Bmwolf21

Good points. I for one am very tired of hearing that "Briere and Drury didn't get us past the ECF, so we need to move on" crap that has popped up a few times on SS. Four teams make the Conference Finals each year and the Sabres, with Dru and DB as the focal points, made the Final Four two years in a row. The fault for not advancing to the SC Finals should lie with not getting the right periphery/role players around them - improving the defense, a little more toughness among the forwards, etc. Very true. There's obviously more to the issue than just Drury and Briere, but I think it's safe to say that losing them both hurt the Sabres much more than each individual player has helped his new team.

And yet - without them the Sabres are on the outside looking in, while the Rangers are in and the Flyers, who were eliminated from playoff contention somewhere around Christmas last season, right now look like they will get in.

Ah, this sucks but isn't unexpected. My gut feeling is that CBS went into this abbreviated season with a mindset that nothing short of Idol-level ratings was going to save Jericho this year. But network TV is all about giving the people what they want (), so as long as idiots keeping tuning into Idol, Dancing with the Stars, the Dance Wars: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann and Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader in mass numbers, that's all the networks will give us.

I'm trying to work on the whole "making rational statements" thing. Maybe I'll go over to the main board and get all fired up about why the Bills didn't sign Bryant Johnson and start railing against the front office. That should strip any semblance of rationality from my posts.

I've had the misfortune of reading Hill the last few years, when she was a regular columist for the Orlando Sentinel. Not a big fan of her work, because IMO (and obviously others) she works the race angle way too hard. This column is just more of the same, IMO. But I have to disagree about Whitlock. He's one of the guys who doesn't pull the race card just to pull it, and writes articles and columns of substance. Until he left ESPN he was one of the few Page 2 columnists I read regularly, and I still check in on his Fox Sports stuff from time to time. FWIW - Whitlock is now at Fox Sports, and hasn't been with ESPN since fall 2006. He was fired in September '06 for making some unkind comments about Scoop Jackson and Mike Lupica, and after leaving ESPN he hooked up with AOL Sports before leaving for Fox Sports.

Thanks. He's fantastic - pretty smart, good with the kids, and a pretty good watchdog.

Here's a pic of Buster.

Yep. Alarming numbers from the CDC:

John, Ours got it just a week or two after his final parvo vaccination (the three-part vaccine) and the vet said it's not uncommon for vaccines to take a little while longer to "take hold" in some dogs, something to do with antibodies passed on from the mother's milk or something like that. I can't imagine trying to take care of him at home - he was constantly vomiting and had what could only be described as "explosive" diarrhea. He was in the vet's office for four days, hooked up to IV's and had constant antibiotics running through him. It's not a cheap treatment either - most vets charge in the neighborhood of $1,000 to $1,500, depending on the length of hospitalization. Our vet was really good and worked with us and it cost us about $600 to get him stabilized. Not a fun week by any means, and we were lucky we caught it early and got his treatment started ASAP. He's doing good now, weighs about 55 pounds and shows no ill effects from the sickness.

Thanks for the link. I was looking for one myself, but a lot of the stories I had read earlier have already been updated to reflect the new agreement, so a lot of the stuff I had read before was edited out. This is the most relevant part, IMO:

Pre-crash I was able to change mine at 500, so I have a ways to go to get back there...

We have Buster, a 4-year-old boxer mix we adopted from a no-kill animal shelter when he was about 12 weeks old. He's a tough guy - survived a bout with parvovirus when he was about four months, which has about a 50% mortality rate.

Exactly. Greed? Come on. If you negotiate a payment for something and the other party tries to wiggle out of it or renege, then you are well within your rights to tell them the entire deal is off. So MLB gets a pass for promising to pay these guys then waiting until the eve of the trip to try to renege? We're talking about businessmen who oversee a multi-billion dollar industry, and they're quibbling over what is most likely $500-750,000? If they want to grow the game internationally, there are costs involved. If MLB agreed to pay the coaches and staff (not just coaches, mind you, but trainers and equipment guys as well) a $40,000 bonus to open the season in Japan, then MLB should pay the money and shut up about it.

Those stories are a little vague on the details, but the one on MLB.com is a little clearer: When the Red Sox agreed to go to Japan in November, manager Terry Francona and the players were under the impression that all uniformed personnel would get a stipend of approximately $40,000 for the trip. -snip- To Francona, the matter was a lot more about the coaches than himself. "For a coach, this is, in some cases, two-fifths of their salary for the year," Francona said. "This is a big deal. I don't agree that coaches are second-class citizens. That has never sat well with me, ever." Francona was the bench coach for the A's in 2003 when they were scheduled to go to Japan, only to have that journey canceled because of the war in Iraq. In that instance, Francona said that the manager and all the coaches were set to get stipends. Managers and coaches aren't members of the Players Association. "The coaches never have leverage," said Schilling. "In all the years I've been in baseball, they're the guys usually taken advantage of in situations like this. In this locker room, they're as much a part of this team as the guys on the field."

Agreed - who do I call to get that five minutes of my life back?

He didn't pull any punches, and hit the nail dead-on, IMO: "We must protect the integrity of the NFL," Commissioner Goodell said. "The highest standards of conduct must be met by everyone in the NFL because it is a privilege to represent the NFL, not a right. These players, and all members of our league, have to make the right choices and decisions in their conduct on a consistent basis." In a letter to each player, Commissioner Goodell wrote: "Your conduct has brought embarrassment and ridicule upon yourself, your club, and the NFL, and has damaged the reputation of players throughout the league. You have put in jeopardy an otherwise promising NFL career, and have risked both your own safety and the safety of others through your off-field actions. In each of these respects, you have engaged in conduct detrimental to the NFL and failed to live up to the standards expected of NFL players. Taken as a whole, this conduct warrants significant sanction." I'm impressed, Roger.

tgreg nailed it - the national ads are indeed big name celebs: MSNBC: LA TIMES:

How much weight would we be looking at him needing to put on? BB.com lists him at 6-0, 220 (I am guessing that is closer to what he was toward the end of last season) while NFL.com has him at 6-0, 205 (last season's Opening Day weight?) What weight does he need to be at that allows him to engage lineman while not losing any speed?

While I am hopeful that those guys will come back and dominate, you're talking about Max, who had two really good regular seasons where he has finally showed what he is capable of on a regular basis, but was pretty much a non-factor in the playoffs last year (3-5-8 in 18GP) and Connolly, who would be coming back off a 10+ month layoff - who knows how effective he'll be, if he makes it back at all. The best they can hope for is getting as many of the current injured guys back before the postseason starts; hope they stay relatively injury-free; and hope that Miller is focused and the refs call the game the way they are supposed to. All that happens, and we'll be in pretty good shape...

I'm frustrated with their apparent lack of focus & effort some nights, but with all the injuries, I am not ready to push the panic button. If they are 3, 4 games from the start of the playoffs and are still struggling with focus, then I'll start to worry.... But a fan for 6 years? So you missed the nine-year, "Can't get out of the 1st round" nightmare, a good chunk of the Rigas Error, err Era, the Aud, the Phantom Goal, (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on No Goal), the Hasek-Nolan-Nuckler-Barnaby soap opera...I don't think you've suffered enough as a Sabre fan to B word yet... A team that is going to get into the playoffs as a 7/8 seed and is HORRIBLE on the road (9-18-8) will need a lot of luck to make it to the Cup, let alone win it. But then again, stranger things have happened - who would have picked Edmonton last year? Wouldn't it be more like 15 against 1, now that we have qualified for the playoffs and we'll likely have a high seed to boot... I will partially agree with you on the teams you mentioned - Atlanta & Pittsburgh could both knock us out. Atlanta scares the living crap out of me, as they have just enough offensive firepower, a solid goalie that seems to never get rattled, veteran leadership and they can skate with the Sabres. Pittsburgh is a different team since they picked up Roberts, and if Fleury gets hot, they'll surprise some teams in the playoffs. Ottawa, OTOH, has no heart, and I can see them golfing early again.

That's a pretty good assessment. As an NFL RB, I see him as a 'tweener - more than a 3rd-down back but not big/strong enough or enough of a North-South runner to be an every down guy. If someone brings him in and has some imagination, using him out of the backfield, splitting him out as a WR, maybe returning punts - using him in a "Slash"-type role - then he could cause some headaches for opposing defenses. But as others have mentioned, I wouldn't draft him to be the main/featured back.

Congrats to Thermal...well deserved!

Actually, if you look at the bottom of the league in total and average attendance, you see such traditional hockey markets as Chicago, New York (Islanders), New Jersey, Boston, St. Louis and Washington. LINK You can change the year at the top of the page, but last year's bottom feeders look pretty similar to this year's. You can look at each market and see reasons why the attendance sucks, such as crappy owners (Chicago) recent or prolonged history of losing (Islanders, Capitals, Blues) crappy arena (Devils, maybe Islanders) and relatively new markets (Phoenix, Nashville.) I don't know what the answer is - I actually think less games and more variety in the schedule would help (this unbalanced schedule sucks, IMO - I can't take watching the Sabres play the Bruins every other game) and I think that getting the league's national TV contract off Vs. and onto ESPN (or pushing for more games on NBC) would also help with the league's visibility.

I think that was the proverbial 600-lb gorilla that just jumped off Peyton's back and ran out of the RCA Dome...

It was a 2-on-1 that turned into a 3-on-1 with the trailer looking at an empty net...Miller slid to his right, then back left, then to the right again to make a mid-air stick save...UN-FRIGGIN-REAL