That Aud Smell

If I were a wagering fella (I'm not), I'd hit the over for sure.

I've never had a sports fan experience like I'm having with the Dolphins. Like any self-respecting Gen X Bills fan, I grew up hating the Dolphins. I've never hated the Patriots like I do the Dolphins. I was an adult when the Patriots became the Patriots. There are corollaries to this in the hockey world (e.g., why I hate the Flyers much more than I can ever hate, say, the Leafs (whom I cannot even truly hate)). Anyhoo. I keep finding myself fascinated and entertained by McDaniel and his Dolphins team. It's so disorienting. I think the Bills will need more than 30 points to win on Sunday.

Granato’s teams will never be big producers of hits. I’m good with that. This team is built to have the opponent chasing them, not built to bruise the other team. That said, they’ll need to find ways to grind too.

Tall. But do they play heavy? More Mike Peca less Mike Wilson, please.

If you were hitting Nietzsches (or maybe Merlin’s) in the early to mid 90s, you may have been fortunate enough to see The Groove. Tight R&B with a blue eyed soul guitarist and vocalist named Peter Prince. Brothers Alan and Neil (Neal?) Evans rounded out the core of the group — Alan on drums and Neil on keys. The latter was barely 15 when they started playing gigs. They were incredible. The Evans brothers went on to do great things with Soulive. And I think Peter is still working through his project known as Moonboot Lover (which the Evans brothers were part of early on). Fun Buffalo fact: The Evanses are the sons of Willie Evans, who gained fame later in life when the story was told about how the UB Bulls, as a team, refused to participate in the Tangerine Bowl game because Willie and another black teammate would not have been allowed to participate.

No sh1t? Double no sh1t? Ahhite. There it is. He's done some outrageous stuff with the puck, I guess. And he's all I ever hear about when I hear about Anaheim. I was (easily) misled!

I don’t get this valuation. Isn’t Zegras a young super duper star? Would Anaheim be giving him up for prospects and picks? Power is probably too heavy, but if I were Anaheim, I’d want a young top-6 forward coming back and then a prospect/pick.

What would it take? Power? Power +? He’s an RFA. How’s that work - like a Drury sign and trade?

Hmm. I'd thought this was a streamed media event, which opened early, and that some rando out on teh internets just grabbed the clip and posted it. If it were leaked internally, it should be fairly simple to figure out who disseminated it.

Wasn't it just picked up on a hot mic during a stream that started early?

And if a frog had wings? Would it bump its ass a'hoppin? As a whole, I think that the fan base absolutely hoped he'd sign here. He was seen as a premier HOF-level coach who would immediately turn around a moribund franchise. And then he didn't. BOOOOO! But then he didn't cut it in Toronto. HAHA! And then he was out of the league. SEE YA! And then things got freaky deeky weird with Columbus. And he was fired before he even coached a game. COMEDY! So, no hard feelings on my end based on how things went with the Sabres. And there's plenty to laugh at, cringe at, and shake your head at based on this recent story standing alone.

Nonsense.

Oof.

I don't think how certain fans may choose to fan (e.g., some may want to temper expectations and insulate themselves from crushing disappointment) has anything to do with how the players approach their season. For my own part, and I know I've posted it here in the past, I'm a recovered fan of my favourite pro sports teams. Of all games that did it, it was a Ryan Fitzpatrick era road game against the Bengals when the Bills' unexpected success started to fall apart. I'm in it for the upside and the fun. If things take a turn for the worse -- either in a particular game or over a stretch of time -- I work to divert my energy and attention to other things. Darcy's parting Sabres mantra notwithstanding, I'm not into the suffering.

Jettisoning prospect talk to another forum? That is pretty out there, Hoss. Not @Hoss -- just, like, Hoss. There are Sabre topics that get discussed here that do not interest me. I do my best to avoid those threads.

This is true. This season, they need to be good. No qualifiers. On balance and over the course of 82 games, a good NHL team. That should be enough to get them into the playoffs. (And, I mean, they missed the playoffs by a whisker last season.)

They should be a good NHL team this season. The risks being taken with goaltending and the injury to Quinn are the only things dragging on my optimism.

I saw a screenshot of his social media reply. He was not having her apology. Shocker. He's an emotional and eccentric guy. I would not imagine that he'd laugh that off. She seems like a diligent worker and an earnest person. So, in that way, I feel bad for her. On the other hand, though, that was just a horrendous idea and terrible judgment to talk like that about one of the team's superstars when there are microphones in the room. Fwiw, I suspect that what she said is more true than not true.

I read earlier today that Musk plans to charge a subscription fee for X going forward. He says one of the main purposes of the subscription fee would be to cut down on bots. Maybe so. I suspect that embedding would be impossible if Twitter (X) ends up behind a paywall. If the subscription fee is modest (~$30 annually), I will probably subscribe. I really like that platform and don't know of any viable replacement.

When I go to that post on X (Twitter) and use X's internal tools to "copy the link" I wind up with a URL that uses x.com to share the link. No embedding results. However, if, from that same post's page, I look at the URL in my browser, I see a twitter.com address. If I copy/cut that address and paste it here, the post embeds.

A neat bit of PR. Good for the Sabres to associate the helmet sponsor with the word/field "nursing." Because who doesn't love and respect nurses? Total frontline warriors. OTOH, the sponsor here is a staffing agency that provides nurses to entities in need of them. Staffing agencies like this have many nonprofits over a barrel when it comes to getting the nurses that are needed -- a lucrative industry, I infer, since the rates these agencies charge can be budget-busters.