Goalies Against Cancer 2010

Some thoughts (very few, really) about the preseason are coming up later but first a small public service announcement of sorts. I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to Goalies Against Cancer 2010. Goalies Against Cancer is a program organized by a couple of goalie-playing brothers whose lives have been touched by breast cancer. They've put together a number of events for the month of October to raise money for breast cancer research. All the proceeds from everything they're doing will be donated to Passionately Pink for the Cure, which goes to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation.

The reason I know about this is because my older brother Chris is involved in one of the events. From October 21st to October 31st, there will be original sketch cards of some well-known goalies up for auction on eBay. You can see all the ones that have been submitted so far here (more will be added), but here's a closer look at Chris's.

Chris lives in Alabama so he doesn't know much about hockey.  When he

volunteered to be a part of this, we had the following conversation:

"Is Ryan Miller popular?"

"Uh.  Yeah."

Many of us - too many of us - have been affected by breast cancer.  One of my very favorite families in the world struggled through a fierce battle with it over the course of the last year.  If you're at all interested in finding out more information, hit the link above and check out the many ways you can make a donation.  One hundred percent of all proceeds earned are going directly to the cause.  No one involved is pocketing anything.  Expect another reminder as October gets closer.  I'm pretty sure Ryan Miller would be okay with one of you bidding tons and tons of money for his sketch card since it's all going to cancer research.

Hockey is Back? Yay, Hockey!

As you might be able to tell from the last couple of posts, it's been a weird off-season for me and hockey.  I was weary of the whole scene and annoyed by a lot of what people were obsessing over.  So I was really pleased at how happy being in the arena Saturday and Monday made me.  I wasn't even the door before that happiness started to wash over me.  Kids running down the street in jerseys, teenagers playing impromptu games of ball hockey in parking lots, the cold air in the building, hearing coaches barking and sticks slapping pucks, Lindy standing at center ice, players grinning and swirling around in undecipherable drills, fans trickling in, everyone laughing and excited.  That's the good stuff.

A few observations:

I met up with Kate for practice on Monday morning and honestly, there are very few things I can think of that are as relaxing and entertaining as watching the Sabres practice.  I don't know if it comes of not ever playing hockey or not, but I can rarely make sense of the drills they do.  We watched one that seemed to involve three defensemen and about fifteen forwards.  I have no idea.  But after a few minutes I quit trying to guess because it's just fun to watch.  Without the crowd noise, you can really hear the sounds of hockey which are awesome - all those skates cutting across the ice, the pucks rattling around the boards, the players tapping their sticks and calling for passes, the coaches barking out orders.  And minus the game action, I seem to really notice how skilled these guys are.  The eway even the worst skaters on the team skate blows my mind.  The swooping circles, the sharp starts and stops, the defensemen doing their backward zig-zags.  It's all so amazing.  I highly recommend practice if you can get there at some point this week.  (I started this on Monday.  If you haven't been to practice yet, you're probably screwed.  Sorry.)

I don't think of Ryan Miller as one of my favorite players - I'm not sure why because he's awesome, he's interesting, and he's sincere, all things that I like.  But when he skated on the ice for the team introductions at Puck Drop, I was filled with a genuine, warmness and affection.  He's a Vezina winning goalie.  He's a franchise player who seems to have really embraced the franchise he plays for.  All the arguments and complaints that the Sabres would suck without Ryan Miller are pointless because Ryan Miller is a Sabre.  When he pulls on his jersey every day, it has a Sabres logo on it.  I've been watching him for so long now that it's easy to forget that he is legitimately one of the best players in the NHL, the kind of player some fans would kill for.  He's also a really nifty guy.  And he's ours.  I'm going to try not to take him for granted so much this season.

I've blogged a number of times now about how, for me, certain players work into a corner of my irrational heart.  They're not necessarily the best players on the team - I'm not sure they ever have been really - but there's something about them that makes me really root for them to do well.  I realized during Puck Drop and again during scrimmage, that I really, really want Chris Butler to have a strong bounce back season.  I suppose that's partly because it would be nice for the team's performance if he didn't suck eggs, but it's mostly because I just like him.  He seems like such a nice kid.  I don't follow a lot of celebrities or athletes on Twitter - they're either so annoying that I realize I probably wouldn't like them in real life or they're so bland that there's kind of no point - but I make an exception for Chris Butler*.  His Twitter feed is SUPER bland, but I don't know, sweet and non-controversial seem to work for him.  And okay, there's the totally adorable picture he's currently using as his avatar.  I mean... The hat.  Those waders.  How can you not want that kid doing great things on your blue line?  Come on, Butts, I know you can do it!

 Cuteness personified.

Kate, Pookie, Schnookie, Patty, and I have often discussed REFUSING things.  (I'm pretty sure the Ookies brought up this concept first.)  Sometimes there are things - TV shows, movies, teams, players - that you just REFUSE with no real good reason.  It doesn't matter what other people say about how awesome they are.  In fact, sometimes heaps of praise just make you REFUSE something even more.  I've been refusing Shaone Morrisonn.  Now, I do have a few very good reasons for this: He spells his first name funny and funny in a way that makes me want to pronounce it "Shane."  (My spell check agrees.)  I remember there are two doubled letters in his last name but I always want to make them the "r" and the "s," not the "n."  He's a former Cap.  He's also a former Cap who's LOADED with Mike Green cooties.

The real reason I've been REFUSING Shaone Morrisonn, however, is because everyone kept referring to him as "the new Tallinder" or "the Tallinder replacement" or "another Tallinder."  Logically speaking, I know all that really means is that Morrisonn plays a similar style of hockey as Hank.  But emotionally?  No, I do not cotton to that.**  THERE IS NO SUITABLE TALLINDER REPLACEMENT ON THE PLANET EARTH.

However, at the scrimmage on Monday, I noticed him like crazy.  At least three times I thought, "Who is that again," peeked at Kate's roster and realized it was Shaone Morrisonn.  And I've found myself softening on him ever since.  His first name is Gaelic?  Hey, I wanted to name my kid Ewan for a while even though most people wouldn't know how to say it.  That's kind of sweet.  What's that?  He kind of sort of dissed the Caps for not playing much defense while very specifically calling Green the best offensive d-man in the league and not just the best d-man, no qualifier?  Awesome.

So while Shaone Morrisonn is NOT Henrik Tallinder, I'm keeping an eye on him.

And finally, this Mike Harrington story about Jochen Hecht (yay, Yo-Yo!) mentions that Jochen is still doing rehab on his finger.  For some reason that TOTALLY cracked me up.  How do you rehab a pinky?  Little tiny pinky-sized weights?  Push-ups with only your pinkies?  Lots of pinky promises with his kids?  Leave it to Jochen to be adorable.

* Other famous Tweeters I make an exception for: Steve Martin, Nathan Fillion, Shawn Michaels (he tweets like a 15-year-old girl, but I don't know, I'm entertained), Chris Jericho, Roger Ebert, and Carrie Fisher (she rarely tweets though).

** It's been brought to my attention that "I don't cotton to that" is a holdover from my Southern days.  If you don't know what it means, go here or here.

I Just Wanna Have Fun

This is one of those times when I know exactly how I feel and what I'm trying to say but I also know I didn't really capture it very clearly.  I'm posting this anyway though because I'm trying to get back in the habit of blogging somewhat regularly.

My name is Heather B. and I'm excited about Puck Drop and new jerseys.

I've seen a lot of grumbling from both fans and professionals the last week or so about how some fans are so gullible and easily distracted from the quality of the team.  Throw them new jerseys, take their money, and laugh in their faces.  It's an outrage - an OUTRAGE - that Sabres ownership would play that way and it's an outrage - AN OUTRAGE! - that fans would fall for it.

Look, get over yourselves.  Seriously.

Let's be honest.  You and me, the ones who are reading and writing blogs and obssessing over every little breath the Sabres take, we're the freaks.  For each one of us, there are at least 100 fans who couldn't name the general manager, an assistant coach, or a single prospect.  They buy a jersey or a shirt, they turn on the TV or show up at the arena, they watch the players who skate onto the ice, and then they go home.  All they want from the Sabres, maybe even more than winning, is a fun experience, and it makes sense for the Sabres to market themselves to those fans.  I would guess that of the 18,000 people who go to every game there are more casual fans than hardcore fans.  You don't have to like it, I guess, but thems the breaks.  Do you really want to see what the Sabres' budget would be without an influx of money from jersey sales?  I don't think you do.

That criticism is also just annoying.  I'm really excited about the new jerseys.  I can't wait to see them on the players on Saturday.  As soon as I save enough pennies, I'll be buying one.  But I haven't forgotten about the team.  I'm not thrilled with our top six forwards.  I'm a little worried about our defense coming together.  I remain a firm Craig Rivet skeptic despite all the talk about him being 100% healthy.  I wish the line-up had gotten more of a shake-up in the off-season.  I'm perfectly capable of being an excited fan AND an informed fan.  They're not mutually exclusive.

I don't know if things really have gotten more shrill this off-season or if it's always been like this and I just hadn't noticed or been bothered by it before, but it seems like a lot of people are suddenly taking professional sports very, very seriously.  Fans are offended and insulted by the local teams and they're being told they should feel that way by certain media outlets and personalities and well, I don't get it.

By all means, if you're not happy with the product you're getting, stop spending your money.  I got no problem with that.  If I were a football fan, I would have quit watching the Bills years ago, and I understand that some people are there with the Sabres.  But I don't get the drama about it.  I don't love the current Sabres roster but I'm not offended that Tom Golisano wants to make a profit on his investment.  I'm not insulted that Darcy Regier either couldn't get or didn't want any big headline-inducing names here.  The Sabres didn't spit in my face when they bought out Tim Kennedy.  It's just all too serious.  It's sports.  It's entertainment.  I would love, love, love to see the Sabres hoist a Stanley Cup.  Buffalo would have a blast with that.  But it's not going to change my life if they do.  I'm not going to get through college any faster, I'm not going to find a better job, I'm not going to suddenly have a house full of children.  And on the flip side, it's not going to ruin my life if they don't win a championship.  Buffalo is the only pro sports town I've ever lived in (that I remember - those 8 months in Pittsburgh are pretty fuzzy, being an infant and all) so I don't know if it's a sports thing or if it's specifically a Buffalo thing, but Buffalo sometimes wraps way too much of its collective self-worth up in how the sports teams perform.  I don't roll that way.  Golisano not caring about winning doesn't reflect on or hurt me.  Derek Roy and Drew Stafford being satisfied with playing at 60% effort most nights doesn't reflect on or hurt me.  If it does, I'm giving them and hockey too much power.

So yeah, I'm going to Puck Drop on Saturday, and I'm pretty dang excited about it.  I'm not going to analyze the players or how they play in a freaking scrimmage.  I'm not going to pay attention to lines and pairings.  I'm going to have fun.  I'm going to meet up with some folks I only know from the internet.  I'm going to see some friends I haven't seen since last season ended.  I'm going to enjoy being in the arena again.  I'm going to delight in how something about seeing Lindy Ruff on the ice makes it feel like it's officially hockey season.  I'm going to send Jochen Hecht happy, new favorite player thoughts.  I'm going to ooh and aah over the jerseys.  I'm going to revel in the sound of skates cutting across the ice and pucks rattling around the boards because I suddenly really miss those sounds.

Fun.  Hockey is fun.  That's it.  That's all I want.  If you don't like it, well, too bad.

Ding-Dong the Slug is Dead

You can't see me, but I'm currently dancing on the grave of the slug.  I don't know if the leaked jersey photos are real or not, but I do know that there's not a slug anywhere in sight.  I know, I know.  Most people got over the slug by the middle of the 2006-2007 season.  I didn't.  I hated that thing on sight, I hate it still.  I am very proud to say - in a way that totally acknowledges that this is a RIDICULOUS thing to be proud of, of course - that I never purchased anything with the slug on it for myself.  Oh, sure, I bought Mark a few things with the slug.  There's no accounting for taste after all.  (Just kidding, dear.)  (Kind of.)  I have, however, have two jerseys: a red and black Connolly and a vintage blue Tallinder.  All my t-shirts are vintage.  All my random Sabres crap is vintage.  So suck it, Larry Quinn.  I didn't fall for your money grab.

That said, I'm not completely happy.  For those of you who don't spend as much time as I do on Twitter, here's what the new road jersey is alleged to look like:

I hate, hate, hate the silver arm pits.  No one's arm pits ever need to be accentuated.  That's just the way the world works. And I hate, hate, hate the silver piping along the sides of the chest.  The silver doesn't go well with the blue and gold and the curved lines don't match the rest of the striping on the jersey.  Those things seem to exist solely because the Sabres, for whatever reason, don't want to use a straight-up vintage jersey.  But instead of just modernizing the whole thing, they just changed the shade of blue (boooooo!) and added some random lines and spots of color.  It just... doesn't quite mesh for me.

My other complaint, and this one is more nitpicky, is that I'd flip the coloring of the striping on the arms and waist.  I think the larger stripe needs to be blue with the thinner, outer strips yellow.  I don't know, something about that looks off to me.

Bottom line is, I'll buy one of these eventually (though probably in blue on account of how much ice-cream and pop I manage to drip on myself over the course of a season) but I'll buy it mostly because it's what the team's wearing and it's not dog-ass ugly.  A Winter Classic-like jersey?  I'd buy one of them because they're straight up awesome.  (Seriously, how beautiful is this?)  Still, an improvement in my book.  Big time.

Now if I could just say the same about the team.... But more on that later.

Testing, Testing 1-2-3

Hi.  Remember me?

I really had no intention of completely disappearing from the face of the earth this summer, but well, a number of things happened.  Here's a run-down:

1. I decided to go back to school full-time.  As some of you will remember, I took some classes last semester.  After really sitting down and looking at how much I had to do yet, I decided to just take the plunge.  That led directly to...

2. I quit my job.  That's where a lot of my focus ended up this summer.  For all the ups and downs, I loved,  loved, loved my job and I especially loved the little group of boys I had this past year.  They were sweet, funny, smart, lovable little guys so it was really important to me that we have a full, fun summer session together.  On one hand, ending with such a great group was awesome.  On the nights when I feel overwhelmed by how much studying or writing or planning I have to do, I know memories of those guys will remind me why I'm doing all this.  By on the other hand, ending with such a great group was tough and emotional.  Right now I feel like I'm just on vacation but next week when they all go back to school and I don't, it's going to be very, very weird.

3. Hank depression sank in.  Henrik Tallinder signed with the Devils, I put up my funny little "I'm heart-broken" post, I put Jochen in the header and I thought well, that's that.  And then I got really sad.  Honestly, I feel a little silly even writing this because hello, I'm 32-years-old but hey, why quit being honest now, you know?  I completely underestimated how much being the Tallinder fan had become a part of my identity not so much for you guys but for me.  And I loved him.  Irrationally and unconditionally and the truth is, the Sabres aren't exactly loaded with those kinds of guys, at least for me.  I'm really, really hoping to fall in love with some of the youngsters this season.

4. I went on a couple of vacations.  I spent a week in Boston - I have a half-written post about my trip to Fenway Park that I might finish and post one of these days - and then went home to Birmingham for a week.  Both trips were awesome.  You know what, I'm definitely going to throw up a post about the Boston trip at some point.

5. And finally, I just got kind of sick of hockey.  I got sick of the Sabres, I got sick of fans, I got sick of examining every little thing.  I was in Boston when the Tim Kennedy buy-out story broke so I didn't get the full effect, but even what I got was annoying.  Kennedy and his agent did what they thought was in their best interest, the Sabres did what they thought was in their best interest and as so often happens in professional sports, those interests didn't work together.  Was anyone surprised that the Sabres are running on a budget?  Or that that budget is below the cap?  And if so, where have those people been?  The outrage over a guy who will have a perfectly fine NHL career, the outrage every time any player signed anywhere but in Buffalo, the outrage over anything that could possibly be raged about just did me in.  I have a number of friends who don't pay one iota of attention to anything that doesn't happen on the ice.  When the season starts, they turn on the TV or show up in the arena, they cheer for whatever players show up in Sabres jerseys, and then they go home.  I always thought they were missing all of the fun stuff, but there was a point this summer where I really started to wonder if maybe they didn't have it all figured out.

Now, that will never, ever be me.  For better or for worse, I love the behind-the-scenes stuff.  I'm fascinated by things like scouting and drafting and salary caps and budgets.  But I think I needed a break from it.  I love Twitter, and Facebook, and blogging, but those things mean there's no off-season anymore, not really.  Hockey is always there somewhere, ready to be examined or picked apart.  I needed to step back and miss it for a while.

So now I think I'm ready to talk about things again.  I want to be honest up front though, I'm not sure how well blogging is going to fit into my schedule of class, work (eventually), and babysitting.  I'm going to be seeing a lot of partial hockey games for one thing.  There may be stretches where I don't have a lot to say or I don't have a lot in-depth to say.  I don't feel at all ready to give up on blogging though so I hope you'll hang with me.

Let's go Buff-a-lo!

What to Do With Tyler Myers

After much thought, I've decided to forward the following proposal for Tyler Myer's contract extension to Darcy Regier's office.

6 million  for 2012-2017
7.5  million  for 2017-2022
5 million for 2022-2025
3 million for 2025-2028
1 million for 2028-2032
$250 for 2032-2042
$25 for 2042-2047

95,502,625 over 35 years gives us the low, low cap hit of 2,728,646.

This GM stuff is easy peasy.

It Had to Be You

I spent a lot of my evening Monday writing about jerseys: how much I love having one even though they look ridiculous on most human beings, how I'm sad to put away my Tallinder jersey but why I'll do it anyway, and mostly, what my plans for a new jersey are.  The general gist of that last part was that I was torn between plunging ahead with a current Sabre or waiting a while and seeing if any of the kids struck my fancy, particularly Mike Weber who I've been waiting to see up full-time for what feels like forever.  But as I was writing the post I realized that I wasn't torn at all.  It was Jochen Hecht.  It's probably always been Jochen Hecht (after my forever beloved Hank, of course).

There are practical reasons that Jochen works really well.  He has two years left on his contract.  While I think he's likely to be here for those two years, he's probably (look away, Gambler!) unlikely to be renewed after that.  I'd be surprised if that happened at least.  He's kind of the perfect middle-man.  He takes me away from Hank and in three years, maybe one of the kids really will have caught my attention.  And unlike the very impulsively bought Connolly jersey in the back of the closet, I will never ever regret owning a Hecht jersey.  Also in Jochen's favor is the very silly fact that I love the way 55 looks on the back of a jersey.  To my eye, certain numbers look good and certain numbers look odd.  55 looks good.

But really the bottom line is that I love Jochen Hecht.  I like his game, I appreciate his style of play - steady, reliable, and often unnoticed - but I love him.  I've written many times before about how there are certain players who just kind of get under your skin in a good way.  You feel really happy for them when they're playing well and genuinely bummed for them when they're struggling.  In 2007-2008 when most of the team phoned it in, I was so proud of Jochen for playing like he actually cared (and I have documented proof of those feelings).  When he seemed to be a dead corpse skating around on the ice in 2008-2009, I wasn't angry, just sad and kind of bummed out.  I really root for him to play well, not just because he's a Sabre, but because I love him.  I love his quiet play, I love his responsible defense, I love his bashful monotone interviews, I love that not only will he shoot the puck when he's open, he'll shoot the puck when he's behind the net and three players, I love the teeny-tiny smile that pops out when he scores a goal, I love the way he skates off the ice almost as if he's afraid if he doesn't get to the bench quickly, they're going to take the goal away, I love that fact that he's super handsome but totally beneath the puck bunnies' notice.

I love him.  When it came time to do something with the banner, it had to be Jochen.  When it came time to think about a new jersey, it had to be Jochen.  When it came time to officially anoint someone Heather B.'s next favorite player, it had to be Jochen.  I don't know why I ever thought otherwise.

It had to be you.

Final Word On Bucky Gleason (Okay, For Now)

I don't have a lot of time right now - we have a busy day of Elmwood Avenue and Shakespeare in the Park ahead of us - but I did want to quickly point out a couple of things related to my last post.

Since I complained in the comments that no one at the Buffalo News would properly address Patrick Kaleta's arbitration, I'll point out that John Vogl did write a nice little blurb about it on Sabres Edge.  It doesn't really touch on team-elected arbitration keeping Kaleta safe from offer sheets which was the scuttlebutt floating around Twitter, but there are plenty of good quotes from Darcy Regier on why the Sabres went this way, certainly enough to kill the notion that there were any evil intentions or severe disagreements between the Sabres and Kaleta.  Kudos to Vogl.

However, the following day Bucky Gleason hosted an Inside the NHL chat on Sabres Edge.  Here's a Q and A from the first fifteen minutes:

[Comment From Millrtime30Millrtime30: ]  Did I hear correctly that some team was going to throw in an offer sheet for Kaleta, thats why the Sabres are taking him to arbitration?

[Bucky:]

No. He's taking the Sabres to arbitration because he thinks an independent person would give him more money than the standard 10 percent raise. It also leads to a better chance of putting pressure on the Sabres to sign him to a multiyear deal.

Yeah, let that sink in for a moment.

When someone questioned him later in the chat, this time mentioning Vogl's blog, Bucky backtracked, admitted he'd made a mistake (glory be!) and claimed he'd misread the item.  Come on.  Here are a just few small excerpts from the blog entry in question, linked above:

The collective bargaining agreement has a clause that allows teams to take players to arbitration, and the Sabres have elected to use that clause with restricted free agent Patrick Kaleta.

"Electing arbitration, it allows us to ensure a couple things: 1) that he’s playing in Buffalo; and 2) that we have a deal in place within the appropriate time frame." (quote from Regier)

The Sabres were the only team to elect to take a player to arbitration.

Oh, there's also the freaking title of the blog: Sabres elect aribitration on Kaleta

So yeah, I'm calling bullshit on ol' Buckster there.  He can try to explain it away all he wants (and he tried: See what happens when you don't read the paper for what it says, rather than what you think it says? I made the very mistake that many people make when reading my column. They read for what they think it says, or what they think it implies, rather than what it actually says).  I don't believe for one second that he read Vogl's blog until someone pointed it out to him.  And he clearly didn't read TSN's report on Kaleta being the only player taken to club-elected arbitration.  And you know what, even if he did read it, I'd have to worry about someone who could misconstrue information that was so concisely and clearly delivered.

And this is really my biggest complaint about TBN's hockey coverage when you get down to it.  I think there are a couple of talented, informed guys on the beat who also happen to have some semblance of respect for their audience, but those guys are consistenly drowned out by the noise from the ill-informed, condescending voices.

And now I'm putting Bucky back on IGNORE, at least for now.  Thanks for indulging me.

Bloggers Rule, Journalists Drool: Serious and In-Depth Thoughts

I've been trying to avoid Bucky Gleason as much as possible the last year or so, but his most recent column just happens to touch on something I mentioned in passing in my last blog post.  I said that I didn't think the Buffalo News had enough smart talk about the NHL and things that, as boring as they may be, have a huge influence on how a team functions: the salary cap, arbitration, revenues, that kind of thing.  Bucky's whole column is a mess ("Here's a bunch of guys who were good at some point in the last three years.  It was/will be a HUGE MISTAKE to not sign them!"), but the part I have a beef with is this:

Evidence [that expansion has worked] can be found in the salary cap, which is tethered directly to revenue. Many were predicting a $6 million decrease for this season after the economy tanked, but the cap actually increased by about $2 million.

This isn't entirely false.  The salary cap is tethered to revenue.  But it's not really true either.  Based on revenues alone the cap probably would have gone down.  Those predictions weren't wrong.  The reason the cap is going up is because the players' union elected to approve a 5% inflator.  Moneys the players put in escrow in case the actual revenues didn't live up to the projections are being used to push the cap up.  In fact, this is the second year where the cap would have gone down or stayed flat had the players not elected to use the inflator.

Now, is all that tough to explain to a casual fan?  Yeah, maybe, especially in a newspaper column where space is limited.  But there's a difference between simplifying something for the average reader and simplifying it to the point where it's just not true and is, in fact, kind of wrong.  If Bucky can't accurately explain how the cap works, then he shouldn't use it as support for his opinion.  Especially since once you inject the inflator into the conversation, I think you have a debate about whether an increased cap is really good support for the argument that expansion has been successful.  When I read the above excerpt my immediate response is to wonder if Bucky even knows how the cap works or what the inflator is, and that's not a good thing.  Either he doesn't know, he doesn't care to explain it, he's incapable of explaining it, or he's choosing to ignore it because it doesn't fit in with his argument.  Again, no good options there.

I once complained to Mike Harrington that TBN doesn't do enough behind-the-scenes talk, again things like the cap, RFAs, arbitration, that stuff.  He told me that the average person doesn't want to read that stuff, that when the sports department has tackled stuff like that, there's been a lot of disinterest.  I think that's crap.  It's a part of sports.  More and more, it's a huge part of sports.  If you're going to write about Tim Kennedy going to arbitration, or the Sabres taking Patrick Kaleta to arbitration, or suggest that the Sabres buy players out, or talk about cap hits vs. actual salary, and whether and when the Sabres make a profit then I think you have the obligation to make sure your readers know what that stuff means, how it works.  And if you don't think it'll fly in the newspaper, then put it on the blog where the more hardcore fans will find it.  Sabres Edge shouldn't just be a regurgitation of what's in the newspaper and a lot of times, especially in the off-season when there are no game blog or links lists, that's what it is.  Yes, there are a lot of casual fans in Buffalo who just want to know when the Sabres sign someone.  But there are a lot of smart fans who are willing and able to dig in more.  I think the ever-increasing popularity of writers like James Mirtle proves that.  I mean, it's totally crazy but maybe if TBN raised the level of conversation, they'd be surprised at how many fans joined them. 

The bottom line is that when I read local fan-written Sabres blogs, I feel like they have a better understanding of how the NHL works.  I feel like I'm reading smart, informed, thoughtful writing from people who have actually watched a hockey game or two recently.  The season before this last one, I sat in a Sabres chat and explained to two TBN staff members why exactly Tim Connolly wasn't eligible for an incentive-based contract under the current CBA.  Today on Twitter, atleast ten people who I follow questioned whether Bucky knew what he was talking about regarding the cap.  The only good analysis I can recall reading recently in TBN is Harrington's column on the current NHL no-name goalie trend.  It's smart, well-written, and is actually based in the reality of the last few months in the NHL.  Why is that so hard?  Why don't we get more of that?  I don't get it.  For me, TBN is rapidly losing ground to bloggers even though we're supposed to be the lazy, irrational, uninformed ones.  They have the access and for that, I'll stick around.  But more and more, that's about it.

And for the love of all that is right and holy in this world, SHELDON SOURAY SUCKS AT HOCKEY NOW!  Give it a FREAKING rest!

When Pro Sports Suck

I just want to give a very sincere thank you to everyone who's emailed, tweeted, or commented in the last few days.  I also want to thank those of you who wanted to comment but couldn't find the comment button.  I uh, didn't really think about that when placing the black veil of mourning over Top Shelf.  I'll admit, I've had the use of S.O.S. planned for Hank's departure since the trade deadline. It seemed like a funny, over-the-top way to express what would probably be some sadness. I'm glad some of you enjoyed it. And apologies to those of you who had to explain to your co-workers why ABBA was suddenly blaring from your computers. Hee.

The truth is, as silly as the song was, I am genuinely sad, more than I really anticipated being. I had pretty much assumed that Hank was going to be moving on (and I figured it was going to be years more than money that was the sticking point) and I thought, okay, that's cool. I'm 32-years-old and he's a professional hockey player. Professional athletes move on, that's partly what they do. I'm not 9-years-old anymore, you know? But then I saw the first tweet that said "Tallinder to Devils" and well, I was a broken-hearted kid again. No tears (close but not quite) but a sad, heavy feeling that lingered for the rest of the day plus some? Definitely.

The funny thing is, I'm kind of happy about that. I'm a firm believer in that old adage that you cheer for the front of the jersey and not the back. I wish Hank well in Jersey, but I'll happily cheer for Mike Weber in his place next season. I'd drop Derek Roy off a cliff yesterday, but he's a Sabre and I'd rather him lead the league in points than any player on any other team. But the truth, for me at least, is that it does partly matter who's wearing the jerseys, and I'm happy to know that's as true for now as it was when I was a kid. I spend a lot of time here talking about things like the salary cap, small markets vs. large markets, free agency, all kinds of numbers. And while I do find that stuff really interesting and I think there's a lack of smart talk about it in Buffalo, at least from the mainstream media (lots of blogs have filled that gap), the bottom line of being a sports fan, again for me at least, is the attachment you feel to a team and the individuals who make up that team. We can certainly debate how valuable Hank was to the Sabres, whether he was worth keeping or whether the Devils overpaid, but we can't debate this: I loved Hank an awful lot. I can't even really tell you why, I just did.  I enjoyed watching him play, he played a kind of game, I appreciated, but I also just liked him.  I rooted for him to do well and felt an admittedly warped but genuine pride when he did.  I defended him when he was criticized - even when he deserved it - and I liked seeing and hearing him.  And for all the (understandable) focus around here on Hank, I really liked Toni a lot too.  If you asked me to name my three favorite guys on the team, well, that's two of them. While I'm old enough to understand that players don't love us as much as we love them and the league works under certain financial constraints and players move on, it appears that I'm still young enough at heart to occasionally say, "That SUCKS and I don't like it ONE BIT!"  Because speaking purely on an emotional level, this sucks and I don't like it one bit.

I wasn't really planning on changing the look of the blog yet, but when I put the black on, I forgot to write down the code for the blue I was using.  I had been planning on trying out some new templates so since I couldn't get the old look back, I figured now was as good a time as any to look at some different things.  The look that's up now isn't permanent - I hate the yellow background on the text boxes but I haven't quite figured out what to do with them yet.  And while the banner isn't necessarily permanent either - I'm still playing with various photos - the guy in them probably is, at least for this season, even if he rarely ever goes Top Shelf.  Unless it went off the goalie's head first.  But more on that another time.  For now, dude, I'm pretty bummed out.

DO NOT BE ALARMED

If you're here and the blog looks godawful ugly, it's because I'm in the middle of a re-design crisis.  If it's still like this Sunday night, don't worry, I probably just gave up on blogging completely.

Well, That Sucked.

Yeah.