He’s Just Happy To Be Here

In our continuing attempt to digest the fact that the Sabres signed someone - Ryan Miller - to a pretty significant long term deal, we here at SOTC listened to Miller’s interview with Howard Simon this afternoon.

He’s happy to be a Sabre, and was encouraged to sign with the team when he saw Gaustad get signed to an extension. (I do want to point out that Ryan was practically gushing over Gaustad, pointing out that Goose is growing into quite the player and quite the active guy in the community.) Miller also specifically said that in his heart he wanted to be in Buffalo. He could’ve tried out the free agent market, but what good would that have done anyone? The contract situation would have been a distraction during the season, and he didn’t want to deal with that. (Gee, who the hell does that sound like, Soupy? Then again, I do think that Ryan could have potentially given Soupy a run for his money in the “can’t play hockey and negotiate a contract at the same time” competition.)

He freely recognizes that his contract will give the media something to talk about when he has an off night, but hopes that doesn’t happen too often next season. I did like his point of view about how he learned from Drury and some of the other veterans about how stepping up to give an interview in the locker room does take some of the heat off the other guys. Drury and Briere did it for him, and now he’s stepping up and doing it. He reinforced that in his interviews he’s always honest with the press. Between Miller’s blunt honesty and Pomminville’s earnest enthusiasm, the media should always get a good quote.

He was briefly distracted from the interview when the pizza delivery arrived for the groomsmen’s lunch. (Younger brother Drew is getting married this weekend, and Ryan is the best man.)

He feels comfortable in Buffalo, that he can go to the grocery store, be recognized and yet be left alone to do his thing while shopping. Just speaking from the past experience at seeing a Sabre in the grocery store, I’d be too tongue tied to say much of anything other than “hi” to a Sabre.

Its, dare I say it, refreshing to have some optimism coming out of the media and the players. Last summer, the entire team turned into a bunch of kicked puppies after the co-captains left town. When your coach admits that it took a month for him to get over the loss of them, you know that all was not right with the team. I think the team was so busy trying to justify that they could survive without Briere and Drury that they beat themselves while doing it.

And while I haven’t listed to the full Darcy interview, reading a summary of it gives me a ton of hope. They’ve had productive talks with Teppo(!) and want him back in some capacity. If Teppo comes back, his presence combined with Rivet’s would give the team a very strong veteran presence on the blue line.

All in all, not a bad day, eh?

Five More Years! Five More Years!

Yea, there’s really not much to say about Ryan Miller’s contract extension except:

1. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

2. Suck it, Bucky.

3. Does this mean he reads SOTC, since I totally requested a contract extension in yesterday’s post?

4. The signing shows that Miller is committed to the team and the Buffalo area.

5. The guys that are all signing the long-term deals are all the guys that were brought up together and spent significant time in Rha-Cha-Cha. Miller, Goose, Roy, Vanek, Paille, C-Mac. Something has to be clicking in the room for these guys to stick around. And even if there wasn’t, as the almighty Goose said repeatedly in intereviews, we (the media and fans) don’t know the half of what’s going on.

More later when I can form coherent thoughts.

Schedule Day! Schedule Day!

On a 87 degree day, what better thing to talk about than the Sabres 2008-09 schedule?

- By my count, the Sabres have 15 back-to-back games. 8 of those involve both a home and away game. Private to Lindy: one of the games in a back-to-back would be good times to play Lalime. Just saying, another season of riding Miller like Seabiscuit won’t do anyone any good.

- Even though the reduction of the divisional games is a good thing, its going to be weird not having a home-at-home with anyone this year.

- The team looks like they’re going to spend the vast majority of January and February on the road. 16 out of the 26 games scheduled for these two months are far from the friendly confines of HSBC Arena. The team’s longest road trip runs during this span. Buffalo will visit the Panthers, Lightning, Oilers, Flames, Coyotes and Ducks. There is a five day lull between the Tampa and Edmonton games, so maybe the children will return home for some clean skivvies and some new games for their PSPs?

- Who’s bright idea was the afternoon game on Columbus Day? October is smack dab in the middle of my super busy time at work. I can’t devote the attention to listening to a game that I would in the middle of January (as has happened the past couple of years). Oh, who the hell am I kidding? I’ll probably need the stress relief that the hockey game will provide (its only the second game of the season, so we can’t be too doom-and-gloom at that point, right?)

- The league also scheduled games on New Year’s Day evening. It will be nice to be able to watch the Expletive Deleted Ice Bowl II: Electric Bugaloo in the afternoon, and then cue up a Sabres game at night. Though I do wish that the Sabres would have a home game on New Year’s Eve. Tux and Pucks is always a great night. You don’t often get to see people trying to eat nachos in formal wear. And besides, the last New Year’s Eve game I went to featured a marriage proposal on Kiss cam.

- I’m bummed that the Sabres will be on the road for my birthday. I usually get hockey tickets as a birthday present for the game closest to my birthday. However, I have come up with the backup plans of games that I would like to see. (NJ, Ottawa and Philly, in case you were wondering.)

- Speaking of birthdays, Happy Birthday, Ryan Miller. Hopefully you’re off celebrating in a nice responsible fashion, or getting shitfaced, or just having a really good time. When your birthday extravaganza is over and the liquor has worn off, can we please discuss that pesky little thing called a contract extension? You’d make a lot of people come crawling back off the ledge if you signed that extension. It might also be a giant FU to Bucky, that you wouldn’t be one of the rats deserting the alleged sinking ship called the SS Buffalo Sabres.

- Speaking of the Buckster, run, not walk to Kevin’s post on Bfloblog discussing the logical reasons for a 97% season ticket renewal level. Its a good look at what makes Buffalo tick and is a subtle poke back at Bucky and Jerry and the rest of the MSM bashers.

Did You Get the Memo?

- According to this release on Sabres.com, 97% of Sabres season ticket holders have decided to renew their tickets for next season. Apparently, these people have not gotten the memo that the Sabres are going to do horribly this year. They didn’t make a big splash in the free agent market, haven’t re-signed Ryan Miller and Jason Pominville, and didn’t sign Brian Campbell to the awesomest 5/25 deal ever. (That…was sarcasm. Let me make that perfectly clear.)

- Meanwhile, which of you, my loyal readers, found my blog through the following terms:

- “Ray Emery tied to the crossbar.” While that’s something that I’m sure a lot of Buffalo fans want to happen, if only to fire pucks repeatedly at the guy, I cannot advocate that on this blog. Sorry!

- “Derek Roy stoned munchies funny.” Whoever used this one, do share your story.

- “Boob hoodie.” My money is on an IPB Irregular using this term. Otherwise, I refuse to acknowledge the fact that someone is actively looking for boob hoodies!

- “When can you start washing Staffies?” Well, first you have to wait for the Staffy to find his rubber ducky, then make sure he has his fun Cookie-Monster hooded towel. Make sure the water is at a reasonably comfortable temperature and there’s plenty of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo on hand. Then, you may start to wash your Staffy.

- On a completely unrelated note, I just saw Rick Springfield on “General Hospital” and now I have “Jessie’s Girl” running through my head. I guess its better than Christopher Cross’ “Think of Laura.”

- Edited to add this completely random note: Ingo Rademacher (who plays Jax on General Hospital), named his newborn son Peanut Kai. Seriously, people. Peanut is not a name. Its a legume! I think I need to go lie down now.

Sunday Funnies

I love reading the Sunday comics, always have. Its the one time per week that the newspaper devotes a full section to humor (though some may argue that local news could substitute as the humor section on any givenn day).

Today’s comic section featured this “Pearls Before Swine” cartoon. It hit a little close to home. How many of us bloggers have almost gotten the shakes when our internet connection takes a dump, and we can’t update our blog, or check email, or do anything else? Yeah, I thought so.

Two Quick YouTubes

I’ve never seen this Pominville interview before. Its at least two years old (the 06-07 season), as Pommers has the JT hair going on. Anyway, I really like his thoughtful analysis of Miller and Teppo.

Seeing Pommers in this video makes me realize how much he’s grown up since this video was taken. He’s now our fearless leader (who needs to sign a contract extension soon, so the good people of this city will stop having conniptions every five minutes that he’s going to sign with the Habs for a million jillion dollars.)

Private to the ladies that read this blog: if your adorableness quotient for the day hasn’t been satisfied after that Pominville video, go to YouTube and watch the video of Sid and Ovie giving Brendan Shanahan a birthday cake. (No that isn’t a euphemism for anything.) I would link it here, but I wouldn’t want to be responsible for uteri exploding.

I’ve never seen this commercial before, but I love it.

This was quite the pithy post. promise I will have something more to write after this weekend of woofie sitting for 93 pounds of love named Roscoe. Catch y’all on Sunday.

Some Statbitty Goodness

The new issue of SI contains a look at how dollars are spent in the various professional sports and what it means to the average fan. Looking at hockey, all is reasonably well for the Sabres. They’re the second best value in the league for ticket prices ($32.56 average) and the magazine is slightly shocked that a 22-ounce beer is only $5.

Other fun facts:

- On average, goalies are the highest paid players in the league at just shy of $2 million.

- In a really interesting stat, the Austrians are the highest paid nationality in the league. Of course, Vanek does his best to skew the numbers. There’s 21 nationalities currently represented in the league. I’m surprised by this number as I didn’t think it was that high. South Korea and England were my votes for the two oddest countries to show up on the ranker.

- The current bid to play golf with the Goose in the WGR Golf Tourney is $760. Yea, that’s waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to rich for my blood. That’s like three months of student loan payments right there. I just find it hysterical that bids for the WGR jocks started at the same level as the professional athletes. I’m sorry, but if I have a choice between paying to play golf with Goose, Kaleta, Patches or Jeremy White, you bet your sweet bippy I’d pay to play with a Sabre. Sorry, Whitey.

We Are Not Deadbeats

The Sabres have been the MSM/blogosphere whipping boy for the last year now (this blog included.) Waaah! Briere and Drury weren’t signed. Waaah! Teppo has been suspended by the heartless bastards. Waaaah my nachos are cold. Waaaaah! I fell off the team’s Christmas card list.

The point is, while some of the whining has been justified, the team has taken several steps to right some of the wrongs. Then, Greg W at Puck Daddy writes a column where he calls the Sabres one of the ten least desirable teams in the league for free agents. While that may be a perception, its downright insulting to those players that have chosen to re-sign with the Sabres when their contracts are up. I have no doubt that Jochen, Roy-Z, Goose and the rest of the recently re-signed gang could have gotten better money from other teams, but instead, they chose to re-sign with the team. Why is this so? I don’t buy that there’s something in the locker room water that caused these guys to want to magically re-up with the team. Is it the area? Our cheap standard of living? Is it a combination?

While it may be difficult to get FA’s here via their own volition, look at how many times players that have been sent here through trades end up loving the area? Stu Barnes was downright brokenhearted to be leaving when he was traded to Dallas. Jim Lorentz still lives in the area (when he’s not off in remote parts of Canada fishing.) Mike Foligno sent two of his kids to college up here. (Ask me about the time he showed up to daughter #1’s Orientation and the fellow parents went nuts.)

Time out:

Brian Engblom (and his hair) played for the Sabres? Holy hell.

Time in.

Grant Ledyard is currently the head coach of the Junior Sabres. Pat LaFontaine still is active in the community through his charity work.

The point is, it may take awhile to fall in love with the Sabres, and the Buffalo area. But I tend to think of us as a hidden gem. We may look scruffy and nasty to the rest of the world, but give us a bath and polish us up, and we’re a pretty good place.

Reasons I Love Hockey

#3 - Shot Blocking

Shot blocking is the art of willingly throwing oneself in front of a puck traveling in excess of 80 mph to prevent said puck from reaching the net. It looks just as crazy as it sounds. However, NHL players make it look easy. There’s absolutely no hesitation from any of them before diving in front of the puck. Its a well-timed art, as the puck needs to make the right deflection off of the right body part, whether its the skate or the chest or the shoulder.

Jay McKee was a master shot blocker for the Sabres. He made diving in front of the puck look as effortless as skating up the ice. His well-executed blocks kept many pucks from getting through to Hasek, Biron or Miller. His presence is sorely missed by the Sabres.

But I digress.

There’s always a risk of injury with shot blocking. Frozen rubber object + velocity + human flesh = potential for owies. (That’s a key law of physics.) Just look at what happened to Philly’s Thoreson during this year’s playoffs. He went down to block a shot and damn near lost his left nut as the puck hit him in a sensitive area. (I know a lot of hockey players would give their left nut to win Stanley, but it’s just a figure of speech. It’s not meant to be taken literally.) While he did come back to play later in the playoffs, his unfortunate injury was replayed on Sportscenter for several days afterwards.

Truly, Truly, Truly Outrageous

The Chicago Blackhawks posted an interview with Brian Campbell. Aside from the usual platitudes about how his new team can win and he’s excited to be there, and all that other crap, came this gem (and it just might be truly, truly outrageous.)

I don’t look at myself as an offensive defenseman anymore. I see myself as a complete player…

He doesn’t consider himself an “offensive defenseman?” Most Sabres fans would disagree with that statement. How many times was it pointed out during the season that Brian Campbell was one of the few defensemen for the Sabres that was able to bring the puck out of the zone? How many times was Soupy caught out of position on an odd man rush because he was piddlefarting around in the offensive zone? Soupy’s a little too old to be changing his playing style from offensive defenseman to whatever.

Even though he’s no longer a Sabre, Soupy still provides an endless source of bloggy goodness.