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Robin Lehner on playing in Buffalo & Buffalo Fans


Reed83HOF

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Posted in here instead of OTW, since well Sabres Fans = Bills fans (mostly)

 

https://www.newsday.com/sports/hockey/islanders/robin-lehner-isles-buffalo-toronto-1.29125786

 

“It’s a different feeling this year in general,” Lehner added. “We’re having fun. It’s a positive atmosphere. It’s not surrounded by negativity. That was one of the hard things when I was in Buffalo, just this cloud and atmosphere of negativity.”

 

And he had no qualms about coming into the New York media market, which not every athlete can handle.

 

“No, Buffalo prepared me,” Lehner said. “It couldn’t be any worse. Buffalo would prepare me to go to Toronto. It was so bad there sometimes. You would walk out to games and the game hadn’t started and people are already booing. It’s an incredibly passionate fan base and they’re filling that building but it can be miserable in that rink.

 

“Everyone talks the Toronto media and Toronto is the toughest city in the league to play in, don’t get me wrong,” added Lehner, clarifying he wants to see his former teammates do well. “But Buffalo is not easy to play in. The media is incredibly hard. I’ve been in that negative spiral. I’ve been caught in it for a couple of years. It’s really tough and you start to lose perspective. I’ve moved on. I don’t care what anyone in Buffalo says anymore.”

Edited by Reed83HOF
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Guest K-GunJimKelly12

He's right, but the negativity is a natural reaction to decades of poor management and bottom feeding teams.  I actually feel like we kept it together better than most fan based would have for what we have endured as sports fans.  

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Poor Robin. He probably doesn’t realize that most of those boos were from opposing team fans who pack the building on a lot of game nights. Also may have helped if he could have stop a shootout attempt from time to time when he was here.

 

As to the rest of it, he sounds like an ungrateful prick after all the support the Sabres organization gave to him while he was struggling with alcohol, etc. 

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8 minutes ago, Reed83HOF said:

Posted in here instead of OTW, since well Sabres Fans = Bills fans (mostly)

“Everyone talks the Toronto media and Toronto is the toughest city in the league to play in, don’t get me wrong,” added Lehner, clarifying he wants to see his former teammates do well. “But Buffalo is not easy to play in. The media is incredibly hard. I’ve been in that negative spiral. I’ve been caught in it for a couple of years. It’s really tough and you start to lose perspective. I’ve moved on. I don’t care what anyone in Buffalo says anymore.”

 

Two of the douches leave Buffalo News and media negative spiral reduces. Coincidence?  Yes I know their fanboys kneeling at their feet still exist but just like for UpChuck DICKerson they tend to go elsewhere when there is not a leader to rally around.

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10 minutes ago, Reed83HOF said:

 “But Buffalo is not easy to play in. The media is incredibly hard. I’ve been in that negative spiral. I’ve been caught in it for a couple of years. It’s really tough and you start to lose perspective. I’ve moved on. I don’t care what anyone in Buffalo says anymore.”

Apparently not...

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2 minutes ago, Ol Dirty B said:

I mean he does have a point. The media in Buffalo is probably more critical than NYC or most hockey markets because people actually care here.

 

Does NYC have drive time sports shows that even talk about hockey? 

I'm a NYR - they are very well liked and fans are very critical, but remember it is a James Dolan owned team so expectations are well "Knicks-like"

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Listen up Terry and Kim.  "Hockey heaven" huh?   The fans are pissed because they show up year after year, pay good money and lose..., the media is negative b/c they always lose..people in the organization are grumpy because they always lose.  The arena needs some fixing up.. etc..  

I love the Pegula's for what they've done for the city but Jeez, maybe it's time for them to divest the Sabres.  They could not run a worse hockey organization for 8 years running IF THEY TRIED!  

Those other owners,,, Regier, Golisano...they weren't even trying hard to have a good club and they were in the playoffs often enough.  Pegula's?  They can't get out of last place. ugh.

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As a decades long Buffalo sports fan, I have to agree with his assessment of some of the fan base and some of the media.  Although we have some the best fans in the world, there is no shortage of miserable fans and current and former TBN writers (for example). 

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Just now, Peter said:

As a decades long Buffalo sports fan, I have to agree with his assessment of some of the fan base and some of the media.  Although we have some the best fans in the world, there is no shortage of miserable fans and current and former TBN writers (for example). 

 

Yeah - just hop on twitter if u want to see it.  A large portion of our fanbase is incredibly negative, and just generally quick triggered.  It's like that in every market, but it just seems like its more prevalent in ours.

 

I get it, you aren't happy with the product and you want to voice your opinion.  But mentioning someone in a tweet and directly telling them that they suck is pretty rough.  

 

Do I think they should fire housley?  Yeah - i thought he sucked last year and he sucked again this year.  He's not a good coach.  However he also doesn't have a talented team to work with.  Team also plays with no fire and just generally soft every game - i put that on the coach. 

 

Do I think they should fire Botterill?  Probably not.  The o'reilly trade was awful, but the guy basically antonio brown'd it out of here.  He also was left with a mess of a roster - poor drafts and band-aids all over the place.  People ask why certain players played in the minors while the nhl team could use their help - and IMO it comes down to development.  Botterill has a plan to develop players a certain way - and I don't think it'd be fair/smart to pull the plug 2 years into a full rebuild.  

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19 minutes ago, Ol Dirty B said:

I mean he does have a point. The media in Buffalo is probably more critical than NYC or most hockey markets because people actually care here.

 

Does NYC have drive time sports shows that even talk about hockey? 

i have many friends in NYC who are as passionate about sports as any of us are.

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