Taro T

Grier is also an UFA.

Eh, maybe if Lydman goes down too the Sabres can bring him in. Right now I'd like to see someone with a bit more bulk on him.

Paul Hamilton just confirmed that McKee is out.

Unless that reporter called Lindy from the West Coast, that article is 3 hours old. McKee's agent was on GR about an hour ago and said he was going to try to go to Carolina and made it sound more like he had a flu. I would expect someone more closely related to the Sabres to get the story before TSN would. I don't believe the "he's definitely out" story one bit. Not yet at least.

Can he play D?

This Friday OLN is running "The Tournament" marathons at 6:00 PM and then again at 9:30 PM. You are correct. The show is hilarious. Think of it as a cross between The Mighty Ducks and This Is Spinal Tap but focusing on the parents.

Tom, Thank you for the very moving eulogy for Paul. I haven't even been posting here for a year and never met him, but I truly feel as though I have lost a friend. Seeing the post in OTW linking to this thread hit me like a ton of bricks. I can only imagine how much harder it is for you and Ken and Scott and Debbie and the others here that did know him well. His posts were the best part of checking out the PPP board. I respected his posts and looked forward to them. I hope he is finally at peace and also that he is with his love. Maybe someday I'll get the chance to have wings and a few beers with him. I also hope that where he's at that he has the ability to realize how many people he reached and affected. He will be (and is) sorely missed.

That was pretty bad. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the (non and blown) calls in Game 2. If the Bondra "goal" is reviewed, the Sabres sweep that series.

Yes. They've lost game 7 in the 1st round to Boston and the team Ed roots for and beat Ottawa. They've lost in their only round 2 game 7 at Boston. They were robbed of the opportunity to try for a game 7 in the Finals against Dallas.

Royal Bank of Canada.

They definitely have the talent to do it at home (even with 1/2 of the D in the press box). Will they? I have no friggin' idea, but I know I will be there screaming my fool head off along with 18,689 other maniacs. It's been a great run. I hope to see it last another 2 or so weeks. This team seems to relish the underdog role. Well, they have it now and unless Carolina suffers a major injury will have it if Game 7 is necessary as well. Maybe Lindy has the Canes right where he wants them. (PLEASE let that be the case.)

No hockey coverage to speak of and the little bit they have tends to come from Barry Mullet. If I cared about the NBA, I'd watch the NBA channel. The rest of the football guys don't love the Bills the way Berman used to.

I believe that On The Fly is actually produced by the NHL network in Canada, but you are right. That show is what NHL2Night should have been. OLN runs hockey ads pretty much all day long, and their evening programming is entirely hockey oriented ever since the playoffs started. While they could definitely improve their camera work and some of their announcer choices have been questionable, overall, they have done a good job. This is their 1st season broadcasting the NHL and they only had about 2 months to get their act together as they didn't get a chance at the contract until after ESPN declined its option. Even when ESPN SHOWED hockey, they rarely if ever led Sportscenter with a hockey story unless it was a McSorley or Bertuzzi type thing. They probably led a show with the Tocchet scandal this year, but you get the idea. They rarely if ever cross promoted hockey. My only problems with the games switching to OLN is OLN isn't in enough households and too many non-hockey fans don't even know it exists. When hockey was on ESPN, I'm sure a few casual fans watched simply because they always watch ESPN, but I doubt there were many that did. Bottom line, hockey on OLN is 1000% better than it was on ESPN.

Actually, it would have made him the 2nd highest paid player, but would have had him paid comparably with 5 others on the team. About 60% of the season was done at the time he was traded, so the Sabres would only have been picking up the excess salary for 40% of the sesaon. The Sabres revenues for the season were well ahead of projections by that time, so the Sabres knew that they could afford him at that time as well. Considering he is an UFA at the end of the season and Darcy did not negotiate the contract he has, I doubt highly that his salary would have caused friction in the dressing room. There is no way he would have been sitting in the press box had Buffalo picked him up. He is better defensively than Campbell and still can play the powerplay and he also is much better than Kalinin was playing at the time. He quite likely would have been paired with McKee, so the Sabres would have had 2 very solid top pairs, and Teppo w/ Campbell / Kalinin would also be considered to be a top 2 pairing but probably would have gotten slightly less 5 on 5 time to help keep Teppo strong for the playoffs and to limit the potential for problems in the Sabres end due to the "#6" guy. It would have given the Sabres a SOLID 7th D man (either Kalinin or Campbell) and then IF you lose 2 D-men (as the Sabres have now done) you are putting Rory in at that point as the 6th D-man, not the 5th. Chicago picked up a mid level prospect for Spacek and they already have Khabibulin, so it is doubtful that the Sabres would have given up Marty to get Spacek at that time. As I posted, I didn't have a problem with the Sabres not trading Marty for Spacek, my problem was with not trading a mid level prospect for Spacek.

Spacek was the one player that got traded (in January, not at the deadline) that I wanted to see in a Sabres uniform. He is an UFA but is not making a TON of money ($2.25 MM) and was picked up for a prospect. I'm certain that Darcy thought Chicago would hold out longer in swinging a deal for him as IMO they didn't get very much for him. Rumors were that Buffalo could have gotten him (or Staios) from Edmonton for Marty. Darcy didn't want to make that trade. I'm not overly critical about him not pulling the trigger w/ Edmonton but was definitely bummed out when I saw how little Chicago got for him. If the Sabres can get past Carolina tomorrow night, it likely will be moot, as the Sabres should have Teppo back before the end of the Series and I like Buffalo's odds of winning 1 out of 3 vs Carolina. The Sabres should be able to win tomorrow if they skate the way they did last night, even if the Sabres are missing 3 D.

Sorry to hear about your aunt. Next time you are in the Ra-cha-cha region you can hear the game on 950. They cut away from the game IMMEDIATELY afterwards and proceed into the Left Wing's version of Michael Savage (Randi Rhodes (SP?)), but you can at least pick up the broadcast better when/if GR fades.

Mair didn't play because Ruff wanted to put the Roy-Drury-Grier line back together and in order to do that he needed someone to center Kotalik and Max. Mair is a right wing, Novotny a center. Thus Novotny got the call. Also, Pyatt has been playing well in the playoffs and has not earned a benching. Realistically, those are the only 2 guys that skated that Mair would have been put in for. I'd rather hold Mair out a little longer and let him have some more healing time for that concussion he had, so that he's available IF the Sabres REALLY need him to go in; rather than rush him back and have him go woozy on a hit that normally wouldn't cause any problems.

But didn't somebody post that the game was in Tennessee??? Oh, nevermind.

Braden to Bus Driver: Hey, Walt. What are you doing? Bus Driver: Making it look MEAN!!!

Yeah, you've gotta love the internet. 4 idiots or 20 (or whatever, I truly doubt there were more than a handful or someone more mainstream would have picked up this story) cause problems, and there were probably that many (or more - remember there were 4 times as many Canes fans at the 1st game, it just sounded like there were more Sabres fans) idiot Canes fans there as well cause problems, but because 2 people start threads about them, there are soon MANY threads regarding this "problem". Heck it was on "CBS Sportsline" so it must have been a massive problem , yeah, in a respond to the article thread underneath. Good heavens, it sounds like the arena was a bloodbath. Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing the idiots. Just it sounds to me like this "problem" is being wildly blown out of proportion.

Actually, that is the funny thing about this one. The "family atmosphere" part of it. I have never had a problem taking my children to a hockey game in Buffalo. I would never take my kids to a game at the Ralph, well not for a few more years anyhow. IF the Sabres get past the Canes, I will have my kids there for Game 1. As X asked, I am curious as to how the Sabres fans in attendance behaved last night. I haven't heard any complaints about them yet. My guess is, the combination of this being a weeknight game (less chance of a 4,000 strong several hour long tailgate party) and the Canes winning would reduce the likelihood that anyone caused problems. My guess is, again not having been there, that ALL the Sabres fans at Game 1 were loud many had been tailgating and that ticked some Carolina fans off. The fact that there were a few handful that approached the game as a Bills game rather than a Sabres game probably made it seem like there were more bad apples than there were. I've also seen it mentioned that several Canes fans entered the game after tailgating for a while before the game as well and that several came in with chips on their shoulders due to the "poor way they were treated by management". Add that to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. As I mentioned elsewhere, I have never seen the fans of the WINNING team start fights. I've seen some go over board on taunting, to incite fights, but 80%+ of the fights at stadiums / rinks that I have seen have been the result of fans cheering on the losing team getting frustrated that the #@$!#$@! over there won't shut up when his #@$@ team is getting lucky against our incredible team. Nearly all the rest occurred because that #@$@!$@! over there cheering on those lucky jerks spilled beer on me / my wife / sister / whatever and he'll pay @#$@!% for that.

Sorry you had a bad experience. One question, why didn't you get an usher to help you get the guy who was swearing in front of your kid to leave or at least stop swearing? Should you ever be in that situation again, you might want to consider it. Also, I have been to many Sabres - Loafs games, and while most of the fans are as other Carolinians describe them, there are a few bad apples in that bunch as well. I don't tar the entire Loaf fan base on my experience with a few of them. I'm sorry that your experience was such that you now view the Sabres fans as lower than Filly fans. As for the fights, I wasn't there so I can't comment much, but I am assuming the fights weren't between Sabres fans. Could there be any possibility that the fights were started by Carolina fans that were frustrated at seeing their team lose in a building that was cheering as loudly for the Sabres as it was for the Canes? I have never seen a fight get started by a fan cheering for the winning team. If Sabres fans were "taunting" the Canes fans, then it's their bad and I would not be shocked to hear there was some of that, but from what I have heard / read there was a fair amount of violence started by frustrated Caniacs. As for people throwing stuff at cars, that's stupid and it sounds like security took care of it. Lastly, it appears that fans of both teams and regions want to "talk smack". We've gotten quite a few of the blizzard, failing economy, Irish, Polish, Italian, etc., etc. jokes through the years and again in this playoff year. Most of us have developed a thick skin to deal with it. From everything I can tell, your region is doing pretty well. I would suggest you learn to laugh at jokes that you believe are ignorant (bunch of red neck, NASCAR loving, Mayberry residents, etc., etc.) or better yet, just laugh at the people telling the jokes. That's what most of us do.

Yeah, racism is why he isn't in the league. It has NOTHING TO DO WITH TURNING DOWN 2 OFFERS TO HEAD COACH!!! He claims to have been shut out for 3 seasons, but during that time he had turned down an offer from the Sabres to be HC and one from the Bolts. (IIRC, he also received an offer from the Isles to be an assistant.) The reason he is out of the NHL is because he is a pompous dolt that didn't accept opportunities presented to him. It has nothing to do with racism, although I do realize that he has experienced racism.

Typically JD is good (not RJ great, but good), but I think he may have been on medication for the flu or something because he was having a hard time keeping straight which team he was referring to last night. Doc corrected him once and then let the rest of them slide.