NHL as I did). Of course they'll come." "Brilliant!"

Just get CI and start flipping back and forth between a Sabres game and a Rangers game. When she sees how the Rangers games have the same pace as the "old" NHL, she should be willing to see the light.

In the past, I would have agreed with you. I used to put the odds of keeping up the obstruction calls at below 5%. This year, I'd put it more like 55%. There are several major differences to the landscape this year than in years past. #1 - The anticipated increase in goal scoring associated with an obstruction crackdown won't result in a corresponding increase in payroll. There is a salary cap. If the 2nd tier of scorers were 30 goal scorers before and they were worth say $3MM/yr, having the entire lot of them go up to 40 goal scorers won't increase their value. Under the old arbitration system combined with no salary cap, cracking down on obstruction would have sent payrolls through the roof. #2 - Management and players are both on record as stating they want the crackdown. In the past, you'd have sporadic endorsement of it, but not nearly as much as you are seeing this year. The league actually made public a video showing what they are now going to call. If they go back to not calling these plays, they will look even more foolish than they have in years past. #3 - Although TV wanted higher scoring, they did not want longer games. Additional powerplays result in additional play stoppages and longer broadcasts. This year, although you still get the longer stoppages to get a guy to the box due to the penalty call and more of them because of the increased number of calls, you have fewer offsides stoppages due to the tag up offsides, and you have fewer icings as the linesmen now have discretion to wave off icing on plays they believe were passes. Additionally, the icee cannot change players, which reduces the length of time for icing delays. #4 - They just nuked the last season. They are looking for ways to get fans interested again. With all the other changes the league has implemented, they seem to have more of a "think outside the box" mentality. Increasing the speed of the game is one way to do this, and calling obstruction is the best way to increase the speed of the play.

I think you are absolutely right. Ever since I heard about HDTV being in development I've thought it was custom made for hockey. Now hopefully in a year or two I'll be able to afford an HDTV set.

I think that is a major part of it. I also think this is a byproduct of the last few years, where Sabres tickets in October have been a hard sell. In the past, the intensity has not been there on the ice in a lot of rinks in October and people don't want to waste their money on "meaningless" games that the players don't seem to be interested in either. I think the last part of the cause of the small crowd is that people haven't had a chance to see how much the game is improved now that obstruction type penalties are actually being called. Once people start watching the games I expect that the fever will come back. Let's face it. Pens-Buffalo in October of '03 would not have been nearly as fast paced nor as exciting.