Archives for February 1, 2011

‘"It’s a situation I’d rather not talk about," said Ruff, whose contract expires following this season. "They were gracious in what they offered me."’

‘Golisano and managing partner Lawrence Quinn, a minority owner, will hold a press conference Thursday about the agreement, but Pegula will not be there.’

‘Golisano isn’t willing to say anything more about the impending sale until Thursday, when he’ll hold a press conference with managing partner Larry Quinn.’

‘The Buffalo Sabres today announced that Tom Golisano has reached an agreement to sell the Buffalo Sabres and its related companies to Terry Pegula. The agreement, completed at 1 p.m. today, is subject to certain closing conditions including review and approval by the National Hockey League. It is expected the NHL review process will take several weeks to complete.’

‘The News has learned Golisano gave Regier a two-year extension, a deal the team has never announced. The contract’s total value is believed between $2 million and $2.5 million.’

‘The sale price is said to be $175-million plus another $14-million in financial liabilities Pegula will assume, which is not bad considering Golisano paid just a little more than $60-million in cash when he bought the Sabres in March of 2003. Quinn, who will get around $14-million as a parting gift, said Monday he would like to stay involved in hockey, perhaps at the amateur level.’

‘Ryan Miller said, “I suppose it is hard not to wonder what things will be like because it does look a little more serious now. It’s still business so until everything is signed and they announce it with a press conference and they run their flag up the pole and it’s their ship, it’s gotta be status quo in what we do here and the way we run things.”‘

‘“Today we went as hard as we thought they could handle for being the first day back,” Ruff said. “We’ll have a real hard combative day, we’ll have a real good system day and we’ll have a special teams (practice). Mixed in there will be patches of some scrimmaging. Having the extra time I don’t think is something we need with having the amount of days we already had, but at the same time, with a couple of guys being sick, it’s going to give us a few days to get them back.”’