LTS

The last time I went, the one side of the scoreboard (the side facing us) wasn't even working. You could not hear nor understand the announcer and the music was so distorted that I swear my ears were bleeding. While I generally agree with you on the cold beer and hockey (and the temperature), I do prefer to not suffer measurable hearing loss from attending the game. Granted, I had just survived our Vegas SS meetup so Sunday was a SLOOOOOOW day for me and I was overtired but man... it was pretty awful. I'd think to think that it might help pack the barn a bit and having more people in the arena will help.... if they aren't able to pack BCA for a playoff game then I weep for us.

As much as I despise the in game presentation of the Amerks and their horrible sound system I would be interested.

:flirt:

It's almost like there are 8 games left in the season and they might want to give one final evaluation to players before they make off-season decisions. But I know the response to that... "They should already know what they want to do and if they don't they suck as talent evaluators and leaders and should be fired." To which I would say... you have the people who are on the team. You might as well keep tinkering and see if you don't find something new that might show you something you hadn't seen yet. And the response to that is some kind of "blah blah old dog, new tricks crap."

Of course you have a problem with it. Because you wouldn't just wish the guy well, you'd find a way to twist a phrase and knock someone down a bit. You want help interpreting the phrase (you did ask after all). It means that when you are diagnosed you can certainly give up and almost certainly you will struggle more with the treatment. You may give up all hope and still beat it. However, if you are strong against it. If you don't give up you will give yourself a better chance to beat cancer. It doesn't mean cancer isn't a full on bitch and it might kill you anyway. It just means that your best odds are to remain upbeat about the prognosis of beating cancer and stay committed to that.

Interesting that you phrase it this way as though there is something disingenuous with how I approach things. I find it amusing that you feel that being negative is somehow "honest". Just because I am looking for the positive does not mean there is no negative. It only means that I prefer to not go full Eeyore.

If Housley walked in the room at the beginning and took a team whose core had just been through many changes and have had a few bad seasons and just started yelling at them what do you think would have happened? My suspicion is that they would have tuned him out. He would have lost the locker room and things would actually be worse than they are right now. At this point he's earned the respect of the players. They have established the relationship and he can effectively use that kind of messaging to get his point across without the team tuning him out. As for wasting the breath, if you are in the moment and all 20 guys are there then you have to address all of them, even those who won't be here. Given how people are attacked around here for things I would suspect that most former players would like to keep that information private. If I were a former player I am quite certain I wouldn't want to deal with posters who might begin to pester me for information about what really happened inside a locker room and then tell me I am liar because it didn't fit their narrative.

Hilarious stuff right here. Earlier in the year, when Phil Housley was happy, everyone would be like "Housley is too soft." Now he says that and it's like "He's just saying it, doesn't impress me." It's a team of players who have nothing to play for at this point, despite what they say to the media. Sure they have to show up and play the game but every damn one of them is a liar if they say the games mean as much to them as they would if they were in a playoff battle. The point of getting on their case is that they still need to actually perform. Just curious, have either of you coached a team or managed people? If you have, have you never experienced a moment where you just have to get in a team's face and try to snap them out of whatever moment they are in? Sometimes you need to take a stark contract approach to get someone's attention. Having managed people it's the same way... your team usually works hard but some days a person just doesn't have it. You've got a find a way to try and motivate them. Sometimes it results in the basic command, "Stop your damn moping and get it done." As for why you waste breath? Think about that. You are basically insinuating that Housley should pack it in. Show up on the bench... walk off the bench and not care anymore. That would set the best tone in the locker room I am sure. I bet no one on this board would roast him for doing that.

I'll be busy at a beer tasting... we're doing barleywines... it won't end well. So... best of luck to the Sabres tonight and for all those fans who are waiting for the team to suck it up again. Do yourselves a favor and find something positive to do on a Friday night! For those who are just there to watch a hockey game, I hope it goes well for you!

Did we talk about his book on here before? Now that you are mentioning it I feel like that might be part of why most of what I had been reading felt familiar. I'll go hunting for the book (which usually means, I open the Kindle app and search).

Wow, that's from 2013 and it was never brought up when he the Sabres acquired him? Ugh. That's pretty bad.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/clint-malarchuk-bleeding-out This was posted today. It's not an easy read. Pretty sure a lot of his struggles have been posted about before but this brings a lot of it together and in his words. There are a great many things that can be said about this but the only one I can speak to right now is that Clint Malarchuk most lucky moment of his life was finding the right woman to be his wife.

I've had friends and relatives go through this and have witnessed only the external impacts on a couple. I didn't like that and of course the internal impacts are so much greater. This is one of the more horrible things in life that I wished never happened, to anyone, ever.

By all accounts this has been the primary skill of nearly all Sabres players over the past few years hasn't it? Yay Rochester?

I didn't want to spoil it for you, but wait until season 3, episode 7. The writers just put the finishing touches on the script.

But are you prepared for when he struggles and everyone starts bitching about how he should have stayed in school? :)

The Sabres, it would appear, are like their fans.

Given the way we manage to judge and convict players around here after 20 games I wouldn't worry about burning a year. After all, if he's not scoring at 3pts per game by his 5th game no one will want to sign him after his ELC.

Sweet.. more hockey. Hopefully I will be able to catch a good portion of the game tonight. Looking forward to it!

Rinne made the game appear to be a blowout. It certainly wasn't one. A few bounces that go in (like Forsberg knocking a puck out of the air, through a defenders legs to a teammate for a goal) and the Sabres not having that same set of fortunate bounces and the game ends up 4-0. The last goal was an ugly one, no doubt. I think Ullmark let in two overall that were clearly bad on his part. Sabres were up against it, playing the hottest team in the league right now. They showed, but goaltending was the difference. It's interesting because a few weeks ago they were up against the Panthers who were the hottest team in the league at the time and they were blown out 5-1. The biggest difference in the two games was that Buffalo looked completely outmatched in the Panthers game. I hope that Botterill and Nelson's agent have had discussions already. It would be nice if they can sign him because if he moves on from Buffalo it will really hurt the team. If he signs then I think the recovery of the D takes a major step forward.

But National Secretary Day is... Well some calendars. I know what you are saying but I think it's not really our fault if people don't find pussywillow antics entertaining.

Cinco Dr Mayo, Dingus Day, Oktoberfest... There are probably others. It's open season I think. I don't need a holiday to find a reason to drink. :)

I saw this on NHL network last night and just read this article on it. https://www.bardown.com/hockey-player-skates-final-college-hockey-shift-on-a-broken-leg-1.1028728 https://twitter.com/SeeMurphsTweets/status/973676860667199489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bardown.com%2Fhockey-player-skates-final-college-hockey-shift-on-a-broken-leg-1.1028728 (video in the tweet) It happened in our backyard at the Atlantic Conference final at HarborCenter in the Canisius vs. AIC game 3. Senior Captain Bryant Christian broke his tibia on the first shift of the game. He sat through the game and then skated the last shift of the game when they were down 3-0. Part of me wanted to say, "It's just a game kid, your health is more important." But I cannot help but empathize with him and it really is amazing to see just how much a game and a team can mean to a person that they are willing to get out there and skate on a broken leg just to finish it out on the ice and not in the locker room with an injury. Pretty awesome overall. Things are crappy, but sometimes there are some cool things that happen in life that even though they really don't have much meaning for us can at least allow us to feel some happiness for another person. He made the best of a bad situation.

Still not bringing me down. I'm not going to be negative. Relative to everything else in this world this game means absolutely nothing to me. I'm not even going to add to the negativity. They lost.. so what.