LTS

I bought a ticket for Nov. 8th, just in case. Section A18, Row 12. - Buffalo Sabres Fan section.

I am trying to coordinate with SDS, but I am interested in potentially buying one from you at least.

That's why i asked for him to support his position. I agree with your statement. I don't like others telling people to look things up. If you care enough to speak up, care enough to support it. Regarding Trump, thank you.

Telling someone to look something up themselves is not in the best interest of how this forum should operate. If you want to make a claim you can provide the substantive proof that supports your claim. Your reference to US Education Weekly would be much more useful if it included a link to the information you are quoting. It provides the citation that allows us to work from the same base of information to have a discussion. Teachers have very little leeway in what they can teach, what books they use, etc. The deteriorating education system is deteriorating because of the Dept. of Education's desire to standardize every child's learning into metrics. In order to standardize one needs standardized tests. These tests require curriculum that must be standardized and as such the individual teacher is left with very little left to choose from. That said, teachers are generally more liberal because the liberal person also generally performs work for the greater good as opposed to personal gain. Given the status of teachers within our current society, I would venture a guess that there are very few professions as a whole that can be classified as serving the greater good over personal gain. Also, in accordance to how this forum should operate, there is no need to refer to President Trump as you did. ----------------------- Bottom line, there are valid points of discussion to be had in this thread. Let's work to make the valid points, support those points, and bring the level of conversation up to where it can be.

What do we become if we begin to segregate among ourselves? Are we left to attack each over the amount of suffering one fan chooses to incur over another? What does it accomplish? In the end, are we all not fans? Or are some people better fans because they want to suffer and feel miserable over something they cannot control? While that's your prerogative, perhaps it's best to not keep jumping into threads with what seems to come across with no other purpose than to antagonize people. You can't be surprised by the response you get when you change your avatar to yet a 3rd team since you've been here and then begin to tout how you are just going to roll with whatever team can entertain you (from your prior living locations). So, if you want to give those little jabs, you should expect jabs in response.

Yeah. I think I am only in for 1 game and I will do some site seeing a few other days.. because this will be the first time I've been to Europe since I was 3 and spending time on a military base in West Germany. I don't get to travel enough... sigh.

What is this pre-sale thing? Basically digital ticket scalpers? So, is there any kind of group buy or are we flying solo?

I'm not sure which I would want. I would definitely want the first game as a priority. The second game... maybe. I'm also thinking what else I could do in Sweden with that money ?

I might mix and match to NYC as well. DC flights seem to be a bit more expensive. All the things I will worry about after I have a game ticket (or tickets... anyone interested in both games?)

Yeah, if that's the best plan then I am game for it. The flight from ROC is $800.. so basically playing $400 just to fly to NYC. Seems... excessive. SDS - I can absolutely go for that. But I honestly don't have a clue what the ballpark price is on these tickets. Are they $100/300/500? Well, I found this from last year for the games in Finland. I would imagine they would be similar. I'm probably good up to 200 euro level but would prefer to spend less. ? Tickets cost 89 / 99 / 139 / 199 / 235 euros

How would we manage that? I still have no idea what tickets will cost for the game, but having a group of tickets would be excellent. Tickets go on sale Wednesday 3.27?

Deals involving beer are perfect. ? Especially if you happen to like anything I make myself. ? Wonder if I should aerate first... I'll hit you up though.

NIce. I have Prime. I will check it out. Especially if they let you download episodes so I can watch on while I am flying in a week.

Indeed. If there is a group from here it might make sense to get a schedule together, like we do for SS meetups. Yeah.. I hope so. I'm not loving it about going without my wife, but she's not going and she actually insists I should make it happen. (and it's not about getting me out of the house)

I have not seen it.. not an HBO subscriber. I am aware of it. You know, it's not really processing feelings about death for me. I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps it's more about appreciating what is happening in life in the context of what you think would not be missed if you were dead.

It is the Ricky Gervais one. And crap, I might have watched the last one and not even known it... sigh.

Had to cut the pictures to be nice. You wanna bring that thing north into HFL/Mendon? I need my lawn beat to hell. ?

I have a full green light to pursue this. I'm not booking anything until I have a ticket to the game (or tickets to both nights if possible). I will fly out on 11/6 and return...... perhaps Mon/Tue of the following week. I have no idea what i will do.. but as long as I procure a ticket, I am in. Unfortunately for my son, that's varsity hockey tryout week. So he's out. My wife just can't make it happen. So I am going solo. But yeah, if people from here are going, awesome. BTW: the flight I looked at was from NYC. I'll research the add-on to get from ROC to NYC, but if it's stupid, I'd drive a group to NYC to catch the flight over. $377 today, round-trip NYC to Stockholm. that's insane.

Watching After Life on netflix. It is the show I needed to see right now. I feel like it was written specifically for me. It has changed me.

Since I came back from a hiatus to discuss Swedish games.. I perused the board and found this. I was at this game with my son (his birthday present). The hitting, by the checking line, certainly brought the crowd to life. The following shift, by the "skilled" players, kept up the level of intensity and the crowd fed off that. It was stated somewhere in here, it's not the hitting. The hitting should be done by those who are supposed to hit. The skill players should be playing tenaciously. It was probably PA who said something about "giving a ****". That I agree with. I think it's hard for them to care right now. They know they are going nowhere, pride or otherwise. This team has to learn how to play with about 3 levels more intensity than it does now. And yes, the atmosphere inside the arena was pretty special at that moment. It harkened days of watching the Sabres route the Bruins, or watching them slap the Flyers in the playoffs. Sure, the players feed off the energy of the fans. The fans feed off the energy of the players. It's a symbiotic relationship. But only the players can play the game... they are the spark.

Yes. I am researching this very thing. Flight from NYC to Stockholm is pretty reasonable. (sub $500) Sheraton just up the road ($173/night) Just need to know what tickets to the game cost. --------------- And yes, this announcement was enough to bring me back because we had discussed at the SS Meetup.

Fair enough. I'm out.

You have experience playing games at Lincoln Park? Oh, you mean on a team that is more experienced and talented? Right. Makes sense. The claim was that he was a bad influence on the younger players, St. Louis doesn't have the same locker room. Last year, on this date., the Blues were 37-27-0-5. This year they are 36-26-0-7. Certainly O'Reilly has more points, but the Sabres had the worst offense in the league last year. St. Louis was slightly better. Through nearly the same number of games the Blues have scored 10 more goals this year over last year. At this point last year the Sabres were 31st in the league. They are 24th. No matter how you slice it, that's an improvement of 7 slots. The Blues have improved from 24th to 19th. That's decent improvement, for a team that brought in O'Reilly, Bozak, Perron, Maroon. The season hasn't finished and teams trend, but on this date, the facts are the facts. It's all sour grapes. Accept that the Sabres have improved. Accept they haven't improved as much as you wanted them to. But don't deny that they are improved. People now want to dismiss the Sabres 10 game win streak. If you do that you should dismiss the Blues streak. Without it they would be back in the basement of the league as well. Well, and without Jordan Binnington who is racking up some seriously impressive numbers in net. 16-4-0-1, .928SV and 1.81 GAA. That's 3rd best GAA average in the league of goaltenders who have played ANY number of games. You know the only other regular starter for a team that sits close to him? Ben Bishop, the goalie who beat the Sabres last night who has a .932SV% and a 2.08 GAA My last thought. I see people talking about how the Sabres need 6 forwards and some D and goaltending and in the same paragraph are calling for the coaches head. I find that interesting. So the coach should be winning despite the Sabres needing to improve 45% of their roster? Let's not discount that the Sabres had chances last night. The puck didn't go in. You put that game in the middle of a 5 game stretch where they go 3-2 and no one is really complaining. You put it after a game where they lost 3-0 and got blown out and people change the narrative.

The fat breaks down and drains away. You don't grab a hunk of it and chew on it. That is gross. Brisket is not a meat you cook in under an hour.... or even 2 hours. Despite this concept of "boiling" the brisket.. I'm not going to do that.. ever.. to any meat. It's going to get braised and slow cooked for a long time. Unless health dictates diet constraints I live by the "everything in moderation" mantra. I eat red meat perhaps once every few weeks.

So what happened? The thing that happens to young teams and exactly what Botterill and Housley preached. The game tightens up. The better, more seasoned, teams don't drop off the map like the younger teams tend to do. The Sabres haven't learned that yet. They are still too young and they have too many holes to fill to overcome it. Look at the Blues, they are pretty much the exact opposite of the Sabres. One can point to a coaching change, one could point to to Jordan Binnington (I have done both), but they are also a very seasoned team. A team that knows how to pull through bad stretches. What did Okposo say about a month ago? This team is still too emotional. There were players that were too high during the streak and once that ended and the losing set in they let it compound on them. The team, overall, just does not have the mental maturity to grind out a season. This isn't anyone's "fault" per se. It just happens to be that you can't flip the roster that fast all the time. The team is under performing a bit from where I expected. I think the loss of Berglund made a big difference in the Sabres being able to shutdown the other teams top line. There are a few other factors in there as well. People will point at Berglund and blame Botterill for trading ROR. I'm done debating that. But the fact is, Berglund was a player that formed a good shutdown line and then left the team. That's, as far as we know, something that was unpredictable. Disappointed? I am. I'm not depressed about it. I can understand how the team got to this position despite it not being where I would like. I expected them to be a little bit better but I did not expect the playoffs. I thought it was a possibility, but not a high probability. The team has not been successful that is true. What has the team done that makes you think it should be more successful than it is at the moment? The team has been mismanaged. I have no control over it. I can't go back and undo what has been done and I can't impact what will happen in the future. The amount of money and time I invest in the team is commensurate with their level of achievement. That's really the crux of my argument. I don't get that upset because they aren't worth getting that upset over. I guess a lot of fans are like the players Okposo described. Too high when they win and too low when they lose. When I say the problem is with the fan I think of situations like the Bills losing 4 straight Super Bowls. Right now, a fan would probably look back and say, man I wish they could be in a position to lose 4 straight again. At the time, the fans were reacting to the Bills losing a Super Bowl much like they react to the team having been so crappy for so long. In one scenario the team was highly successful and in the other the team has been a model of futility and in both situations the fans, eventually, were tired of excuses and reasons. Their responses sounded similar despite a team that had continually finished 2nd versus a team that finished out of the playoffs. I cut a lot of your post because i only wanted to address the last part. It was a very good post. The ownership aspects of the franchise are very real to the situation the team finds itself in today. I accept it however, because i can't buy the team. It's what happened. Through it all, I can say, at least there are still teams in Buffalo. As for the children.. I don't think the impact is as great as people think. Despite the negative outcomes, parents fandom tends to rub off on children. My son, who just turned 15, has shown no desire to stop being a fan of the Sabres. He still gets annoyed when he can't watch a game due to some other conflict (including his own hockey practices). He's an example of one, to be certain, but I don't think he's unlike many others who become a fan of a team because their parents were fans. Some kids will straight up find another team because of friends, or whatever. But I don't know how much team success plays into that.. maybe I am wrong.