PASabreFan

Love it. Or a big save.

Why wait?

This is silly. There's no need to fit in. In fact, I'd discourage it.

THEY are gone. This team is not those teams. It seems like an obvious point, but you missed it. That's the beauty of where things stand, if you can be logical and shed the baggage of past seasons. This team might very well do what those others teams did, but it will be almost 100% coincidence.

The who what.

I like the arena. I always seem to agree with people who rail on it as some dump. But it's fine. I didn't see crumbling concrete, missing cup holders or whatever the usual complaints are. It's clean, easy to get into and out of the scoreboard is good enough, the sound, etc. (and the lighting was tremendous; I was seeing names and numbers I never saw before, unless the flaxseed oil is finally kicking in and straightening out my tear film). What more do we want? I can't see putting $400 million into it. I know, things are expensive. Maybe replace the seats? Redo the atrium? Maybe it only took 25 years, but I had a nice fuzzy feeling about the place yesterday. Isn't that the time frame for feeling nostalgic about a building? The Seneca Building (Seneca One?), the modernish skyscraper by the arena skewered in Leino's T-shirt or poster or whatever, was looking handsome with its new brown exterior. I think I might like the new arena host. She interviewed a fan for the trivia contest. He answered a simple, "Where are you from?" with, "Well, that's an interesting question. I'm from Denver, but I used to live in Rochester." She was right there with, "What is this, a podcast?" Lots of laughs in my section. What the heck was with the delay after each shootout attempt? Live band is a great idea. You can imagine how that could be a fantastic feature if the Sabres ever make that thing they used to make a lot, again. Snippets of RJ calls during the intermission were cool. I always used to like the "live" RJ calls after Sabres goals. It wouldn't work quite as well anymore, what with the circus in town and stuff.

I have to do better planning for any future games if I want to get a glimpse of the great man. I thought I would see him yesterday, but I was sitting exactly at center ice across the way in 306. My view was blocked. Two seats over would have been fine, but of course people sat there. People! And when I did sneak over just after the shootout, I did see a vague figure with white hair. Note to self: bring little binoculars to the finale in addition to a Walkman-thingie. (And extra Depends; I used up several yesterday, unexpectedly.)

One more, for SDS. No way does Jack fit into any of this. Sorry to his fans... it has nothing to do with his talent.

The affection for this team is already remarkable. There were chances to boo, but none came. (Except for the refs and the Yotes' SO shooters.) It felt like a crowd of supportive family members at a squirt game. The tiniest smart play brought cheers. You could feel the team feeding of it, especially in the third. The game presentation staff would be smart to let fans be the star.

I'll have more to say tomorrow. But today was such a delight from the time I took that suddenly cold walk down Washington. A cop let some of us cross to the arena and I thanked him. "Enjoy the game. It's just great to see the fans again," he said. That set a nice tone and put things in perspective. Who are these Sabres? They're the little boy caught on the video board tossing a piece of popcorn in the air and catching it in his mouth. Then, seeing himself on camera, he did it again! I'm on a second date and already in love. Bryson. Cagguila. Okposo. Dahlin? Maybe the old saying applies... you had to be there. An old song kept popping into my head.

I gotta say. So far Sabres PR is knocking it over the glass, with no penalty.

This is a serious hockey team. Let's get serious. Or Don is gonna start kicking ass. Seriously, this is a fail so far. (And let the betting people do their own thing somewhere else.) Not grumpy. I'm going. 40 bucks plus outrageous fees on StubHub just to sit up top. A little surprising. Still a good value. Kyle's letter sent me over the top.