That Aud Smell

Well, you'd have to ask @PASabreFan why he found the number remarkable. For my part, I thought it was remarkable for being so low -- I'd thought the number would be closer to 50%

Good for/on Jack.

This confused/confuses me. Indubitably. He called it remarkable. For my part, I didn't take that as declaring a win. (I also disagreed with his view of the matter.)

That's as clear a "huh?!/WTF" gif as I've seen in a while. Well put. Someone posted a link to a national guy (Ferraro?) talking about how the locker room clean-out remarks were why JBOT felt his hand was forced with ROR. I never saw it that way. I thought the take was misplaced. I've really come to rue the apparent need to trade such a high quality top-6 NHL forward.

Appreciated. Pish posh, I say, to those who simply claim "narrative" (or crusade) on this front. I remain skeptical, as always. To a fault probably. But I'm listening and reading carefully (or trying to), and watching warily as well.

IIRC, the Pegulas sold gas and oil rights in PA and OH (mostly) in order to buy the Bills. I think they still have a lotta NY land rights. Thanks. Link?

He did?

Also: Maintaining a healthy distrust of the super wealthy is a well advised approach to dealing with the world. I seem to recall @PASabreFan theorizing about Terry’s potential ulterior motives for wooing upstate/western NY. Political aims? Freeing up the frackelage? It’s all still in play, imo.

There definitely seems to be some interest from PSE in having Russ Brandon and other separated execs be the scapegoats for why attendance was poor. But by how much could Buffalo have outbid the other contenders? How much more were the Buffalo ticket packages when compared with the 2018 event? The 2020 event? I keep coming back to the idea that most of the (over)pricing blame belongs to the NCAA. And I also think that there was a peculiar storm of hockey fatigue/hockey malaise that afflicted this market at this time.

I can’t create an inventory right now. I did recently create a short list of Terry’s bad decisions/bad decision making instances — in another thread, I think. For present purposes: I think Terry is susceptible to being bamboozled — both by sycophants (Brandon) and bullsh1t artists (Ryan).

Yeah, yeah.

I have no issue with any owner tinkering, or meddling, for that matter. It's their team. The decisions just better be good ones, more times than not. I'm not sure what you're asking in terms of the type of owner that I (but not me personally?) would prefer to have. If I do have a preference, it's for the sort of owner who's mostly hands-off on the sports personnel side of things. With that said, I understand the need and desire for an owner to have a hand in making decisions such as a decision to draft a franchise QB. The decisions just better be good ones, more times than not. I also tend to agree that Terry operates in good faith, with good intentions. Increasingly, that's not enough for me to say that I support him.

I tend to agree with @PASabreFan that this is regularly stated as a proposition that tends to insulate Terry Pegula from criticism. And I also tend to agree that it's, at best, a questionable proposition, and, at worst, a fallacious one. Hehe. I said fallacious. Also, I think I may now understand what PA was getting at with Terry being insulated.

I will continue to disagree with the 8-season sample size being too small. And will again not touch the tank issue. I'm not sure where the "I don't trust the rich DBs" stuff is coming from. I know I've grown to distrust or mistrust (?) Terry Pegula as a pro sports owner. But it's not because he's rich.** It's because he makes bad decisions. ** Being absurdly rich is a prerequisite for the role he occupies, after all.

This was outstanding work.

For my part, I generally don't find @PASabreFan's criticism of Terry Pegula to be tiresome. If anything, his skepticism about the guy proved prescient.

I understand you find it remarkable. For my part, I find it somewhat ... remarkable as well, but probably for precisely the opposite reason you do. (I'd really thought it'd be a majority of the votes saying "fire the owner," or close to it -- given how badly the team has performed since the 2011-2012 season.) In any case, if you look again at my post, I was saying that I didn't follow a specific part of your thinking. And still don't.

Given how online takery skews negative and how bad the team’s been for so long, I wasn’t sure what you meant. I thought maybe this is what was meant. I don’t follow this.

really good post. this portion especially resonated with me.

Then why would Russ Brandon have been leading the press conference to announce the award back in 2017? Why would PSE have issued a press release (see below)? https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/buffalo-awarded-2019-frozen-four-and-2022-ncaa-mens-basketball-tournament/c-288903414 I'm not privy to the details, but I have it on very good authority that the Pegulas had a great deal of skin in the game. If this event ended up upside down (and it clearly did), then the Pegulas lost money. Maybe the NCAA did too. I have no way of knowing of how that deal gets structured -- how the risk is allocated. Not for nothing: When One Direction (sp?) came to the football stadium, there were reports making clear that the Pegulas were the reason that huge acts were being booked into WNY (U2 soon followed - and there were others along the same lines). For acts like that, the tour bears little or no financial risk for playing a certain venue -- the host(s) provide a guaranteed payout and then make it work (or don't) on the host's end. And that was why PSE was getting a lot of love (deservedly so) -- they were taking on the risk so that Buffalo could have a world class event. I suspect there were similar dynamics at play with the Frozen Four. Hence Terry's having taken to calling the event the "Effing" Frozen Four over the past several months. Dude needs to go drill some more wells now. Agreed. One thing the local schools are expected to do is provide a lot of foot soldier volunteers.

I like that saying myself. And I think it fits here.

Agreed. And there's such a shift from how people want to consume sports (increasingly from the comfort of their homes) and what sports people want to consume (many teams beyond their home teams - thanks in large part to increasingly legalized betting and fantasy sports (but also in part to the incredible amount of coverage and information available to all fans)). And I will tip my hat to PSE for talking about these trends.

What an absolute cluster. I've heard that the Pegulas placed blame with Brandon for his bidding on the event and subsequent pricing. But I think most of the blame must rest with the NCAA. It's their event. If they're eliciting bids that are going to inevitably yield this kind of pricing, then they're the ones ultimately to blame. We didn't attend the games, but met out for a late lunch with 2 families who generally attend the event every year. The real kick in the crotch that the NCAA delivered, IMO: Angering their loyal base. Because the dads who brought their kids to Buffalo, and paid full price to do so, were receiving a deluge of emails from the NCAA offering to sell them additional tickets for heavily discounted prices. That did not make them feel very good about having paid full price. I think that sound I heard over the weekend was the sound of air hissing out of a burst bubble.