The other sports thread

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Since they (the Blue Jays) took that big rip (apparently) at that guy and missed they are frozen.

Not a playoff team in 2024 at this rate.

Edited January 3 by Sabres Fan in NS
more goodly ..

[#freejame]

Tennis is really good these days. I really want to see Medvedev win this, I love watching him play. 

[#freejame]

Turns out I still only like losers 

[ubkev]

The Knicks have won 9 in a row and they're about to lose to the freaking Lakers. The Lakers are awful. 

[SwampD]

Just watched the Bandits/Knighthawks game.

It got me thinking, though. When was the last time the KBC saw 17k for a Sabres game?

 

[Taro T]

On 2/7/2024 at 3:35 PM, SwampD said:

Just watched the Bandits/Knighthawks game.

It got me thinking, though. When was the last time the KBC saw 17k for a Sabres game?

 

Barn was full a few times at the end of the season last year.

Opening night this year was pretty well attended too IIRC.  (This season everything's kind of blending into itself, so that could be misremembering.)

[KC Scouts]

On 2/7/2024 at 3:35 PM, SwampD said:

Just watched the Bandits/Knighthawks game.

It got me thinking, though. When was the last time the KBC saw 17k for a Sabres game?

 

Actually......10 times this season so far at KBC........ https://theathletic.com/nhl/team/sabres/schedule/

[Night Train]

On 2/7/2024 at 3:35 PM, SwampD said:

Just watched the Bandits/Knighthawks game.

It got me thinking, though. When was the last time the KBC saw 17k for a Sabres game?

 

 $1 Beer Night 

[SwampD]

12 hours ago, KC Scouts said:

Actually......10 times this season so far at KBC........ https://theathletic.com/nhl/team/sabres/schedule/

That number actually surprised me, then I looked at some of the opponents.

[#freejame]

2 hours ago, Night Train said:

 $1 Beer Night 

As if Terry would do something to give back to the fans. 

[Taro T]

19 hours ago, KC Scouts said:

Actually......10 times this season so far at KBC........ https://theathletic.com/nhl/team/sabres/schedule/

 

7 hours ago, SwampD said:

That number actually surprised me, then I looked at some of the opponents.

Don't forget that announced attendance number is sold (distributed, back in the Rigas era) tickets not ACTUAL in rink fannies in the seats attendance.  Would estimate THAT happening would be more like 3-4 games so far this season.

[shrader]

I’ve lost track of AHL affiliations. After just hearing that Cleveland is the farm team for Columbus, it got me thinking. Columbus has a population almost 3x as high as Cleveland (no idea how the metro areas shake out). Are there many cases in sports where the big league team (Guardians) are in a city that much smaller than the farm team (Columbus)?

[Buffalo Super Fan]

2 hours ago, shrader said:

I’ve lost track of AHL affiliations. After just hearing that Cleveland is the farm team for Columbus, it got me thinking. Columbus has a population almost 3x as high as Cleveland (no idea how the metro areas shake out). Are there many cases in sports where the big league team (Guardians) are in a city that much smaller than the farm team (Columbus)?

Yes but Columbus is a terrible professional sports town. It’s a college town with no real history in professional sports. And if it was up to me I would move the Columbus Blue Jackets to Cincinnati renaming them the Cincinnati Stingers in a new arena. The NHL made a mistake with Columbus it’s just not a good professional sports town. Cincinnati you can grow the game more into Kentucky in my opinion. Go Sabres! Let’s Go Buffalo 

[Buffalo Super Fan]

On 1/3/2024 at 5:14 PM, Sabres Fan in NS said:

Since they (the Blue Jays) took that big rip (apparently) at that guy and missed they are frozen.

Not a playoff team in 2024 at this rate.

As a Buffalo Bisons fan the Toronto Blue Jays have to be one of the dumbest organization in sports when it comes to player evaluations. Last year they gave away catcher Gabriel Moreno to the Arizona Diamondbacks. This year the Blue Jays are at it again they gave away utility man Otto Lopez to the San Francisco Giants. I am glad I am a Buffalo Bisons and New York Yankees fan over the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays are a terribly run franchise that squanders player assets in my opinion. Go Bisons! Let’s Go Buffalo 

[Buffalo Super Fan]

On 2/7/2024 at 3:35 PM, SwampD said:

Just watched the Bandits/Knighthawks game.

It got me thinking, though. When was the last time the KBC saw 17k for a Sabres game?

 

The Buffalo Bandits will always be more popular because they win consistently championships and their lower ticket prices. The Buffalo Sabres have a ticket pricing problem for the number of games they play and seats available. The Buffalo Bandits are like the Buffalo Bills limited amount of games once a week so the games have more value compared to 82 hockey games. When the Buffalo Sabres renovated Key Bank Center the Sabres need to reduce the capacity back to 16,500 again. 19,000 seats is too many for this size of market. So the Sabres tickets have no real value or demand compared to the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium days. The Sabres failed making that arena too large for this markets market size in my opinion. Go Bandits! Let’s Go Buffalo 

[Night Train]

NCAA Tourney had 2.7 Billion bet on brackets 

While hockey and football are my primary sports to follow, the Tourney is still the greatest playoff format ever.  Saw Oakland knock off Kentucky and Dayton make this incredible 24-4 closing run in the last 7 minutes to beat Nevada, who thought they had it won. A great watch, IMO. Especially when ones hockey team is failing yet again. 

[That Aud Smell]

The Shohei Ohtani story is bonkers.

The weirdest part is how both Shohei and his interpreter initially copped to Shohei having wired millions of dollars to pay off "the interpreter's" gambling debts. Mmm hmm.

Then a day later, Shohei does an about-face (maybe the interpreter does as well?) and says that the money was actually stolen from him.

The simplest  most scandalous explanation is that these are in fact Shohei's gambling debts and the interpreter is just a fall guy. If that truth were to come to light, this could end very badly. If dude was wagering on games that his team played in, he'd have to be banned for life. The guy's currently the greatest player in the world and could have a chance to contest for being the greatest of all time. Incredible.

 

Edited March 25 by That Aud Smell

[#freejame]

1 hour ago, That Aud Smell said:

The Shohei Ohtani story is bonkers.

The weirdest part is how both Shohei and his interpreter initially copped to Shohei having wired millions of dollars to pay off "the interpreter's" gambling debts. Mmm hmm.

Then a day later, Shohei does an about-face (maybe the interpreter does as well?) and says that the money was actually stolen from him.

The simplest  most scandalous explanation is that these are in fact Shohei's gambling debts and the interpreter is just a fall guy. If that truth were to come to light, this could end very badly. If dude was wagering on games that his team played in, he'd have to be banned for life. The guy's currently the greatest player in the world and could have a chance to contest for being the greatest of all time. Incredible.

 

Until the FBI presses charges on the terp, it’s a cover-up. 

[That Aud Smell]

The facts as they're now emerging seem to make sense. The initial confusion over Shohei "saying" one thing about hoe he agreed to pay for his friend's gambling debts, and then doing a 180 a day later, is apparently a product of the fact that the guy who was stealing his money (to pay for his gambling debts) was Shohei's translator/interpreter and was therefore speaking on Shohei's behalf as an initial matter. What an incredible mess.

I keep thinking of the irony of legalized gambling. Days gone by, everyone smoked cigarettes everywhere but gambling was verboten -- something a local mob capo might run as a racket. Nowadays, everyone gambles everywhere but smoking is verboten. In both cases, the government was/is there taking its cut from the sales of a legalized vice.

[shrader]

4 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

The facts as they're now emerging seem to make sense. The initial confusion over Shohei "saying" one thing about hoe he agreed to pay for his friend's gambling debts, and then doing a 180 a day later, is apparently a product of the fact that the guy who was stealing his money (to pay for his gambling debts) was Shohei's translator/interpreter and was therefore speaking on Shohei's behalf as an initial matter. What an incredible mess.

I keep thinking of the irony of legalized gambling. Days gone by, everyone smoked cigarettes everywhere but gambling was verboten -- something a local mob capo might run as a racket. Nowadays, everyone gambles everywhere but smoking is verboten. In both cases, the government was/is there taking its cut from the sales of a legalized vice.

It helps a ton in spots like this when you can play the “no speak English” card. 

[That Aud Smell]

20 minutes ago, shrader said:

It helps a ton in spots like this when you can play the “no speak English” card. 

I guess?

If he's merely playing that as a card and there's more to the story (e.g., he was involved in the gambling), it will come out. And things would go very badly for him, in that case.

I get the sense that he's telling the truth. Just a hunch.

[French Collection]

2 hours ago, shrader said:

It helps a ton in spots like this when you can play the “no speak English” card. 

I am not a baseball fan so I don’t know how good his English is. Hasn’t he been in North America for a few years now?

[That Aud Smell]

39 minutes ago, French Collection said:

I am not a baseball fan so I don’t know how good his English is. Hasn’t he been in North America for a few years now?

It's improving, apparently. He understands enough such that he sensed something was amiss when he listened to his translator "explain" the problem to his teammates in the clubhouse -- that is, he sensed that his translator was lying.

Edited March 26 by That Aud Smell

[shrader]

4 hours ago, French Collection said:

I am not a baseball fan so I don’t know how good his English is. Hasn’t he been in North America for a few years now?

Yeah, I don’t think it’s possible to be in a locker room for 162 games over multiple years and not pick up a good understanding of the language. Keeping the translator around though is a very nice layer of protection though, a smart move. 

[JujuFish]

I hope Ohtani is clean. He is one of the greatest players baseball has ever seen, and I'm sure a hero to many Japanese kids (and others, of course).