They’re Alive

It’s been a decidedly quiet time for the Sabres. However, the Sabres related news has perked up in the past couple of days.

- Darcy Regier has made an offer to Jaroslav Spacek. I hope it’s like a 2-year deal, since Spacek is 35-years-old. A longer length of time would be ridiculous.

- Paul Gaustad again proves that he is a stand up guy by pointing out that he knows that the team needs to work on shooting more and defending their goalies and each other. Well, praise the lord and pass the ammunition. Now if Goose can only get it through the thick heads of the rest of his teammates. When Miller spends more time getting run than playing goal, you know you have a problem. Also, if the boys will spend more time shooting the puck next season, they will drastically reduce the amount of times I want to throw something at my television set. That’s good on both sides. They can score goals, and I can keep my TV set in one piece.

Gaustad also mentions that he was invited to play for Team USA in the World Championships earlier this year, but had to decline the invitation due to an injury. He doesn’t specify the nature of the injury, and whether it was upper, lower inner or outer body. Speaking of injuries, was I hallucinating earlier this spring, or did Pominville have some sort of undisclosed injury at the end of the season? If so, did anything come of it?

- How did y’all celebrate the anniversary of the day that brought Tim Connolly into our lives? I, for one, went to work and am now spending the night with Edgar, Crosby, Ding, Dong and my favorite other crab fishing boyfriends on Deadliest Catch.

- Congratulations to Lindy on being named to the coaching staff of Team Canada for the 2010 Olympics. Lindy, you know I love you, but when push comes to shove next February, I’m going to be routing for my USA babies. I also am really amused at the photo editors of TSN/CTV. The TSN photo promoting the story features Lindy giving his best “bitch please” face, while the CTV Olympics site features a photo of a hollering Lindy. They’ve really managed to capture the essence of Lindy, haven’t they?

- I heard a commercial for the Sabres draft party at the Albright Knox on Friday. One of the things the commercial is promoting is a Q&A with Sabretooth. Now tell me, how is Sabretooth going to do a Q&A? Last time I checked, the poor thing is mute. Is he just going to gesticulate his answers or will someone interpret for him?

Honk! Honk! Honk!

- So he didn’t score a goal last night, but one could argue that Paul Gaustad made just as important a contribution last night as Vanek and Stafford did. That fight with Tampa’s Ryan Craig was a key turning point of the game. It re-energized the crowd (I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a prolonged Gooooooooose! before) and put the Sabres on the power play that led to Stafford’s goal. It wasn’t until the replay on the jumbotron that you really got the full impression that Gaustad kicked Craig’s ass in that fight. I think I counted Goose landing at least 8 punches before Craig got one in.

I was really struck by a couple of quotes in Mike Harrington’s article in this morning’s paper. First, we hear from the Goose regarding his fight.

“It’s probably not the best thing for my hand,” he said, looking at his wrapped appendage. “It’s still pretty sore but it’s my job and sometime you have to go through pain.”

Talk about putting the team/job over oneself.

Also, does anyone else think that while Lindy gave Goose a public  “atta-boy” during his post-game press conference,  that in private he’s giving Goose the old “what the hell were you thinking?” Sabretooth’s House has  a photo from the fight posted and you can clearly see Goose’s hand is wrapped up pretty well. While it’s good that he stepped up and took one for the team, I don’t want Goose to mess himself up further by fighting. Although, again, it was a pretty kick ass fight. Seriously,  kick ass.

And the second quote from Harrington’s article comes from our beloved Crunchy:

“I’m glad to see him back swinging,” goalie Ryan Miller said. “He’s been waiting for the right moment with his thumb. .‚.‚. He’s a big animal. I wouldn’t want to tussle with him.”

The mental image of a Goose and Crunchy fight is giving me the giggles. It would be like the class jock taking on the class emo dude. It would not end well for the emo dude.

- I thought the refeering was a little off again last night, especially in the third period. Crunchy’s delay of game penalty was a joke, considering he was waving his glove and indicating that the puck was in it. If I, who am blind as a bat on a good day, can see from the 300 level that the puck is in the glove, why couldn’t the ref?  Crunchy wasn’t just waiving his glove around for shits and giggles. The next time Crunchy made a glove save, the guys in the row behind me yelled that it should be a 2-minute penalty for use of the glove.

Crunchy was very vocal with the refs in the immediate time after the penalty was called. I hope he was still being respectful towards the refs, though I would laugh if he was told again to go eff himself.

The Kotalik penalty at the end of the game was also a bunch of mularkey, considering that a similar play was a non-call a couple of minutes before. As my dad put it, towards the end of the game, you really had to wonder if Rick Tocchet had any money down on Tampa, the game was that skewed. (Bad joke, I know. But relevant.)

- Interesting to see former POTUS Clinton at the game and the crowd give him a nice round of applause.

- During the starting lineup introductions, Staffy’s “photo” was giggling, like he just heard the world’s dirtiest joke. On the other hand, Roy-Z’s “photo” was working some serious bedroom eyes. One more minute of him on the Jumbotron, and I think he would have been having eye sex with half the arena.

- The kids doing the Timbits skills competition during the first intermission were absolutely adorable. They could not have been more than five years old, and the vast majority of them were still using the stick for balance. Sabretooth was a good goalie, letting each kid score. The final kid was having difficulty skating and moving the puck at the same time, so ‘Tooth picked him up, dropped him in front of the net, and let him shoot. Then carried him off the ice so no one would get runover by the Zamboni. This was the first game that I’ve been to in I don’t know how long that had the little kids playing during the intermission. More little kids and less high schoolers, please!

- And speaking of little kids, Gerbe looks like a little kid when he’s out on the ice. He makes Roy-Z look gigantic.

- Wacky observation: when the jumbotron lists what players are on the ice of each team and includes that cut-off headshot, Pommers’ picture makes him look like a young Wallace Shawn. (You know, Cyrus on Gossip Girl or Vizzini from the Princess Bride.) It’s not a good look for Pommers.

- About the only downside of the game was that there could have been more ice in my pop. My Sprite was warm by the end of the first period.

Speechless

- I admit to tuning out of the Sabres game a wee bit early last night. I really thought their goose was cooked after going down 2-0. After a few minutes of Idol, I flipped back to the game and saw that it was 2-1. Then back to Idol. Then back to the game (I have remote control ADD, why do you ask?), where it was 3-1. Continuing to think the goose was cooked, imagine my surprise when after another series of channel flips I saw that the team narrowed it to 3-2. Then tied it up at 3-3. You bet I did not change that channel after it was tied.

I did like the fire I saw coming from the team once they realized that they had a shot to win the game. However, I’d rather see that fire spread out across the entire game and not in the last five minutes.

- Hooray for Vanek getting his second career hat trick. I’m happy that he seems to have put whatever demons behind him and is finally playing like the player we all know he is.

- I really, really like the Vanek / Connolly / Roy line. They were complete beasts on the ice last night. Lindy seems to have found something there. I also would bet that Timmy and Lindy are having a battle over whether or not Timmy plays tonight against Toronto. Lindy said before yesterday’s game that Timmy wouldn’t play, but after the chemistry he had with Roy-Z and Vanek, I wouldn’t be so sure.

- Is it wrong that I laughed for a good while at the PSA for the Sabres Food Drive with Sabretooth showing up with a 50 pound bag of Nine Lives to donate? Rob Ray’s “Tooth! People food!” really put me over the edge.

- I’m optimistic that Darcy and Soupy’s agent are still talking, but I just want both sides to come to an agreement already. Sign him or trade him, just do something so we can all stop talking about it.

- Who did Mike Ryan piss off that he sat last night and Andrew Peters played? I really thought that Ryan was playing well the past couple of games.

- If Harry Neale mentioned one more time that the Sabres had only scored two goals in their last two games, I was going to throw something at the TV set.

- Non-hockey related: did anyone else notice that Victorya had a case of permanent bitchface during the Project Runway reunion show?

Clowning Around

Photo taken at last night’s Catwalk for Charity and found on Buffalo.com

Update: WGRZ’s link works!

http://www.wgrz.com/video/vplayer.aspx?aid=39762&bw=

Highlights include: Hank working the runway, Goose’s “under appreciated” shirt and Timmy’s “New York Times” shirt. And Sabretooth. Just Sabretooth. Can one get a mascot sized leisure suit at Crunchy’s Hipster Emporium?

The above doesn’t show what was on the news last night. There was Miller holding a golden retriever puppy (no, not Pommerdoodle) that was up for auction (won by Max, but given to Mrs. Thiebault, who he was bidding against), RJ hamming it up for the crowd, and Kotalik moonwalking sort-of unsuccessfully.

I hope everyone has a blast watching the Super Bowl (or Puppy Bowl, if you lean that way) and does well in their pools.