Fandom dying by the day.....

[fushetti]

Hello, my name is Fushetti, and I'm a Sabres fan.   

I'm closing in on 40...i'm coming to grips that my hometown teams, Sabres & Bills will never win in my lifetime.   

So this year, post 10 game streak,  I've really been having a hard time with my first love, The Sabres.   Last year was without a doubt (and i'm sure for many of you) the least enjoyable Sabres season for me.   The lottery win kept me hanging on.  Then the streak... i started to feel that feeling i hadn't felt in so long.  Excitement, hope, optimism, OMG PLAYOFFS?  (Jim Mora where are you?)   Then the effing freefall since.   I'm back to square one.   I am back to not really caring.   

I'm really having a hard time justifying any sort of time/attention/money toward this team any longer.   The Tim Murray era on has killed my passion for this team.   I cried the day that the Pegulas brought back old the old player on alumni night in 2011.   I drove in from Albany for playoff games and screamed my head off to the point to lightheadedness when Drury scored against NYR.   I went to Carolina and Ottawa in the ECF's.    I still have season tickets living 300 miles away.   

Just wondering if anyone else feels like me out there.   It never seems to get better as a Buffalo fan.   I've been in Albany since 2003.  I adopted the Red Sox as a baseball team and they've won 4 championships but its not the same as if my teams from WNY won.  (Save it Yanks Fans)   

I'm sure i'll post this, forget i posted it and never see a reply like i always do.   This site really needs a notification system.  

Go Sabres.

[Scottysabres]

Welcome to life as a Buffalo sports fan. I'm near 50, been waiting for a championship my whole life from the Bills or, like yourself, my first love the Sabres.

First things first. Being a Sabres/Bills fan has some real life lessons. You become thick skinned.

Also, as a bonus, your over all life expectations become more in line with, well, real life. After all, why go after the prom queen when the girl who always sits quietly in the back of the class because she thinks she's not pretty enough is readily available. Job promotions? Why bother going after those, just blend in as one of the workers and collect your weekly stipend that's just enough to keep the heat and lights on.

And let us not forget, your "Me Time" starts in mid April, unlike those pesky playoff bound teams.

But most important of all, you have plenty of company to feel deflated with, and not only locally. Oh no, these 2 organizations have gifted you with a nation wide network of Buffalo ex-patriots readily available to "TANK" your sports fandom away with a good old fashion, table smashing kegger.

So remember, the glass is always half full, even if it is filled with warm Labatt Blue since your fridge is off because you don't make enough to pay the power bill.

Enjoy your evening ?

Go Sabres!

Edited March 11, 2019 by Scottysabres

[SDS]

37 minutes ago, fushetti said:

Hello, my name is Fushetti, and I'm a Sabres fan.   

I'm closing in on 40...i'm coming to grips that my hometown teams, Sabres & Bills will never win in my lifetime.   

So this year, post 10 game streak,  I've really been having a hard time with my first love, The Sabres.   Last year was without a doubt (and i'm sure for many of you) the least enjoyable Sabres season for me.   The lottery win kept me hanging on.  Then the streak... i started to feel that feeling i hadn't felt in so long.  Excitement, hope, optimism, OMG PLAYOFFS?  (Jim Mora where are you?)   Then the effing freefall since.   I'm back to square one.   I am back to not really caring.   

I'm really having a hard time justifying any sort of time/attention/money toward this team any longer.   The Tim Murray era on has killed my passion for this team.   I cried the day that the Pegulas brought back old the old player on alumni night in 2011.   I drove in from Albany for playoff games and screamed my head off to the point to lightheadedness when Drury scored against NYR.   I went to Carolina and Ottawa in the ECF's.    I still have season tickets living 300 miles away.   

Just wondering if anyone else feels like me out there.   It never seems to get better as a Buffalo fan.   I've been in Albany since 2003.  I adopted the Red Sox as a baseball team and they've won 4 championships but its not the same as if my teams from WNY won.  (Save it Yanks Fans)   

I'm sure i'll post this, forget i posted it and never see a reply like i always do.   This site really needs a notification system.  

Go Sabres.

We have plenty of notifications: 

https://www.sabrespace.com/community/notifications/options/

You mentioned the Boston Red Sox having 4 championships… Care to comment on the previous 80 years or whatever it was? 

[fushetti]

I spoke too soon about notifications.  My email on the site was from adelphia.net!    

Yeah a whole generation came and went without them winning.  We aren't Boston.  Maybe the fallout from Antonio Brown is still subconsciously in my head.   I just dont see us winning a championship.  Hope I'm wrong

[Kruppstahl]

Hey Fushetti,

I'm right there with you.  I'm a bit older than you but my experiences are pretty much the same; I'm even a fellow Red Sox fan.  I grew to cheer for them some time around 1980 so their years of failure always blended in well with the Sabres and Bills.

The Sabres and Bills are both 2 very middling franchises that have always existed, for the most part, to make up the numbers.  It was supposed to be different now with Pegula and his passion/money to right the course, but unfortunately he has quickly shown to be an incredibly low information sports fan.  

I wish I could say things are now on the right path with the Sabres, but they really aren't.  I don't like Botterill, Housley is terrible, and we don't have a ton of prospects in the system that make you feel happy.

We do have elite talent in Eichel and Dahlin already on board, and both are still young.  That's really good.

We also have Reinhart and he's a pretty solid guy too.  I think Mittelstadt still has a shot at developing into something so there's that.  After that we don't have a lot.

I do think that if we get the right GM, we can progress much more quickly than we have done with Botterill at the helm.

However, I don't get the feeling Pegula will replace the GM, but historically that's right around when he drops the hammer on these guys.

Hang in there.

 

 

 

[Ogre]

You’ll all be fine. JC. Dramatic much? If you think all hope is lost then let some other city have your team...you’ll be crying rivers of tears once you don’t have a team anymore....maybe you guys will get in on the 2049 expansion draft?....

[Jacque Richard]

At least my favorite baseball team won three series. The giants. It definitely wears on you when you see time going by and the sports are floundering. 

[PerreaultForever]

A long time ago in what seems like a galaxy far away I was a young kid and a little group of upstarts called the French Connection upset the big shot Montreal Canadians and I found a relatively local team to cheer for. In the years after it's often been hard to watch. So many soft and disappointing teams and only a few really good years Recent years really really hard to stick with it but it's what you do. This is the time of year many will say they've had enough and some will say they're out, but I guarantee you they'll all be back when we win again.

or is that IF we win again? :)

[Stoner]

Good post, fushetti. This has been one of the cruelest seasons we've endured. I'd put it one rung under 73-74 when a player died during the season.

On top of missing the playoffs after winning 10 games in a row, what might be worse is the GM coming out and saying he knew during the streak it wasn't for real. Can you imagine playing for this defeatist franchise as a serious professional hockey player?

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, PASabreFan said:

Good post, fushetti. This has been one of the cruelest seasons we've endured. I'd put it one rung under 73-74 when a player died during the season.

On top of missing the playoffs after winning 10 games in a row, what might be worse is the GM coming out and saying he knew during the streak it wasn't for real. Can you imagine playing for this defeatist franchise as a serious professional hockey player?

How is that defeatist? It's simply brutally honest. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

Dude,

My first game was the Sabres first game.  I was at the bat game.  I saw the Sabres beat the Dynamo and Red Army.  I remember going to see Randy Smith, MacAdoo, and Ernie D play for the Braves.  I also remember going to the old War Memorial to see OJ and the Bills when I was three.  I sat in Atl and watched the Bills blow the Super Bowl to Dallas.  I was at the Mercedes and watched the Bulldogs blow it against Alabama for the NCAA Championship.

I have suffered and will continue to suffer with my teams.  Someday my Buffalo teams will win one for me. (My Braves and Hoosiers have). I actually trust what Jbot is doing and I don't know if it will bring a championship, but I do know he actually has a plan and knows how to run a team.  Give him the next two years and I think you'll be proud of the result.

Remember the Blackhawks when decades without even being relevant.  Toronto hasn't won anything since 1967 but one Division title.

Edited March 11, 2019 by GASabresIUFAN

[Gatorman0519]

Been a fan since the 70’s.  All time lowest point right now.  

[Huckleberry]

But next year will be awesome ?

[fushetti]

9 hours ago, Ogre said:

You’ll all be fine. JC. Dramatic much? If you think all hope is lost then let some other city have your team...you’ll be crying rivers of tears once you don’t have a team anymore....maybe you guys will get in on the 2049 expansion draft?....

Sorry for your loss....assuming u were a nordiques fan.    I hate the thought of settling for being big league but never winning the big one.  Sounds so Darcy or Ralph Wilsonish.   But yeah sure it's slightly better than not having a team.

[Stoner]

6 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

How is that defeatist? It's simply brutally honest. 

George McPhee would have had every reason to say the same thing about a team that went to the final last season. Just seems like a curious thing to say to the media, especially when his team STILL wasn't out of the race. Almost like he was justifying not making a move before the Montour trade. It kind of became a self fulfilling prophecy.

One question: when Jason says "we're not there yet," what is "there"?

[mjd1001]

I follow the teams by watching the Bills on TV (most games), don't attend anymore.  

Sabres, I used to watch most games on TV, but we just got rid of cable so not anymore. I follow the team by watching the condensed games online and following these forums and news on Twitter and talk radio.  That is it.

I used to be a Bills Season ticket holder and went to 10-15 Sabres games per year (over a decade ago). No more.  Its not just the team losing. Its the lack of scoring (I don't appreciate a 'good defensive battle' like others, I just want scoring.)  Its also sports in general...there really is very little I see that I haven't seen before.

If the Bills and Sabres were better and more exciting I wouldn't' be fading as fast, but I'm just not as into sports now as I used to be.

[SwampD]

Eight freakin’ years. Do you know how difficult that is?

I mean, It’s like we were trying to lose.

[fushetti]

34 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Eight freakin’ years. Do you know how difficult that is?

I mean, It’s like we were trying to lose.

I had no beef with the premise of the tank, it was the execution.   

[dudacek]

11 hours ago, Gatorman0519 said:

Been a fan since the 70’s.  All time lowest point right now.  

Is the above because of the below?

2 hours ago, SwampD said:

Eight freakin’ years. Do you know how difficult that is?

Because I don’t see how this is worse than we we were last year at this time, or the previous year at this time.

Just the fact we have years of Dahlin to look forward to makes it better for me.

Edited March 11, 2019 by dudacek

[LTS]

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Cue the tank discussion.

Cue the Because Buffalo discussion.

Cue the management sucks discussion.

The problem is not the team, it's the fan.  The fan thinks the team is better than it is and then gets mad when it's not. The fan can't accept it when a GM says BS to a win streak despite the stats all indicating that Buffalo was getting lucky. The fan ignores that reality and instead thinks the team is better.

The fan is wrong. But the fan doesn't care.

[sabills]

I'm going through this year with the Sabres what I went through a few years ago with the Bills. I was so obsessed with them, had so much energy and emotion tied up in that team, that I needed to kill the fan within, and then regrow it from the ground up. I stopped watching games, stopped listening to the radio, stopped reading every damned article about that team, and let my fandom die. Then I let myself have a little access back to it. I'll watch a few games a year, but the second I start feeling that frustration welling up inside I now give myself permission to stop watching and do something else that's more fun. Its made watching the Bills palatable and, sometimes, even enjoyable again, even though the team is still horse****.

 

Going through it this season with the Sabres now and whooboy does it suck. But it will hopefully make the future watchable for me.

[...]

My brother died last Thursday from cancer.  He was a life-long fan: I became a Sabres fan through him.  We shared a room in our ghetto home for 7 years when we were young.  His entire side of the room was plastered with Sabres posters, articles, pics, pennants.  Even the ceiling.

I'm so angry that this piece of s%^t organization does not honor, or even seem to realize, what it means to us plebeians.  51 years of being a fan and not one taste.  This last decade has been horrible.

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

Is the above because of the below?

Because I don’t see how this is worse than we we were last year at this time, or the previous year at this time.

Just the fact we have years of Dahlin to look forward to makes it better for me.

I think people are still comparing this team to the great team in 05-06 that featured 11 guys with 12+ goals, including Campbell who had 12.  However the top line talent on this team is at least as talented if not more so.

Who would you say is better Jack, Jeff, Sam and Dahlin or Vanek, Briere, Drury and Campbell?

The big difference is 4 lines of depth at forward and 3 solid D pairings with guys who actually could play D in Teppo, Tallinder and Lydman.  

I believe that Jbot is honestly trying to build that kind of depth and is getting there despite recent results.  

The 05-06 team caught lightning in the bottle. DR trading was masterful (Grier, Briere, Teppo, Lydman, Drury, Hecht and TC.  We also hit on many later rd players like Kotalik, Goose, Miller and Campbell, plus the kids, because of the lockout, developed together in Roch.  

This team’s lack of the depth is a direct result of not hitting on any later picks (besides Ullmark) and TM’s failed trades.  It takes years to overcome those failures.  Stealing guys like Pilut is just the start to fixing those errors and getting this team back on track.

 

Edited March 11, 2019 by GASabresIUFAN

[SDS]

4 minutes ago, ... said:

My brother died last Thursday from cancer.  He was a life-long fan: I became a Sabres fan through him.  We shared a room in our ghetto home for 7 years when we were young.  His entire side of the room was plastered with Sabres posters, articles, pics, pennants.  Even the ceiling.

I'm so angry that this piece of s%^t organization does not honor, or even seem to realize, what it means to us plebeians.  51 years of being a fan and not one taste.  This last decade has been horrible.

Sorry to hear about your brother. Cancer sucks.

FWIW, even if you handed out the Stanley Cup to every team, in alphabetical order, the most cups we could expect is between 1 and 2. The fact that they haven't won one is not that remarkable. 12/31 ~ almost 39% haven't won one yet. Which means only 19 have won it and many of those teams are older than the Sabres. 

[dudacek]

30 minutes ago, ... said:

My brother died last Thursday from cancer.  He was a life-long fan: I became a Sabres fan through him.  We shared a room in our ghetto home for 7 years when we were young.  His entire side of the room was plastered with Sabres posters, articles, pics, pennants.  Even the ceiling.

I'm so angry that this piece of s%^t organization does not honor, or even seem to realize, what it means to us plebeians.  51 years of being a fan and not one taste.  This last decade has been horrible.

Sorry to hear about your brother.

Outsiders might say our love for the Sabres is trivial. Maybe it should be, but it’s not. As I get older, I think about this too, how our fandom binds us and what a cup would mean to so many.

I just want to be here (on Sabrespace and on this earth) when it finally happen.