Tag Archive for 'Sabres'

Bye Bye, Soupy

Sabres trade Brian Camp­bell to Sharks for right wing Steve Bernier

“Don’t boo me when I come back,” the defense­man said this after­noon shortly after being traded to the San Jose Sharks.

It’s tough being a small-market sports fan, espe­cially when the sport in ques­tion is hockey. For all the talk of par­ity in the NHL, it’s clear that there are two classes of teams – those will­ing to spend money to acquire and retain top tal­ent, and the Buf­falo Sabres.

The Sabres suf­fered los­ing their two top cen­ter­men to free agency last off-season, after post­ing the best record in the NHL and their sec­ond East­ern Con­fer­ence Cham­pi­onship loss in a row. One can argue about front office mis­takes in not sign­ing Briere and Drury, but in the end, it was their turn to cash in on a big con­tract, and Buf­falo was unwill­ing or could not afford to pay. (Let us not for­get also that the Sabres were up against the salary cap all of last season.)

bye bye, Soupy.And now we have a home-grown NHL super­star in Brian Camp­bell – two-time All Star, spin-o-rama skater, and open-ice hit­ter of R.J. Umberger – now due his big pay day at the end of this sea­son, as he becomes eli­gi­ble for free agency. What are the Sabres to do?

Well, the only move is to trade him. The Sabres could not risk los­ing him for noth­ing, and Camp­bell and his agent seemed luke warm about sign­ing some­thing before the trade dead­line. I cer­tainly can’t blame either party.

But, I can feel sad. Being a fan of a small-market team is tough, and I’d be lying if I weren’t a lit­tle jeal­ous that the Rangers or Ducks can just go buy whomever they want every year. In Buf­falo, we have to make our own stars.

After the jump, some high­lights from Soupy’s career in Buf­falo, includ­ing some of his hilar­i­ously hor­ri­ble local tele­vi­sion commercials.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Bye Bye, Soupy’

February 26, 2008 » Tags: , , , , . » 0 Comments

Sabres as Oasis?

Chris DruryWe’re head­ing home to Buf­falo for the hol­i­day, (and my 10-year High School reunion), which reminds me of how well the Sabres are playing.

ESPN’s John Buc­ci­gross com­pares the Sabres to the brit­pop Oasis of all things:

At full strength, the Buf­falo Sabres are unequiv­o­cally the best team in the NHL. Not only do they have the full com­ple­ment of parts, but Buf­falo has that con­fi­dence that Oasis had when they went head-to-head with Blur back in 1995 in a Brit­pop mano a mano, or more accu­rately called boyo-a-boyo.

Noel Gal­lagher said he and Oasis’ soul was more pure than Blur’s because they grew up poor, with dirt under­neath their fin­ger­nails, while Blur was mid­dle class. The con­cept is inter­est­ing, espe­cially when it is spo­ken with a rough Eng­lish accent while sit­ting in a gigan­tic and expen­sive chair.

But Chris Drury, who grew up in a middle-class town in south­ern Con­necti­cut, makes $3.1 mil­lion this sea­son and prob­a­bly will sign a five-year, $22 mil­lion con­tract with some­one next sum­mer. And yet, he plays every game like some­one kid­napped his entire fam­ily and the ran­som is win­ning the face­off he is about to take. That’s the story, morn­ing glory.

I may not agree with John’s take on the 90s Brit­pop war, but it’s hard to argue with his thoughts on Drury.

November 21, 2006 » Tags: , , , , . » 0 Comments

Anniversary with the Sabres

romantic night

A roman­tic night wouldn’t be com­plete with­out Cana­dian beer

On Jan­u­ary 23, Pres­ley and I marked our 7th anniver­sary, and I couldn’t think of a bet­ter way to spend it than at the Sabres-Bruins hockey game. Am I right?

Just so you don’t think I’m weird, our first “date” was a Sabres game (in Buf­falo) in Decem­ber of 1996. So, it was a nice reminder for us, and it was cool. Thanks to Craigslist, we got first-row, on-the-glass seats. Amazing.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Anniver­sary with the Sabres’

February 4, 2004 » Tags: , , , , , , , . » 2 Comments

<sports>


I really am tempted to write a Slate–like cranky crit­i­cism of the new Buf­falo Bills uni­forms, but I will try to say some nice things: The dark blue is great. I like the stripes with the gray on the helmet.

(Here comes the cranky part) So, if you’re going to make an “update” with the new darker blue, why would you keep the lighter royal blue? Wouldn’t it be nice to put the num­bers in red, or gray? or the new dark blue? Doesn’t that light blue look just as dated now as it did last year? Why do the white uni­forms have a blue bar on the shoulders?

And the logo—change the f*cking logo. I think the Sabres got the logo RIGHT. It’s tough, mod­ern and looks fuck­ing great on the front of the uni­forms. The Bills logo (much like the orig­i­nal Sabres jer­seys) is the bor­ing old abstract corporate-art that is a direct rip-off of that 1970s Buf­falo pro­pa­ganda “WE’RE TALKING PROUD”. Talk­ing Proud? We’re talk­ing MISERY.

Let me tell you what I really think. In a move true to this nos­tal­gic age we live in, the Bills tried to pre­serve many ele­ments of the old uni­forms, while updat­ing the col­ors a lit­tle. The result? It’s an inco­he­sive mish­mash of styles and col­ors, try­ing to be every­thing to every­body and it fails all around. There is noth­ing intim­i­dat­ing about these jer­seys, nor is there any­thing “new”.

June 12, 2002 » Tags: , , , . » Closed