Uh Huh, This is Costing Me How Much?

Most of this post was written while sitting for 5.5 hours in the waiting room at Transitowne, waiting for Roy the Car to get fixed. (If only it was that easy to fix my car’s namesake, LOL.)

- If you saw the article concerning Buffalo’s prep for the world juniors in the hard copy of today’s paper, you would have noticed in the accompanying image that there were large yellow dots on the floor of the Sabres locker room. (For some reason the image is not in the online edition.) Is management expecting a twister game to break out pregame? (“Right foot yellow! Left hand yellow! Right hand errr yellow!”) Or are they meant to give the players something to chuckle about as they watch the media try and avoid stepping on the yellow dots in the middle of the floor during the post game media ruckus? Of course, watch them be something as innocuous as patches over freshly sewn carpet, or something like that.

- Kudos to the Bisons for getting involved with the WJC fun downtown and wanting to host a winter wonderland at Coca Cola Field in between hockey games. What a nice diversion and a way to keep people downtown.

- I was watching PTI yesterday and Dan LeBatard was talking about the Bills in Toronto, and how he can’t say anything bad about the city of Buffalo because every time he does, his inbox fills up. Is PTI really that popular amongst Buffalonians / Bills fans that he gets that much “hate” mail? Poor little LeBatard . And speaking of PTI, where the heck have TK and Willybuns been lately? It seems like they have been on vacation forever. I enjoy LeBatard, but Bob Ryan is a little too dry for my tastes. But then again, as long as Reali is there, it’s all good.

- I finished reading Ken Dryden’s “The Game” while at the dealership. If you haven’t read this book, and you’re a hockey fan, you need to put it on your reading list. His thoughts on what makes the game of hockey great, the different roles players have on teams and the chemistry generated by having the right mix of these players is incredibly insightful. Sure, Dryden’s playing career was a bit before my time, so I was not as familiar with the great Canadiens teams as someone who is a bit older would be, but the book is still a great read nonetheless. I was particularly amused by his musings on why goalies are considered nutty and it’s not just because they’re willing to step in front of a speeding rubber disk every night.

- And finally, if this Geico commercial does not make you smile, well…

Lazy Random YouTube Post

I am in love with this State Farm Commercial.

I think my favorite part is the kid’s expression after the jack-in-the-box pops open. That’s a definite clean up in aisle 27 expression. The kid chasing the dog is a close second.

- And that sound you hear coming from my house tonight is probably going to be my DVR exploding. The 2-hour premiere of ANTM, Glee, SYTYCD, and Top Chef are all on tonight. So is Toddlers and Tiaras, but I DVR the late showing of that. It’s such a bad show, but after watching it, I’m thankful that my parents never approached the level of BSC (that’s batshit crazy) exhibited by those on this show.

- Has it been determined what time practice actually starts at Puck Drop on Saturday? The Sabres site lists what times the extracurricular activities will be happening, but there’s nothing about what time the actual hockey stuff will be happening. Clarity is much appreciated.

Do Something Good Today

Pedigree Dog Food is running its first ever Super Bowl ad this year. And in support of this new ad, they’re going to be running a dog food donation drive for shelters across the country. If you visit the Pedigree website and watch either the Super Bowl ad or the related videos, Pedigree will donate a bowl of dog food to a shelter for each video watched. If the videos are viewed four million times, that is the equivalent of America stepping up and feeding every dog in a shelter for one day. So think of the puppies and go watch the videos already!

Is This The Year…Volume 2

The NHL is continuing to use “Is This The Year?” as their marketing slogan. While stars such as Kane, Crosby and Lundqvist are anchoring the national campaign, each team will have two commercials featuring its players for use on local TV. One commercial will focus on an individual player, and one commercial will focus on the team as a whole.

For the Sabres, our player focused commercial is built around Ryan Miller. It ends with the tagline: “the more pucks you feed him, the stronger he gets.” I wonder if that’s been the problem with Miller’s nutritional regimen the past few seasons. He’s been eating pucks! Pucks have no nutritional value whatsoever. The nutritionist that told him to eat the pucks should be taken out back to face many, many slapshots.

In all seriousness, I wonder if the NHL is keeping tabs on the Sabres blogosphere? How many blog entries have been written speculating on Miller’s lack of weight being a problem as the season progresses? Even more entries have been written about Miller facing an unseemly high number of shots during the season due to our team’s lack of effort at shot blocking or playing defense.

Our team focused commercial is built around the tagline: “no matter how cold it gets in Buffalo, the scoreboard is always kept warm.” I think this ad does a really good job at capturing the essence of the team. The Sabres are a high scoring team. They’ve finished in the top five in goals scored each season since the lockout. Scoring hasn’t been a problem (overall) for the Sabres.

I also really love the photography featured in each ad, but the team focused ad makes it look like Vanek, Roy and Pommers are the only ones on the team. Yes, I realize that they were our three leading scorers this past season, but let’s share some commercial time with the rest of the team.

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.

Well Then

- Glad to see the Penguins finally win a game. I admit that the game didn’t start off with energy and enthusiasm, but the second and third periods more than made up for the first. I think at one point during the third period, Edzo mentioned that there was over a five minute stretch without any whistles. That’s what fans like to see during the Cup Finals, energetic hockey, lots of chances at both ends, and tons of hits.

- There was a tie for Most Unintentionally Funny Moment of last night’s game. Our winners are: Mark Messier chowing down on his nachos quite happily and Alexander Ovechkin completely rocking an Uncle Jesse from Full House look. I only hope that the rest of Ovie’s just-announced clothing line does not pay as much homage to Full House. We don’t need anyone to bring back the Michelle Tanner jumpsuit or the Aunt Becky oversized, button down men’s shirt.

- We’ve all seen the NHL’s new commercial that reminds us all of a Stanley Cup flip book. There’s also a print component to this campaign. The ad features past notable Stanley Cup winning players photoshopped into the traditional photo that each team takes on the night they win Stanley. Players included in the photo include the Niedermayers, Mario, the Great One, Bobby Orr, Marty Brodeur, Lanny MacDonald, Dave Andreychukm Mark Messier and other assorted characters. What’s also really nice is that the players are the focal point of the ad. The network logos have been relegated to a lockup area at the bottom. Next time you’re out at your local book or magazine retailer, pick up the new Sports Illustrated (the one with Josh Hamilton on the cover) and turn to page 51. The ad is there in all its glory.

- Moving on, Ryan Miller gets a cookie for using in his blog the idiom “let me pump some tires” as a way of giving kudos to someone. I can see him busting out with the tire pumpage phrase in the locker room, and some poor soul taking him literally and looking around for an air compressor thinking he’s going to save 75 cents on getting his tires filled.

In addition, he’s even analyzing the analysis of his little pre-game routines in his blog.

The funny part is, for all my routines I look insane and the purpose of routines is to eliminate overthinking. It’s what may be keeping me sane.’

Oy. Maybe he just needs to take the advice of Dr. Sidney Friedman and just pull down his pants and slide on the ice.

That means go with the flow, for those of you that haven’t seen MASH in a while.

- Why did I never get to do fun and creative stuff like this when I was in school? So not fair.

My Favorite Ads – Part 1

At work, I receive approximately eleventy-seven thousand e-newsletters per day, all claiming to have the most up-to-date information about what’s going on in the world of advertising. Most of them I delete because they’re boring as hell, but one of my favorites is the one showing the new ad campaigns debuting during the week. Reading this week’s edition got me thinking about what some of my favorite ads are:

Jeep Liberty: Rock Me Gently

I guarantee that you will have “Rock Me Gently” stuck in your head for the remainder of the day. That’s not why I like this commercial, however. It has just the right mix of bizarre elements – the gentle forest, the singing animals and the deep voiced wolf – and product elements.

Nextel – Magic

I don’t know where to begin with this commercial. Jamie McMurray and Kasey Kahne are NASCAR’s equivalent of the Pommerdoodle. Both are empty-headed but loveable. The commercial makes a distinction between magic and sleight-of-hand. And McMurray cradles a bunny. Who doesn’t love bunnies?

Target – Home Decor

This one is probably in my Top 5 favorite commercials ever. Having met both Zanardi and Vasser before and knowing their senses of humor, I almost wonder how many takes it took them to get the commercial down, especially the part about lending a delightful accent to your home decor? (Its funny, I have no compunctions about breaking the 4th wall with racers, but hockey players are a whole nother story.) I still use the delightful accent to your home decor phrase with my mother, who is a huge Vasser fan. That’s a sign of a good commercial: you’re still using the punchline 10 years later.

ESPN – Running of the Brats

Because running sausages will never not be funny.

That’s it for now. There’s more that I can think of, but this is going to be a running series.