Pimlach

It’s Youth Hockey Day in Sabre Land. Since the early 70’s the Sabres PR department, under the excellent leadership of Paul Wieland, started a free afternoon open Sabres practice for the kids. Many kids that I knew never went to real Sabres game back then because every game was sold out, 16,433 in The Aud every game. So this was a way for kids to see the team and for the players to reach out. They practiced drills, played a blue gold scrimmage, and Paul would put on his pads. These were great events, lots of fun, and always filled to capacity. Perhaps some of the old timers here attended one, they first occurred over Christmas break when schools were closed. The community really loved this team, Gilbert, Rico, Rene, Schoeny, Kong, Luce, Rammer, etc. I guess all this died out and morphed into matinee games, kids day, and today’s matinee targets specifically - Youth Hockey Day. The crowd today will consist mostly of young families with kids. Lots and lots of local youth hockey boys and girls will be there wearing their team’s jersey and cheering for the Sabres. Within those kids there may possibly be a few future players, and hopefully even some future fans. The Sabres better be ready to play hard, be positive role models, put on a good show, win a home game, and acknowledge those kids in the crowd afterward. If that’s not the tradition anymore then it should be.

meaningless - not when it is considered acknowledgement, fans cheers are "thank you" and the salute is "your welcome". overdone - it is not overdone to the kids who get to go a few times a year and want the participation, acknowledgement and feedback. Beside, perennial losers do not get to salute too much so the Sabres should not have to worry about the over exertion. I look at Carolina and the over the top post victory celebrations they do, with and for their fans. There was time that franchise was in trouble, like Buffalo is right now, and then that was fixed. Brind'Amour made sure sure his steam saluted the fans and he still does, and people in the league complained. Guys like Don Cherry said on HNIC that Brind'Amour should be embarrassed. His is not. The Canes are tough to beat at home and their fans have fun. I wish the Sabres were like that. I don't boo. I cant be bothered. But I am not going to tell someone not to either. The overly sensitive cry babies look like the players to me. Their coaches head would not be called out if they actually played the game like they cared. So many home games they glide around in an effortless trance. Sometimes they wake up for a while, but when it gets tough they usually fold. Sometimes a Sabre player will break a stick or throw things and accomplish nothing. Talk about over sensitive cry babies, they have all the control to do better. I am in town for March 14 vs Isles. I am not gonna go, I have nephews in town that will use the tickets.

I never really disliked a Sabres team, even the bad ones. I lost respect for the team that let Lucic pummel Miller. Never cared for the Bogo, Kane, Eichel, crew. All the teams I don't care for are TP era teams. Based on their decision to stick it to the fans, which really goes against my core values, I would put this current group in contention - and that saddens me because I like the young kids. Not impressed with DG/ KA for letting this thing go on for ~2 months. Should have been a teaching moment, instead it was a Major Leadership Void.

Embarrassing the players? Hardly. No one has to call them out. They get to be anonymous unless they chose not to be. I believe that DG and KA hurt the team by not leading them to a better decision than this. Especially Adams, he should have concluded that the players decision on this issue while understandable, was not the correct path. All that frustration by the players was for nothing as they slipped further down in the standings anyway. Misguided is what this was. So what happens if DG gets fired anyway, who is at fault? Not the few fans who were chanting, its on the players. Going over the head of the GM or Coach is a point to be taken seriously, I do agree. TP, assuming he knew about it, could have worked this quietly, immediately, and without any press involvement. This is a time when the owner steps in. His customers should be his priority. This is more of an owner policy than who to draft or who to trade. I would love to know if and when TP was aware of this and what he said about it. I sure hope he would have been the kind of leader to shut it down. Final note, you keep throwing the meddling thing at me, as if to imply anything Terry does could be called meddling. I do not think the owner has zero involvement, on the contrary the owner sets the tone for how things are run. The owner sets the culture and the strategy. If the customers are not his top priority the business will fail. That said, this owner in this business should not be involved in decisions on trades and draft choices. He sets the budget, that is understandable.

JJP is too good to play with Krebs. Benson is starting to wear down from all the games in an NHL season. He doesn't quit, but you see his game is less impactful lately. We need bigger and more talented forwards to compete with the playoff teams. We just do. VO, KO, Krebs - they are not good enough.

Meddling is telling the GM to trade a player, or draft a player, etc. Meddling is not putting a stop to the players' fu@king with our fan base in a childish tit for tat snit. I expect him to know the difference.

It shows they are still better on the road this year, but only marginally, and that they dropped significantly in the year of their big dedicated playoff push. Additionally, even this year, if they had just an equal home winning percentage as they do their road winning percentage, they would be over .500 and would at least be in the running instead of long shot pretenders.

Whoever came up with the idea of not saluting the fans should have been told no. It went on for 13 home games, since they win so infrequently their little protest was hardly noticed. Their play has done nothing to help Granato's cause as they fell further down the standings. Yes, real leadership is lacking to say the least.

2022-23 Home 17 - 20 - 4 0.463 Away 25 - 13 - 3 0.644 2023-24 Home 12 - 15 - 1 0.446 Away 12 - 11 - 3 0.519

So game over, just skate off the ice, go home everybody, move along? Beat the traffic and get home. To me lame describes the entire hockey experience at HSBC anyway, with the exception of the players salute after one of their rare home wins.

You are talking an end of the year assessment, which I suspect they do as a matter of normal practice. I was asking about this salute thing, which was popping up in threads and finally covered by Harrington in the BN. I sure hope the decision to finally salute the fans after a home win was a direct order from TP immediately upon being aware of it. DG and Adams had to know this was going on, they are there very night. Incidentally, since the "Fire Donny Chant" the Sabres are have won 10 of their last 21 games and actually lost ground on the playoffs. They were 7-6 at home in that stretch, for this team that is pretty good, for a playoff team that is very poor.

If the salutes are lame then why use them for special occasions only? What is lame about them exactly? I really want to understand what is wrong with a connection between the team and the city it represents? Why is it bad? What does it hurt? Why is a show of courtesy and admiration on both sides not a good thing? Why can the Bills stay on the field afterwards, walk to the stands, salute the fans, give them balls, gloves, jerseys, and whatever - but the Sabres cannot do this simple gesture for their fans, which are mostly young kids looking for a connection? Have we come so jaded as a society that being nice is a bad thing? I will never understand this point, and I am thankful for that.

John I think it is bigger than a stick salute. It is the point that the players blame the fans for the few that chanted "fire Donny", and it was a very few. Then they concocted this no salute thing. Fans cheer loudly after every home win, many stay and watch the 3 stars - especially the kids. When I was a kid I used to beg to stay and cheer longer and watch the 3 stars, I sure didn't care about beating traffic, or work, or school the next day. The stick salute is not a thank you for the players, its a "your welcome". Like it or not it is now part of the tradition. So now fans cheer the few home wins they get to see, and the player just leave. I am not soft but this sours me. This team is run so poorly in every aspect I can think of. Fans pay the bills. I don't know what business you were in, but customers are to be valued.

Excellent comment! Now why is that?

Good one. You can be absentee and then a meddler. It is a sign that you don't know what to do and how to do it. Which describes his tenure to a tee. So if Promo owned the team, and knew that the player were upset and not saluting the fans, what would Promo think? What action would Promo take?

Gallant gets results but he pisses off management. He pisses off GMs that don't make roster moves that he wants. No doubt he will rub someone the wrong way in Buffalo's disaster of an organization. He would be let go at the first sign of a tail off. Unlike DG who is nice and wants to be there. I do think they should talk to Berube. But he is a tough nut too. Some of his players cried when he was fired, even though he was hard on them - but they are Cup winning players, and we have sensitive kids that should not be "dehumanized".

Well the salute, which has become hockey tradition, and is directly related to their performance on the ice. I would prefer that the players see it as part of the tradition and a bond with fans and the community. Fans cheer, the team salutes. This is just like saying "thank you" and "your welcome". One of the courtesies in our society that apparently you don't care about. Good for you. From my perspective, you are perched upon some morale high ground with apparently no view of what is happening. Your not caring does not make you enlightened, but it puts you with the players, the coach, the GM, and the absentee Owner.

really? Odd thing to hate? Look at the Hurricanes. The team sucked for awhile and the fans were gone. https://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/1719364 Brind'Amour has the right idea.

Greybeard - Reminds me of a story, but to be brief I'll skip it and just say that I was once told we cannot say greybeard at work. It is offensive to women, men who can't grow beards, and elderly. Really. Change is inevitable, it is constant. I know what you are alluding too with the younger folks but you have to adapt in the workplace and hopefully reign things in when they go overboard. The only way you can do that is to be seen as firmly on the team. Which is why I have to question Granato and Adams on this booing topic. Someone should have explained to the players that this no salute idea was a bad idea. Tit for tat with the fans, your customers, is wrong. What will Terry Pegula do now that Harrington put it out there? If I were Pegula, Kevyn Adams would be in trouble right now.

I am an audio nerd. I sure can't tell how many people boo from listening to the TV feed. I have been to games with booing. My nephew goes to half the home games. He doesn't like the booing either but he understands it. I would guess the boo birds are at most 3 out of 10, more typically 2 out of 10. The Donnie chants were barely audible to me. I was watching a TNT or ESPN televised home game, it might have been the same Kracken game that Harrington references. The announcers commented on the booing, laughed about it, and had nothing but sympathy for the fan base.

It’s not about rights. I’m sick of people and their rights. It’s about leadership and accountability - there is none It’s about an organization that is so bad for so long that the fans cannot take anymore. It’s about a group of players, coaches, and managers that are collectively OVER THEIR HEADS with little hope in sight The fans in Buffalo have been too easy if anything. Again, the common denominator of all of this madness is down in Boca. What does he think? And why would Granato not put a stop to this? Or Adams not put a stop to it? Are they that soft too?

How did Mitts make this list? He likes it here and wants to stay in the country club.

The players no salute policy stopped after the 7-0 win last week. Even then, they were skating off but were redirected, and some of them went out to the circle. Big deal for them. Ironically, since the home wins are so scarce, most of us never knew this was happening. My TV feed on ESPN+ does not include post game. I read the article 3 times. I am more upset that Granato and Adams could even allow that to be their response. No one is in charge, to coin an old phrase - the lunatics are running the asylum. This group lacks accountability in the biggest ways. The things they say about the 13 year drought, especially alluding to “we haven’t been here for that long” tell me how much, or little, they care. It’s now beyond the players and it’s infected the coaching and the FO. Can it get any worse ?

He is Ok. My problem with him is the roster make up. We have Dahlin, Power and R Johnson. Joki is not a complementary player to any of them, he is similar. I want a big, tough, stay at home solid guy - like Samuelsson should be but isn’t. We get that guy then Joki is expendable.

I heard Skinners name on one shift at the end of the 2nd. Thats is. Of course Dan doesn’t call the game either so there’s that.