a lot to catch up on

Okay, so I believe I owe you a post…

I think it’s safe to say that this weekend wasn’t everything I had hoped it would be. Don’t get me wrong; finding out Derek answered my question, seeing the Pirates win, following Paul, and having Drew sign my subway ticket were fantastic, but a Sabres win and some nicer weather would have made it alllllll better. I’m not complaining, though. I’d live in Boston if I could.

It’s kinda hard to tell, because he signed in a very fine pen,
but that’s Drew’s signature. ON MY SUBWAY TICKET.
Hey, at least I acknowledged that it was lame,
but he found it funny, so I guess it’s alright.

I’m not going to talk about the game much, because it upsets me. So we’ll talk about things at the game.

(0) This wasn’t really at the game, but on the T up to Boston from Norwell, we met six Sabres/Bills fans. It was awesome. They had some balls, too, because they were mostly dressed in Buffalo sports attire. Boston is not the city where I would do that, nor is Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, or Ottawa. Back to the point. Honestly, I don’t think we went anywhere in the city on Saturday without seeing the Blue and Gold or the Blue and Red.

(1) Kim was afraid to wear her jersey, so she zipped up her North Face to her throat, and tucked the jersey into the bottom of it. I called her a wuss, and she took it off. So we got dirty, nasty, downright maniacal looks from some of their fans, but let’s face it: Which team is better? Exactly.

(2) As we were waiting to go up into the lobby from the train station area of TD Northbank Garden (the arena is on top of North Station, kinda like Madison Square Garden), I saw a group of five guys walk in, one of them in a Golden Gophers Vanek jersey. I looked a little bit closer at the group, poked Kim, and said, “Hey, isn’t that Pete and Corey?” She says, “Pete and Corey?” I say, “Yeah, we went to high school with them.” Turns out they were Pete and Corey, my German classmate and school’s star goalie, respectively. SMALL WORLD? Yeah, I thought so.

(3) These same guys start chanting once we reached the lobby, before going into the actual hallways of the arena. We were all doing the classic Bills’ “Let’s Go Buffalo” one, and it got damn loud in there. It was really fun, because the Bruins fans weren’t even attempting to counter us.

(4) MJ was right… Those pictures around the arena almost make me want to be a Bruins fan… I SAID ALMOST. Don’t judge me.

(5) The warmups were fantastic. I’ve never bothered to go down to the glass and take pictures during warmups, and I have no idea why, because that was stupid. And right now I’m too lazy to put all of my picture from Portland and Boston up on Webshots, but they’re on Facebook, so look at them there if we’re friends. Or, click the city right here and you can go to them. I’ll get Kim’s up here somehow, eventually… Oh, and don’t judge us based on our stupid-face pictures. We can be extremely immature sometimes, but overall, we’re very mature people, believe it or not. =]

(6) Only one Bruins fan really said anything to us, and it was nice. I was kind of disappointed. There’s nothing I love more than trash-talking other teams to their fans. It’s so exhilarating. This guy only tapped me on the shoulder, asked if we were from Buffalo, and if we had driven up just for the game. How boring and reserved.

(7) This guy’s wife, when a Paris Hilton wannabe came strutting down the steps in her thigh-high stiletto boots and sleeveless cotton dress, leaned forward and said to Kim and I, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” Honestly, since she and her boyfriend were in the front row, the three of us were in shock. I kid you not, not even five minutes later, she was wearing his hoodie. Ridiculous. Why do you dress like that if you know you’re going to a hockey game? In Boston, in November? Wow. Just, wow.

(8) Have I ever mentioned that I love Boston accents? Well I do. So when the drunk guys a couple rows in front of us decided to start chanting “Miller,” they were, in actuality, saying “Millah.” Kim and I were waiting for one of them to drop down to their knees and just scream out “STELLA!” instead. We needed to find something amusing about that game after Connolly had scored and Kaleta attempted to take on Chara. Yikes…

(9) There were really belligerent and drunk Bruins fans on the train back to my aunt’s house, so I told Kim that we could be wusses now, and then we tucked our jerseys in and zipped our North Faces up to our throats. It was really hot on that train, too, and since my aunt is the last stop, and they were going to the last stop, I almost died. I don’t do well with excessive heat when wearing Uggs, a long sleeve shirt, a hockey jersey, and a fleece jacket. No thank you.

(10) Oh, and then my aunt yelled at us because we didn’t get Paul’s autograph and/or picture. Well, the only way we could’ve done that, without invading his personal space, would have been to jump out at him, and I have a feeling it would’ve gone down kinda like this.

Well, I guess that’s all I can think of right now in regards to our little trip to Boston. Although, my aunt has expressed our welcomed return, so I have a feeling we’ll be up for Round Two next season. BUT, Kim and I were discussing it on the drive home, and we think it would be quite fun to get a room at the Ritz, despite the outrageous price tag, just so we can hit up the bar there while the boys are there. And hotels.com does give quite the discount, so it’s a definite possibility. Anybody in??

Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed this article. At least someone’s willing to admit that they were wrong and the Sabres should have been much higher on the end-of-season rankings than 11th.

Also, whatever happened to the doubleheaders they always used to have on Versus, Monday and Tuesday nights? Why is it that they aren’t starting up again until the second-last week of the season? They always used to get me through the Mondays and Tuesdays that the Sabres didn’t play and my shows weren’t on. But now, since the hold-out between Time Warner and Channel 4 and The CW basically made me miss a good deal of my shows for a couple weeks, I’m so far behind with no chance of getting caught up, so now I only have one game to watch for the next two nights. How boring.

I think that’s pretty much it. I’ll post later if something interesting surfaces…

Counting Down…Hours…Minutes…Seconds

So there are under 6 hours left until the start of real hockey’s return to Buffalo. So it only made the day about 100 times better when I opened my mailbox this afternoon to find the newest issue of The Hockey News waiting for me.

As usual THN has ranked the top twenty players in terms of position based on their projected performance in the coming season and I have to say it’s about time that Buffalo players made the grade. Yay Sabres someone finally appreciates you, not that I don’t but oh you know what I mean…no it’s okay Danny sorry I made you cry I know how sensitive you are…

None of our defensemen made the list but Ryan Miller was ranked number 8 in goalies, so some good news there. It should come as no surprise as to who was ranked first in left wingers, Alex Ovechkin, but the real surprise came futher down at number 8 who is this? Thomas Vanek? okay so here I am thinking this is good news at least two of our players made the list. Number 1 in centers was none other than Sidney Crosby (seriously I was stunned), but much to my apparently unending surpise Derek Roy was number 16th on that list. Could my eyes be deceiving me THREE of our players? It couldn’t be four could it? But there it was in black and white Jason Pominville ranked 8th in right wingers. FOUR PLAYERS finally getting the respect they deserve, hell the SABRES getting the respect they deserve.

I thought my happiness was never ending but there THN goes ruining it. They didn’t even predict us to make the playoffs giving us the 11th position in the East, they rank 4 of our players in the top twenty in their positions and they don’t even have the decency to give us a playoff spot. What kind of messed up crap is that? I don’t know but they are going to get a strongly worded letter detailing my displeasure with them, or I’m just going to think very hard about how much I loathe and despise them (I’m not good with confrontation).

In a special section key departures were listed which included, for Buffalo, DMITRI KALININ, seriously, someone actually misses him, I didn’t even realize he was gone. If you miss Kalinin raise your hand, anyone, anyone, Bueller, Bueller, yeah that’s what I thought. Please, if you miss him let me know so that Cari and I can point and laugh at you, you’ll be our entertainment for the week. I admit I’ll miss Steve Bernier but Kalinin now there was a one man train wreck.

And this line in the team report sums up the game of hockey:

Ryan Miller realizes in the grand scheme of things, he and his teammates are just a bunch of big kids playing a little kid’s game.

Or in the case of some of our players (Tim Kennedy anyone) little kid’s playing a little kids game.

The report included more of the same old same old on Miller, the whole team rests on his shoulders, he has to do better if the team hopes to make the playoffs this year, he played too many games last season, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. Thank you Hockey News for telling us here in Buffalo what we already know.

Also in the team report:

…bounce back seasons by Tim Connolly and Maxim Afinogenov will have the Sabres in the hunt for a playoff spot.

Okay first off this was written before Timmy went MIA so this just made me giggle a little because as Cari has previously reported Timmy is either dead or buried under some blond he’s screwing and can’t seem to manage getting out from under her in time to go to practice. As for Max as much as I love the man, I can’t see this being a bounce back season for him, we’ve heard for so long that he hasn’t reached his potential I’m starting to wonder if he even had it to begin with. I think we should finally realize that the guy is a one trick pony who should be taken out behind the barn and shot or in the best case scenario traded.

I guess we’ll see what this season has to offer and it all begins tonight.