My love of sports began with baseball. Yankees baseball to be exact. I even have the phrase "#1 Yankees fan" embossed on my highschool yearbook.
Then there was hockey,..which is a love that continues to this very day. It's not in my blood like NASCAR is, it doesn't have the american tradition in the heart that football does but there's something that NASCAR and the NHL share. That down-home, glad-to-meet you, parents-brought-'em-up-right, thank god the fans are here kind of love. They appreciate us and we appreciate them even MORE for appreciating us. There's not the bling-bling-attitude like there is in football, there's not the "if I wasn't playing hoops, I'd be in prison" mentality of the NBA. It's, and you'll have to excuse me if this comes off as prejudice because that's not my intent, a sport for middle sized white boys, born and bred in the outskirts of the big city who have a respect for what they do and know that they're privledged for getting chance to do it.
So tonight my beloved Buffalo Sabres will be battling it out in Game 7 with the Carolina Hurricanes. If nothing else, haven't we had enough of freaking hurricane talk as it is??
I love my Sabres. Yes, they are mine. Although I share them with many, I still consider them my babies. I've been with them for years; cheered them on through the bad years, the No Goal-we-got-screwed-out-of-another-one thank you dumb-ass Bettman year (I still LOATHE Brett Hull), and the years when it wasn't even for sure that they'd STAY in Buffalo. So now with all but four of their regular defensemen on the injured list I have to pray that their toughness in the face of adversity attitudes will survive another day. Another battle in the corner, another cross check infront of the net, another press deep in their zone when they can't clear the puck...
Bob DiCesare wrote a great column in the Buffalo News today that sums up how we Western New Yorkers feel about our boys in black:
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060601/1056389.aspSabres, WNY happily share a common fateFor an instant it looked as though Brian Campbell might lose it. For the briefest moment it appeared a tear might roll from the corner of his eye.
He'd just been told there's a perceptible difference in how Buffalo hockey fans have come to feel about their Sabres. No longer is this a community craving a championship merely for its own satisfaction, its own glory. It now goes much deeper than that. This is a town yearning for its players to win a title for their own personal fulfillment. The overriding feeling is that, with all this team's been through, it deserves nothing less than a chance to play for the Stanley Cup.
"That's a nice thing for them to feel," Campbell said. "It shows a lot of respect from our fans if that's the case. We've gone through a lot of adversity this year. I think they've seen how hard we've worked. We haven't given up at any time and they've been so happy for us and cheered us on."
Buffalo sports fans get it, always have, always will. They cheered when the announcement of the scratches revealed Teppo Numminen would be back in the lineup Tuesday night, however brief that turned out to be. They cheered when Carolina's Rod Brind'Amour was tossed from the faceoff circle, knowing draws are more easily won when he's not around. They're totally in tune, fully realize what the Sabres have achieved to this point is unique, special and worthy of their admiration.
That's why today is going to seem longer than the darkest, coldest day in February. That's why 7:30 won't arrive until what feels like midnight. This is it, Game Seven of the Eastern Conference finals, the culmination of a tense, taut and tantalizing series that has brought hostilities between the Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes to a rolling boil. Six games of drum roll and now the cymbal crash, either the sweetest music or the harshest noise.
It's delicious stuff, the ultimate in hockey drama. Lose the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals and at least you had your shot. Lose the seventh game of the conference finals and it's a matter of so close and yet so far, a sick and hollow feeling.
"We're going to give it our all," said Daniel Briere, as if there were any doubt on that front.
Have they really made it this far? With no Tim Connolly and no Dmitri Kalinin? With no Henrik Tallinder and now no Numminen, again? And yet it's the Hurricanes, said to have iced champagne in the visitors' dressing room Tuesday night, who are scrambling, desperate, forced to win to save face, offering up excuse after excuse for why it is they've yet to finish off this depleted bunch. Who knew Raleigh was such bountiful whine country? Meanwhile, the Sabres march on, focused, resolute.
"I think we have the look of this city," Briere said. "We're a team that's resilient. We're a team that's relentless, a team that has to work for everything we get. We've been through tough times, the city's been through tough times. People work hard around here."
The town can see it. Everybody can see it. Even those Sabres clubs of the late '90s, billed as the hardest working teams in hockey, can't measure up to this collection of indefatigable spirits that keeps cashing bets on the long shot, the long shot being themselves.
Thing is, the Sabres want this for Buffalo as much as Buffalo wants this for them. They want to be the team that takes the city off the schneid. They want to see the looks on all of your faces if they get this one and four more to follow. They're determined to keep this magical postseason run alive.
"Yes, we want to win it for us," Briere said. "But it would be so neat, so cool, to bring a championship to this city. We know they've been through some hard times with their sports teams, 20-25 years. There's nothing that would make me more happy right now than to be able to bring a championship to the fans here."NOW, LET'S GO BOYS!!
A sad day in the canine community as Moose, the beloved pooch who played the incredibly popular Eddie on the show Frasier, has passed away.
