BMWR100RT

Thanks for a great commentary during this race to all. I appreciate the high road most everybody took regardless of your position. Took my 18 year old daughter to vote for her first time. Saw two things of interest. Guy with a "Grab America by the P#SSY" hat (looked like a clone of Make America Great Hat) and an elderly woman declare she had waited all her life to vote for a woman and she didn't need the cover for her ballot. Pretty crazy day. Anyway, enjoy this: https://www.facebook.com/News8WROC/videos/10155359367104386/ Take Care All.

I was guessing that is what you meant. One of the great sports moments watching with my two sons. And you are right about Deslauriers.

"All Star fiasco" - Ha!.......Matter of perspective. Some of my favorite Sabres played every game like it was going to be their last (see Adam Mair, Patrick Kaleta, etc.) with marginal NHL talent. John should be proud of his career and I hope he does wind up in a broadcast booth.

I felt this way as well. A few lapses, but the dominant team IMHO. Time to put on my sunglasses the future is so bright.....

Had that exact bike. I modified it heavy eventually putting 10 speed handlebars on it. Thanks for posting. Haven't thought of it in years. My mind is over 50.

I enjoy this thread immensely. But for the record, the GOP lost it's way when Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority got Reagan into the white house http://www.salon.com/2014/02/22/reagans_christian_revolt_how_conservatives_hijacked_american_religion/. The contract with America was just the next level. Between "Trickle-down", ignoring the AIDS epidemic, "Star Wars", its my opinion no other president had as big an effect on our government. I lived through it and it was a dramatic change for the worse. I spit on the ground when I hear his name. (well....mentally anyway).

Fantastic. Concise writing that puts you right there. Josie, you have a way of writing that just entertains. I hope a better situation for you still offers enough weirdness for you to write about.

I drop in every couple of weeks to see what you kids are up too.....always entertaining. Seeing so much sadness makes me sad. I'm sorry and I wish you all some smiles. My complaints seem silly.

Hoss....thanks. Sorry for you. I know I'm gonna cry every time and I watch it anyway. Penny, Jane, Mom, Dave........you are all still alive.

Is it OK to just proclaim "no cell phones" because that was the thing that best makes my youth better than today's. "Get off my lawn" indeed!

Come of age in the Schony era. I wanted to grow up and be just like him. Even had that hair style in HS.

I'll add that I like him simply because he isn't Darcy. Apparently his fax machine works.

Can I say that I was having a crappy day and this and the comment that inspired it made me laugh out loud. Well done and especially thank you.

Sidney Crosby scoring the game winner in the first winter classic was just so right for the game. Rob Ray is just so cerebral.

I moved into my house right before the Dallas SC finals. I left my wife every game night with my 1 year old and watched the game on one of those big crappy projector TVs at the local bar. Two or three beers and dozen wings and life was really good. I highly recommend this as an alternative to high cable bills. I'm not sure how my wife feel though.

This. I was just reading an article about Vietnam this morning and its horrors. I was born in 61 so I grew up in its shadow but I remember the evening news and the protests and body counts. Thank you for your service anyway. And This. The neatest thing is to hear my own father who I had heard use the words "draft dodger" when I was a boy say to me from his nursing home how we had lost a great man in Ali. That is the greatness.

Just read this entire thread. Jeesh. "Humanity is always going to be humanity, by that I mean, any chance to have a party/parade will be exploited to an extent because as a society that is our human nature." Is this the time to ask if a moose knuckle is like a camel toe? Thanks for your service everybody, especially those we memorialize.

Great discussion. The reason I loved Schoney was he was an awesome leader. Anybody roughing up the french connection was going to only do it once. He played hard all the time. Those 70s were some fun times.

It took me far too long to find Scotch. It's now my go to beverage. Just a glass or two, sipped over the rocks. Not having to get up to pee away beer all night especially when I'm camping and dealing with much less cooling needs (yes you can drink it warm) are all pluses. "try an islay, namely Lagavulin or Laphroaig or Ardbeg" - This. Ardbeg is my fave. The other two have a slight "tire fire" ruggedness that isn't for all, kind of like a seriously hoppy IPA isn't for everyone. I like them both, but if you want to go down the islay road, start with Ardbeg.

Rent a bike at Fishermans Wharf if the weather is nice and ride across the GG bridge to Sausolito instead. It's not hard and really fun. Put bike on Ferry and ride back past Alcatraz. Usually if you haven't pre-bought tickets to Alcatraz they package other stuff to make it really expensive or are sold out......I could be wrong. Bike ride is awesome.

I wasn't trying to get on the stat sheet, but I had that story to share for years and the good reading of this thread inspired me to drop it. Last night I was sitting at my Dad's retirement home having dinner with him and a bunch of seniors. Some lady that looked like she could have been old enough to be Seymour Knox III's wife blurted out "who's watching the Sabres tonight?" from another table. I yelled "I am!" much to the annoyance of the others. After dinner was over I saw her and we talked hockey before I raced home to catch the Sabres/Rangers. Being the Myopic fan I texted a buddy when we were down 3-1 "We got them (Rangers) right where we want them". I was jacked when they tied it, but then my phone lit up shortly after.....ha! The romance of hockey for sure.

He was great when teamed with RJ. A true gentleman with great hockey knowledge. I miss him on the broadcast.

Great thread. What is it about the romance of hockey........ I was ten when the Sabres were an expansion team. I was lucky as I had some new neighbors who had moved from Chicago and were giant Blackhawk fans and were passionate about hockey. The family had four brothers and I was between the ages of the two youngest. They had a farm pond about one hundred yards from their house. By the time I was 11 or so, lead by the older brothers, we were stringing every extension chord we could find together and running a little pool filter pump so we could flood the ice at night. That hard fresh ice the next morning was magic. I was a lousy skater but I didn't take crap from anyone. Often my skates would get so froze up with slush I'd put my runners on and walk all the way home crying. My mom would put me in the laundry tub and spray hot water on the laces so she could untie them. She would put my skates on top of the furnace. I can still smell that combo of leather, sweat and fresh outdoors rising off the drying skates. The neighbor kids all started playing organized hockey, but our family didn't have enough money. That didn't stop me from playing hard and one of the kids would work with me on skating backwards and gave me pointers he had learned from his coaches. Meanwhile, we had a WT Grant department store in East Aurora and I got a little transistor radio there. I listened to as many games as I could and often fell asleep only to run upstairs in the morning to ask my grandfather to read me from the Courier Express what the final score was. When Terry had bought the Sabres and was talking about listening I sat in my office at work with the door closed and I couldn't stop the tears. I especially remember the Montreal Canadiens Ken Dryden pad measurerment game. I was watching the game on a black and white TV and remember feeling every emotion of sports in that one game. I couldn't sleep that night. I was hooked. Meanwhile I hadn't been to a game. Our family was happy, but in looking back there is no doubt we were hardly wealthy. Four kids, Dad working two jobs, mom making my sisters clothes, wasn't the recipe for seeing the Sabres. My Dad wasn't a sports fan, but my Mom loved the Bills, and while she never found the love of the Sabres I did, she grew up off Hertel Ave and was as true a Buffalonian as you can get. My Dad had just started a new job with NYSEG. They were running new electrical service in the Aud and his contact gave him two tickets to game 4 of the SCF against Philly. He let my mother take me. So yes, my first Sabres game was the fog game. We had a crappy Polaroid camera and film was expensive so my mom only let me take three pictures. The quality is bad but to me they mean everything. I'm 14 and I am sitting with my mom on the ice right next to the players entrance. I loved Schoney and I tried to take his picture as they walked out of the players entrance. I obviously missed. But I got a picture of him on the ice. Lost in the accounts you read is that the Sabres were down two goals, tied it up at 2, again at 3 and 4. It was almost too much for me. When Rene Robert scored in overtime it was absolute bedlam. I've been to some great games played over the years but nothing will ever eclipse that moment. I remember they had a monitor on top of the TV cameras and they had frozen the goal on it and people were nuts. We sang the "Ooh Ahh Sabres on the Warpath" chant (kids, remember it starts real slow and gains speed) and I could have cared less that I was with my mom. I thought we would win a Stanley cup many times in the next forty years but it matters to me little. I've watched nephews play the game and made the trip from Rochester to see the Sabres many times and I go to my share of Amerks games and I still feel the passion. I get frustrated, but the game is always beautiful. Go Sabres.

I have a sister who drove my parents crazy and the music she listened to at the time included Bowie. I couldn't like him because I thought somehow he was a bad influence on her and it was tough to see my parents suffer from her bad choices. And then I saw him on TV doing Little Drummer Boy at Christmas with Bing Crosby when I was about 15. This was a time when music was filled with over produced music that begged for the real rock and roll of the Clash, Ramones, Television, Brian Eno, Nick Lowe, Buzzcocks, Joe Jackson, Pistols, Elvis C and so much other stuff I loved. In reading many interviews at the time I was struck how many true artists mentioned Bowie as an influence. I started listening. And hooked I became. In a world of formulas and invented stars, there are very few true artists that just don't fit any mold. Ashes to Ashes, Funk to Funky.

Things that are awesome......the last two pages of this thread. In this day and age of negative media and doom and gloom, reading this just puts me in a happy place. Happy New Year to all you kids.