SabresBaltimore

I liked that despite going down 2 and being outshot all game we still came out with a point. I think Columbus plays a more physical game than either Pittsburgh or NJ. I worry that the new system doesn't match up well against those kinds of teams. But it's 3 games in, and we've got 5 points, so hopefully they learn from this and do better next time. My biggest concern is how they react from being behind in a game or after a loss. Or worse a string of losses. Last year's team didn't not recover well from losing. That can't happen anymore. So hopefully Wenesday night goes more like the first 2 games.

It also looks like most games this month will have the MSG-B feed avaiable. At quick glance it looks like just @Sharks and @Rags don't. Typically anytime it's a dual MSG game (Islanders, Rags, Devils) they never do dual feed. Not sure why the rest of the west coast trip is available but not the Shark game. In a similar fashion when the Sharks play in Buffalo later in the month the San Jose feed isn't available.

Oh man. I hope not. If my hockey package doesn't include all non locally available games because of a competing premium service I'm going to be really agitated. I was thinking about getting ESPN+ because it carries the Clarkson University hockey games, and you can bundle it with Hulu and Disney+ now. But I didn't know they were carrying NHL games this year. FWIW, this PDF lists both feeds for (the cable version) of Center Ice for today: http://indemand-corp.s3.amazonaws.com/Sports-Schedules/NHL-Schedule-2019-2020.pdf Mon, 10/7/19 6:30 PM Buffalo Columbus Game HD 2 FSOH Pre/Post Mon, 10/7/19 6:30 PM Buffalo Columbus Game HD 4 MSG-B Pre/Post - DUAL FEED

Really curious to see if we keep up the effort tonight. We beat Pittsburgh. They beat Columbus, so we should be able to beat them too. But Columbus is a grittier team and probably looking to bounce back from their loss. Let's get #3.

To me the real test will be they bounce back from each loss. Do they play a full 60 minutes every night? Or do they let it spiral? It's easy to be upbeat and play hard when you're winning. It's a lot harder when you lose, especially a few in a row. I'll enjoy every win though, and hope there will be more of those to come. Looks good so far.

I think we have a slightly better roster from last year. I'm hoping we have a better coach, but need some time on this. There is still some dead weight we need to get rid of, but I don't know if we'd be better off just cutting them and playing some young unproven guys or just hoping they don't bring us down too much until we can get some more depth. Only 1 year left on a bunch of contracts I want to be rid of. I can't see the roster moves from Twitter posted earlier, but I hope/assume one of them was bring Olofsson and possibly Jokiharju back up from Rochester? I also like the addition of Johansson as a winger. As a center..not as much. So we'll see how that goes. Regardless of our opening day roster, it's a new season so I'm going to choose to be excited and hopeful. And if that proves to be wrong, it'll be cheaper to buy tickets to the games I plan on going to later this season. Let's Go Buf-fa-lo!

Yeah. This is why I don't get why PSE is fighting with the NWHL about it. Just let them have it back. The only thing I can think of is they are worried their past association with the brand will lead to confusion by consumers or something. Like if the NWHL has as terrible of a season as I'm expecting with most of the top players sitting out, they don't want people to think they fielded yet another terrible team. People already are pissed off at the ***** teams they've been fielding for the teams they DO own to also get dragged down for one they don't.

I don't think it's a matter of being sensitive. I'd think calling the Sabres "The Buffalo Men" equally terrible. It's also the only team in the league with a name like that. The other names: Minnesota Whitecaps Metropolitan Riveters Connecitcut Whale Boston Pride Personally I'd like to see them resurect the Blizzard or Charge names.

I thought this was interesting for those following the whole Woman's pro hockey news. Personally I think the Beauts are a terrible name and if PSE buys/creates a new team for a "WNHL" or whatever in partnership with the NHL, I'd have liked to see them come up with a new name. The logo is fine, since it's a Buffalo like most other logos but it does include the team name as part of it, so it would have to be tweaked at a minimum. I wonder if this will lead to issues with the team using Harbor Center next season to play/practice/workout etc. https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/7/2/20604347/buffalo-beauts-trademark-dispute-developing-nwhl

Would I have liked to pay less? Sure. But it's not as though we'd have been able to sign someone for less with his production. And I think the chemistry with Jack is important, which we know he has. So let's hope for a good off-season improving the rest of the team..

Yeah. 2 of those players are rookies I've never heard of. The other 3 are veterans of the league, but not names I recognize from the National teams.

So far, there are 5 players who have signed for next season on 3 teams. 3/5 are signed for Boston https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/21/18632671/2019-2020-nwhl-roster-tracker-season-5-womens-hockey-forthegame-free-agent-signings

Yeah, I think they'd be dumb to cut either us or Minnesota out of any future plans. Minnesota may be harder due to distance, but they were also the first/only team to turn a profit. And Minnesotans love their hockey.

Yeah. I agree. I don't think there were a ton of fans filling the seats when the Beauts played at FNA, and they wer giving away free tickets to anyone who bought a ticket for that night's Sabres game. However the Harbor Center was near to full capacity for all of their other home games I believe. It seems like the perfect venue for a Woman's team right now.

Not sure what you mean, but you're welcome! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another thing I was thinking about with regards to the NBA/WNBA model, if it's taken like 20 years for teams to turn a profit in a sport of Basketball that is far more popular/profitable than hockey is in the US and it took them nearly 20 years to start having some profitable teams. The counter to that is the NWHL had at least one profitable team last season, although how much of one is unclear. But if I'm the NHL, and already struggling for popularity in many US markets, I'm leery about the prospect of trying something similar. One of the articles I read proposed a 6 team league of Buffalo, Boston, St. Paul and Toronto, Montreal and Calgary. I'm surprised they didn't have New York on that list, but maybe the Metropolitans have never been popular in an already crowded New York city market? The Whitecaps were apparently profitable this past season by topping ticket sales and doing pretty well on merchandise as well. I get Calgary from a popularity perspective, but from a logistics/travel perspective it makes it a lot more expensive that a more central or east coast Canadian team. I feel like Buffalo or maybe one of the proposed Canadian teams has the next best chance of being profitable. Then again based on some of the comments on this thread (assuming this forum is even remotely representative of Sabres fans as a whole) it seems that even among hockey fans there is little interest in woman's hockey. Buffalo had the next best attendance behind Minnesota, but they probably operated at a much higher cost than the other teams. Then again, it's probably a lot easier for someone like PSE who already owns another hockey team to spread those costs out because they are already paying a lot of them for the Sabres. Personally I still don't like many of the decisions Gary Bettman has made as commissioner, I'm not a fan of him overseeing a new Woman's league too. With regards to attendance, I'm not sure the ratio of men to woman is that important. To me the most significant attendance number is young girls/woman that go. If they become fans, some of them go on to play themselves. The more that play, the higher the quality of the next generation of players and that's what will help the game most long term. This year's IIHF tournament shows that (at least under the right circumstances) a country not named Canada or the United States can contend for an international title. But right now in North America I think they have the depth for 6-8 teams tops. With the two leagues they had 11. Even if you eliminate the duplicate Boston team that's still 2-4 too many for a single league to sustain, and a bunch of players who aren't good enough to keep their jobs. But in the short term, they just needs buts in seats. Especially season ticket holders, because that's up front/guaranteed money. Having any sort of streaming/TV package is another good way. The WNBA charges $17 for the entire season league pass and $10 for a team pass. Hockey could probably do something a bit cheaper. $17 is less than what I typically spend on concessions at a single Sabres game. Sell enough of those and it adds up. Of course part of the pricing will be how many games they play so the cost per game isn't too high. Then they need to sell merchandise. The Beauts did a lot of meet and greets last year from what I saw. I think every home game had something at the 716 after. That's a good way to endear yourself to the fans. I think they also did some during intermissions at Sabres games as well. It's no surprise 2/3 of the top selling jerseys were Buffalo Beauts ( Shannon Szabados and Emily Pfalzer). And I think a few others were in the top 10. I think jersey sales was the only real way for players to get any additional money beyond their meager salary or sponsorship deals.

I skimmed that page but I had a hard time figuring out how pay works in that league. It looks like the NBA operated them at a loss owning all the teams for about 6 years before selling the teams to corresponding NBA owners where possible and 3rd party owners in a few other cases. It also appears it's taken nearly 25 years for just half of the 12 teams to be profitable. In terms of TV deals, I never watch NBCSN unless hockey is on. I'm sure Premier League does decent for them too, but they have a lot of time to fill that could easily add woman's hockey. Another option is the NHL Network. They are the ones who showed all the US and Canadian Woman's games at the IIHF tournament last month. It was through a partnership with TSN though. So TSN did all the heavy lifting. Still the NWHL was already streaming most of their games on Twitter and YouTube, so they could just give that feed the NBCSN or the NHL Network and all those channels would need to do is figure out the advertising and intermissions if they didn't want to spend money on their own crews.

Yup. I wanted to buy a Harmon jersey since she played for my college too. She's on the list. Along with every other Clarkson University player I recognize.

Yeah. My point was less about skill than name recognition. How do you market a league without any of the players for your country's national team on it. The picket line point is good one too. I know I have no plans to see a game next season unless this gets resolved. I had been planning to do so before this started. The only solution would be some kind of compromise that brings the players back in. What exactly that will be is hard say. Is medical insurance enough? Some kind of equity in the league? Unless some super rich sponsors fall from the sky they aren't going to be able to pay anyone in the league a living wage. There was an article a few weeks back about the complexity of the visas too. If you get a work visa to play sports, that won't let you also work somewhere unrelated to your sport. So if you're not paid enough money to live, and you're playing for a foreign team, how are you supposed to supplement your income? And how could the league even hope to solve that? Really this whole thing is a mess that doesn't have any good ways out that I can see.

I think PSE previously said (possibly unofficially) that they didn't expect to field a team in the fall. So the league may have gotten it back so they could try to field a team with whatever players may be left. While I don't think the boycott will have the desired effect, I also don't think trying to have a season without those 200 players is worth doing either. The entirety of both the US and Canadian national teams are on the list. If the leagues weren't getting much revenue WITH those players, what chance do they honestly think they have without them?

This is an interesting proposal: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/7/18531465/using-the-premier-lacrosse-league-as-a-blueprint-for-the-game-pll-hilary-knight-paul-rabil I had no idea about the PLL before this article. I've been to a few Bandits games and I have watched some of the games when they've been broadcast. I know they have a streaming package, but I've never bothered to look into it. If this PLL is on NBCSN I'll be more likely to watch some. Although without a Buffalo team to root for (or Baltimore/DC team for that matter), I'm not sure how much I'll care. Something about rooting for teams from my hometown makes a bigger difference in my attention on a sport or team. I think that's one of the reasons Overwatch League is trying to do that with Esports. The traveling idea could be interesting, but I want a Buffalo team. I especially like the idea of them playing in the Summer to build up an audience. I mainly watch Hockey, Football and Tennis. I don't like Baseball much unless I go to a game. So having another sport to watch in the Summer would be nice since I typically only watch the last few rounds of the bigger Tennis tournaments. Although it would make it harder to do a double header with the Sabres. Then again, I've been looking for excuses to come up to Buffalo when the weather is nicer as I typically only come up for Hockey and Christmas right now.

For me I really enjoy Woman's Hockey. I started getting into a few years ago it because both the Sabres and the Clarkson Men's teams were awful. Meanwhile the Clarkson woman's team was winning 3 National championships in 5 years. Many of their players went on to play in the CWHL and last year's captain went to play for the Beauts. The NWHL makes it pretty easy to watch the games online, if you're not in a place where you can go to see it live. I'd have paid money for it if need be, but the fact that they didn't even try to charge for online games shows the level of interest. If I still lived in Buffalo I'd probably have either gotten Beauts season tickets or at least gone to multiple games last season. I had been hoping to do a Beauts game the same weekend I come up in the Fall for a Sabres game, but I guess that won't be happening now. I'm not super attached to the NWHL, and I think "Beauts" is a terrible name, but I like having a Buffalo team to root for. I just hope if the NWHL does fold and the NHL creates a WNHL in its place, I hope Buffalo keeps their team (ideally with a new name). I always like the Buffalo Blizzard, and it's not like the soccer team is using it anymore. Of course changing the name would suck for fans who bought merchandise. I almost bought a jersey myself, now I'm kind of glad I didn't.

Liz Knox, former head of the CWHLPA and one of the leaders of the Boycott gave an interview: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/2/18526916/liz-knox-on-the-for-the-game-movement-womens-hockey-boycott-cwhl-nwhl Apparently this was Hillary Knight and Kendall Coyne Schofield idea. And Billy Jean King told them it was a good idea. If anyone can speak to the idea of woman athletes bailing on an existing league and forging a way forward it's her. I'm not sure hockey has the same kind of popularity or money that tennis did back then. And they had a big sponsor in Virginia Slims in setting up the new league. Maybe someone will step up that sees those big names and thinks they can make a deal, but I'm not holding my breath.

There are a lot of great players on this list..there won't be much left for the NWHL next season: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/2/18526991/a-list-of-players-involved-in-for-the-game I get why they are doing it, but I don't think it will have the outcome they are hoping for. NWHL and Director of the NWHLPA have issued statements: https://www.theicegarden.com/2019/5/2/18527183/nwhl-nwhlpa-release-statements-in-response-to-forthegame-movement-dani-rylan-anya-battaglino-fratkin The league seems to be holding out hope this won't last and is holding out an olive branch..

Yeah, that article is a little too detail on the legalities for me. Trying to follow it all made my head hurt. My bottom line take aways from it were: The same kind of VISAs used by the NHL are harder to use here because they wouldn't allow those players to both play in the NHWL and have another job unrelated to hockey. That's a pretty big dealbreaker for most players since they don't get paid enough to live on, unlike the NHL players. It also wouldn't allow those players to bring their families with them, another big dealbreaker. So I feel like a lot of Canadian players will end up not playing because they simply can't afford to and there would be a much more limited number of slots if they go from the 5 Canadian teams the CWHL had to two teams the NWHL is trying to expand to. The NWHL did have some Canadians, including a few on the Beauts, but I'm not sure the exact details of those. We're close enough to Canada that maybe they were living and working their primary in Southern Ontario and simply commuting? I'd be curious to find that out. I know at least one of the Beauts got her American citizenship this year.

I know he did for awhile after being fired. Not sure if he still does though.