RochesterExpat

Unfortunately for my standing on this board, my dad stopped going to Bills games when beer hit $1 which was sometime in the early 80s (I guess? it was before I was born is all I know). For the record, to this day he is adamant that beer should not cost more than $1. I kind of appreciate his stubbornness. He's an Amerks season ticket holder and he won't buy beer at Amerks games either because it's more than $1. Says a lot. Anyway, my maternal grandmother and her sister held Steelers season tickets since the 1970s. She ended up transferring them to my uncle and his wife around the time I was in middle school(ish?). His wife refused to go to any game that was "too cold" so I grew up going to Steelers games and became a Steelers fan--much to my father's chagrin. I'm also a Pirates fan because my grandparents would take me to Pirates games in the summer. On the flip side, I never went to a Penguins game, but I went to plenty of Sabres and Amerks games. Hence how I'm a Sabres fan. I just became a fan of whatever team I would see play in person. I've got a soft spot for the Bills, but I'm not a Bills fan. Granted, I've watched so little football in recent years I can't call myself a Steelers fan anymore either. There's also more to my criticisms of football than simply the excessive number of breaks and stoppages. There's the related note of games taking too long. When I was a young 20-something bachelor, I had no problem sitting on my couch for four hours on a Sunday to watch a football game. Now that I've got a family, it's easier to justify watching a hockey game on a week day after dinner than it is to justify taking up my Sunday afternoon to watch a football game. There are just other things I'd rather be doing at this point in my life. There were other things from the last decade that built up over time too and I'm sure if I sat here longer I'd think of a bunch. I was a big Penn State fan, but Sandusky happened and I virtually stopped watching college football as a result. I got less invested in football in general after that just as a side effect. My point is it's a lot of things that played into to it, but it was one minor thing that just turned the switch off in my brain because I felt the games themselves just weren't that interesting anymore. I don't think the quality of the on-field product is there. Hell, I watched two football games last season. I watched the Buffalo vs KC divisional playoff game and the Super Bowl. I only watched the Super Bowl because I was on a cruise ship and they had it projected on the pool deck under the stars--so that was a cool experience. But the divisional game? Man, that just reminded me not to watch the NFL. That was a great game that was ruined by garbage OT rules that had been garbage for a long time. Yes, I realize those rules have since changed, but it took ruining a QB duel of the ages for the NFL to do something. It's silly. My only contribution to the Buffalo Bills 2022-2023 thread was after the Titans game which I tuned in for about half of and my entire comment was: "I'll be honest, I don't really follow the Bills, but I did tune into this game and... holy hell." I'm glad the Bills are fun to watch and I'd love for Buffalo to win a Super Bowl, but I'm just over football. I'll stick to hockey, baseball when I'm working in the garage and half paying attention, and IndyCar when I've got nothing else. I don't mean this on a macro level of the season as momentum-needed-to-score, but on a shift-by-shift basis during the game, momentum certainly matters. Anyone who has played sports competitively knows the feeling where you feel you can suddenly just takeover a game because the adrenaline rush of something happening. You can pretty quickly lose that if the other team answers. My perspective on the excessive breaks in professional sports is simply that we take that away from the athletes and, if I played in those circumstances, it would drive me nuts. I think it diminishes how exciting the games could be as a result. Again, just a personal viewpoint.

I like this stat because it feeds my personal bias about "momentum" being the key factor in individual games. Which also feeds my biggest complaint with football and why I went from religiously following football to watching maybe half a dozen games in the last 4 years. I got fed up with football after watching a meaningless game on a Sunday between two teams I cared so little about that I only remember one of the teams was the Oakland Raiders. Anyway, the game was tied in the late 3rd or early 4th quarter. Raiders' QB throws an interception. They showed the sidelines and the team that intercepted it was hyped. Players jumping up and down. QB grabbing his helmet from the bench to get out there... Then the play was reviewed which took 5 minutes only to say "yeah he caught the interception." After the review, they cut to a 2 minute commercial break. By the time the offense took the field it was nearly 10 minutes from the interception. All the momentum was gone and I turned the game off and just stopped watching games after that. I realize it's kind of weird, but I hate to see game changing moments like that squandered. I hate the NHL offsides review after every goal. Hell, even PBR (Professional Bull Riders) now has challenges and reviews on whether you can stay on the bull for 8 seconds and make a clean ride or not. You get one challenge per team per match with zero penalty for a bad challenge. For those of you not following PBR, team matches are 5 riders vs 5 riders with the team with the highest aggregate rider score winning. Considering teams average like 1.2 or 1.5 successful rides per match, literally every successful ride is challenged because the odds are good the team won't have a second successful ride. It's stupid. It's bull riding. It's already subjectively scored like figure skating. Move on. Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

My guesses: Owen Power woke up and chose violence today. I'm saying 1G, 1A for him and at least one highlight reel moment. He realizes he's an NHL player and belongs here. Krebs will get his first of the season as well since he apparently realized last game that it's OK to shoot the puck on occasion. Mitts hits the net instead of the post this game. He gets a goal. Probably a slick one too. TT rides his high from last game and sets up Owen Power's goal, then adds one of his own. [Cozens - Peterka - Tuch] will be the eye-test best line, but "only" get one goal because of terrible puck luck. The goal will be one of the three just willing the puck into the net too. Nothing fancy.

And we’ve started to see this transition. We’ve gone from last season’s pretty blanket “it’s okay to make mistakes” to addressing on-ice performances with changing ice time, limited press box time and continuously shifting lines. That’s not to say DG doesn’t expect mistakes or that he’s punishing players, but there’s an added layer of performance expectations this season mixed with experimentation. It’s the logical next step. I don’t know if DG can win a cup (no one does), but I trust him at this point to get the most out of young players and inspire them to play aggressively. I’m not sold it’s enough to win a cup, but I don’t see anyone else I’d rather have in Buffalo leading the locker room at the point in time either.

Are people really upset by him already? He makes mistakes, sure, but he's also a rookie playing an insane number of minutes every night with a revolving cast of linemates. Treating them equal in measure to the mistakes Risto was making 6 years into the league at 25 years old is pretty silly to me.

Speaking for myself, I'm certainly exuberant, but not irrationally so. I expect this team to be exceptionally streaky, but end with a positive season (on the whole) and it's the latter bit that excites me. Lack of consistency is a generally accepted consequence of younger players in the lineup. Younger players typically (emphasized for the pedants among us) take time to reach that night-after-night consistent and predictable play level. Buffalo is not there yet. That is perfectly fine with me. So long as this team doesn't quit or have extended losing streaks, I'll remain happy. In the ideal world, we "normalize" and play predictably by the end of the season.

I’ll need to ask the Boss, but I don’t think it was Saving Hope. That name doesn’t sound familiar.

People are still on the Cale Makar bandwagon from last season, but Makar doesn't take over games in the same manner that Dahlin does. Granted, I accept that could be because Dahlin is playing with less talent in Buffalo than Makar is in Colorado, so standing out is a little easier. However, the differences in immediate on-ice impact are noticeable.

We got a new puppy! He is an 8 week old Border Collie and Great Pyrenees mix. We got him on Saturday from a local rescue. My dog passed away in August of last year (Belgian Malinois) and it took a while before I was ready to get another dog. We made a list of breeds that satisfied our requirements which were basically: - Must be good with kids - "No small dogs" - Will let us know when someone is at the door - Not going to chase/kill chickens or goats (my Malinois jumped out of my truck window when I was doing 40mph to chase a rabbit once so I didn't want to risk another one with chickens). Border Collie was on the 'small' side and Great Pyrenees can be a bit tough to train, but we saw this guy and decided to see how a mix works out. He will be an indoor family dog. Between 8pm and 8am, he was 7 for 7 on letting us know he needed to go outside to go potty. The first night he was 5 for 5. During the day we're about 50%. Honestly, I can't complain about that for an 8 week old pup (plus we have stamped concrete flooring so it's easy to clean unlike carpet). He's also learned already the clicker means treats. Not a bad start.

Well I'm going to bed. Goodnight y'all.

Fitz doing a good job just being annoying.

Pretty weak trip. Still a trip though.

Second time this year Cozens has scored by being the stronger player in front. Love to see it.

Yikes

Way ahead of you there.

That was a terrible pass back to Skinner by Power.

Nice try by Peterka there.

The quality is not good. It's not just you. I went from projector to TV because I thought it was the projector. It's just as bad on the TV.

VO is playing better tonight. The rest of the team isn't though.

Power has had three passes where he saucered them or put the puck on edge and it wasn't intentional.

It wasn't a comment on his speed. Just his skating style.

Power is a ridiculously smooth skater.

Well it was fun it lasted. Time to rebuild. Sell the franchise. Fire the coach. Etc.

Just need a spark from someone stepping up.

Very flat footed tonight.