Marvin

GMKA is going to have to face facts: he needs to expend real assets to get a couple more goaltenders into the system.

Thank you, everyone, for your support. I want to give everyone my current interpretation of my situation, but it is becomes overtly political no matter how hard I try not to. Thus, I will post later in the politics forum.

I believe he was on the great Bruins teams of the late 1960's to the early 1970's. Bought a few things from him over the years. Nice guy.

As someone whose views on patriotism were shaped by Vietnam and Watergate, I try not to question other people's patriotism. I also try not to use patriotism as a shield. Also, I have never seen anyone here attack someone for being patriotic. Just remember that your definition of patriotism may not be universal.

The last day when everyone thought of me as an American because I was born here was 10 September 2001. Since then, I daily see people looking at me with suspicion and fear. My wife was called a terrorist sympathiser at work. I had death threats put in my mailbox. I had season tickets to the Sabres and Bills. Midway through the first quarter of the next Bills game, a security guard came down to me and a friend. He told us to signal for an escort if we wanted to get up. I had been on TV during the pregame and several death threats had been phoned into the Bills' main line. He pointed me to at least 10 guards at the top of the stairs. At the first Sabres game after 9/11/2001, there was a fight near my section. The next game, there was extra security. A guard met me at the entrance to the arena and escorted me to my seat. I found out that three men had intended to grab me and throw me out of the upper bowl into the lower bowl. The ushers and men in the area defended me as a real Sabres fan. Then the fight started. The three people who had threatened me were charged with attempted murder. The people who defended me were not charged. The were extra guards in sections 312-314 the entire season. When Bush 43 ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, I found out an old friend was working in Kandahar with the civilian population. When I told me Dad, he told me that his father's family's farm village from before India's partition was near there. He had me tell my friend how anyone can escape through the mountains into Pakistan if they were captured. Sikh temples throughout Pakistan were ready to house Allied escapees. I will be honest. When I heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I thought it had to be fake. When I saw the carnage, I knew it had to be Bin Laden -- three years before in a news magazine, there was an interview with him entitled, "This Guy Is Dangerous." I also knew that my life was going to get worse. My Dad and I talked about me learning Urdu and Arabic so that we could go to Waziristan to kill Bin Laden ourselves. Interestingly, Buffalo was the top 300 city with the fewest anti-Muslim incidents for the few weeks after 9/11. In the years since then, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Baha'is, and others moved to the area from other parts of the country. All of the congregations of our local houses of worship doubled or even tripled within a year. People in several local immigrant communities were told that Buffalo was a good place to live because of this.

My brain has a short circuit. Every time I hear "Super Trooper", all I can see are Anni-Frida and Agnetha in my head. Perfect timing since the new music came out.

Not much that I know of. Certainly nothing that you couldn't find in other places.

He made a name for himself by accurately reporting what happened in negotiations during the 2004-5 lockout. He often had information before anyone else.

Even non-credible rumours are welcome.

I am using it as a psychological ploy to create emotional distance between Eichel and the Sabres in my brain; I do not mean to disparage him. Whether or not it is working is above my pay grade.

Some questions: 1. Why only 60,000 seats? 2. Why not more suites? 3. What about club seats? Or are there going to be 60,000 club seats?

<politics>I wish the NHL would boycott.</politics>

I keep improving, but I am starting to despair that I will get my stamina back. I am hoping the work schedule and lock downs are responsible too.

Good luck, man. I am still not 100% after 20 months.

Sorry I am late. Assuming that Eichel has been, understandably, disgruntled for at least a couple of years, I see nothing wrong with GMKA initiating or having trade talks about him. I think they decided to explore their options. I infer that those who asked the Sabres about Eichel balked at the cost. Given how poorly the season went, it can't have surprised anyone that Eichel wanted out. If Eichel did not have the injury, it is almost certain that he would have been dealt by now. If the season had gone better, the people I know think he would grouse about the surgery, but the situation would not be toxic -- but he might still have wanted out. I think the disagreement about the neck injury was the clichéd straw which broke the camel's back. Everyone I have spoken with thinks the only ways things turn out better is if the Sabres had traded Eichel before training camp or the Sabres had threatened the playoffs. Once his neck became an issue, trading him for a fair return became unlikely. GMKA being a rookie GM also plays into this: everyone else thought that they could stampede him into a bad trade; some still think so. I think GMKA could have played it better by being amenable to short term cap dumps, although I heard that the opposition to pure cap dumps came from T&KP. I personally would have allowed for useful but overpaid players to be part of any trade as long as the bulk of the package were acceptable; i.e., be less concerned about "blocking" youth.

I really, really resent the first paragraph. My logic to supporting the franchise on how they are handling Eichel is crystal clear and provable from my point of view. Proof below. I don't care that every other fan base is piling on; they want the Sabres to be bad and look bad, so their opinions are immaterial. I don't care what the media think. They get their juiciest information from players who don't want to be here and teams which want the Sabres to be bad. The dice are already showing snake eyes from them. I also don't care what players' perceptions are because the analyses mooted for them are too short-term in view. Moreover, most already don't want to be here, so the situation will not get significantly worse. And they have a LOT to gain from either the Sabres caving or a legal decision in Eichel's favour. Not to mention that is a potentially precedent-setting situation which is mind-manglingly complex and every side has solid arguments for their point of view. No resolution is likely to be easy. From my contacts in the hockey media and my brother's friends in some NHL front offices, I am well aware of the perception of the Sabres. Among most players and media, it is worse than *you* think it is. Amongst upper management and the owners, their appears to be grudging support for the Sabres --somtimes only because of the ramifications of the Sabres caving in to Eichel or a legally binding resolution which has Eichel get his way with the Sabres on the hook. There was NO way the Sabres could have come up looking OK to players once GMs gave their offers because the resolution was either going to be a ROR-level trade or it was going to drag out like it is. It was straight-up lose-lose. Therefore, IMHO, the primary concerns had to be: Premise 1. The Sabres should do only what their doctors and medical professionals think is the most prudent course of action. Premise 2. The Sabres should not permit any medical procedure not covered by insurance. Premise 3. GMKA should not trade Eichel if all the offers he is getting are the crap rumoured. He needs to not be a patsy for the other GMs and to do the best he can to get a fair return for Eichel. Thus... Claim: the Sabres should deny Eichel the surgery he wants and not trade him until the offers are passable. Proof: The medical staff can not find evidence, let alone proof, that the surgery Eichel wants is effective, safe, and durable enough to withstand sticks to the neck, violent checks, elbows to the head, etc. By premise 1, the Sabres should go with the medical procedures which are acceptable to the team's medical staff. We also know that several third parties consulted by Eichel himself agreed with the Sabres. Because of the lack of evidence for the safety and efficacy of the surgery Eichel wants, the consensus of the medical staff and a majority of third parties consulted, and that the surgery has not been done, we may infer that insurance will not cover anyone for said procedure. By premise 2, the Sabres should not allow the procedure. The only offers for Eichel which other franchise's leaked out in the media for Eichel have been somewhere between risible and insulting. We also have been told GMKA's asking price. The two ends are not even close. By premise 3, GMKA should not have traded Eichel yet. Hence, the current Sabres actions so far are correct from my point of view and they deserve my whole-hearted support. QED

The Sabres took a bath in red ink this year. A gigantic money grab may be in order for a couple of years until the team is competitive again.

I think this implies that Eichel was trying to make his resultant team better by trying to make GMKA take an ROR-type package to make the Sabres as bad as possible.

I found King's Gambit, Queen's Gambit, the Sicilian Wing Gambit, From's Gambit, several Marshall Gambits, Evans Gambit, and many other gambits, but no Eichel's Gambit. What is its ECO code?

To quote Mr. Spock, "fascinating." IMHO, this is good for the Sabres and Eichel because Fish was trying too hard to get him on the Rangers.

When I was a kid, the cats and dogs in our neighbourhood used to watch us play hockey on a frozen "rink" in our back yard. We would sometimes find them knocking the pucks we had around the ice and into the goals.

Who is still available?

He is thinking about adding to it to capture "the universal Rick."

Jack doing his Queen Victoria (?) voice: We are not amused.

Please have him live long enough to at least see the playoffs again.