Why Is Buffalo a Great Hockey Town?

[IKnowPhysics]

Give her a piece of your mind. Give her some insight into why we are who we are. Give her indisputable evidence and anecdote as to why the Sabres make you rock out with your out.

 

Link: http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=151074

 

 

 

 

This is the email I sent her directly (I'm not signing up to respond message board style):

 

Dear Kara,

 

Outsiders' conclusions about Buffalo being a great hockey town are often drawn from the connection to our chief import (lake effect snow), but the truth behind our hockey worship lies in the lives of us, the people of Buffalo.

 

We grew up watching the sport religiously, watching our beloved Sabres and others on local and Toronto television. Not a day between September and June went by without a televised game. Before our parents taught us to walk, we were being taught -or indoctrinated, depending on your home team- in the ways of the game by our grandfather-figure of sports broadcasters, Sabres play-by-play announcer Rick Jeanerette. As soon as we were up and walking, we were stick-handling, and then not even the snow-day-enducing 5-foot "dusting" on Valentine's day could stop us from emulating our blue and gold heroes out in the side street or on the neighborhood pond. By age twelve, we hurled criticisms at televised referees' bad calls that would make Craig MacTavish blush.

 

As the "City of Good Neighbors," we've banded together and survived through some tough times. Blizzards, ice storms, steel mill closings, unemployment, failed public works projects, corrupt public officials, industry-enhanced cancer rates, fate-defying Super Bowl impotence, municipal bankruptcy, loss of dear sports franchises, and atrocious urban decay, just to name a few, have all tested the community mettle at some time or another, but each and every time, we collectively remove the foot from our community groin, smile, and keep eachother alive. Sports commentators often label our hockey club as a blue-collar, hard-working, resilient team. Sometimes I wonder if they know they're conciously including the 18,690 seventh men in the building or the population of Erie County past and present in their analysis.

 

The proud people of Buffalo can't help but to fall in love with a team that believes what we believe. We love our Sabres because they play the way we work and live our lives. They embody our ethics in the game we love. They project our community spirit onto a 200- by 80-foot, Zamboni-sculpted alter.

 

I wish you well, and I hope that our responses might uncover something more for you than material for an entry in a weekly column.

 

Regards,

[Two or less]

I hope Sporting News actually sends her to Buffalo so she can see first hand, and not just read people's accounts and watch the games on Center ice before doing the article.

 

How crazy would it be for the Sabres to be the cover boys of a Sporting News mag? lol

[Doohicksie]

Because when a contingent of us traveled to Houston to watch the Bills play the Texans, one thing we had to do while we were down there was find a sports bar that had Center Ice so we could watch the Sabres play on Friday and Saturday nights.