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Tears?


PASabreFan

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Great thread. I'm 57. When the Sabres were an expansion team I had a cheap radio from WT Grant (way before you kids time) that I used to listen to games on after my parents sent me to bed. There was a great game in the first couple of years against Montreal when the Sabres called for a goalie pad measurement and Montreal's goalie (Dryden?) had oversized pads. The Sabres scored on the ensuing PP and won. To me that game was like David slew Goliath. At the time Montreal was like the Patriots are now. I remember it like yesterday. I was already hooked, but that game took me over the top.

My first actual game was the famous "Fog" game and I have posted pics from it and my boy crush for Schoney. Later I remember the Sabres playing the Russians (and winning) before the "Miracle on Ice" in Lake Placid.  I listened to AM radio to feeds through a tuned antennae when I lived in NYC in the early 80's. "May Day" "No Goal" "Pommenville's epic goal in Ottawa. So many great moments and truthfully some pretty low ones. The loss to the Hurricanes in the ECF was crushing.

But one of the most frustrating things has been that my kids are in their late teens and they have never seen good hockey from the Sabres. I've taken them to many games in the dead atmosphere of the F'N Center (It will always be that to me), but they've never seen a win. Mostly they saw bad hockey and when this streak started I think for some reason they started paying attention. There are so many other distractions for kids these days that I can't blame them for not catching the fever I caught 45 years ago.

But something happened last night. When the "1,2,3,4..........." chant started, my youngest son stopped doing his homework. The Sabres were up 2-0 and I was getting ticked about the fans jinxing but you get old and you get crazy grumpy thoughts. I've had this feeling that this team is so young they remind me of the "Confidence is high" days of youth and to watch that win with my youngest son and see him have the fever.......it was the kind of joy I'm not sure I'd have again. He went straight to bed and I watched the post game and with the streak and seeing all the cancer survivors and the emotion of the broadcast......yeah.....I had tears.

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Over the past years, I watch most of my games with only Sabrespace for company. My wife and daughters generally retreat to other parts of the house and leave me to swear at the screen in peace.

Over the past month I’ve started watching games in the family room again and they have started to join me - sometimes watching, more often not, but paying attention out of the corner of their eyes.

Last night as the third period turned into overtime, we were all in the room. About a half-minute before the goal scored the sound cut out. Everyone else stopped and looked up. I stood up. In a silence cut only by primal noises of fear and encouragement, the four of us watched the foiled two-on-one, the Dahlin double back around Karlsson, Skinner pouncing on the loose puck and his sublime deke.

The silence vanished as we jumped and screamed and high-fived in unison with an arena and a city thousands of miles away.

This is why I love hockey.

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8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Over the past years, I watch most of my games with only Sabrespace for company. My wife and daughters generally retreat to other parts of the house and leave me to swear at the screen in peace.

Over the past month I’ve started watching games in the family room again and they have started to join me - sometimes watching, more often not, but paying attention out of the corner of their eyes.

 Last night as the third period turned into overtime, we were all in the room. About a half-minute before the goal scored the sound cut out. Everyone else stopped and looked up. I stood up. In a silence cut only by primal noises of fear and encouragement, the four of us watched the foiled two-on-one, the Dahlin double back around Karlsson, Skinner pouncing on the loose puck and his sublime deke.

 The silence vanished as we jumped and screamed and high-fived in unison with an arena and a city thousands of miles away.

This is why I love hockey.

Dude same!! Being home was so epic. My girlfriend's family almost never follows hockey but they've been as riveted as we have. Friday against Montreal, Grandma, her sister, my sister&brother, and my girlfriend are all watching a game that last year I was holed up with the "bad tv," watching by myself. Edges of our seats, lots of noise, it was such a special moment for me. Most of the year I'm here by myself, no family or friends in sight. 

I've worn like eight Sabres items to campus the last two days and am getting comments left and right. One of my students is a Sharks fan and we had some fun ribbing each other Tuesday - I had the upper hand today! Not only did his team lose, but I was giving him an exam to grapple with for an hour. 

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Wore my Sabres scrub hat in the OR today... the hockey fans mostly Rangers fans congratulated me and said great game... nice to see relevant hockey again.  My oldest has been feeling sorry for me up this point.  Cant wait to take him to the Sabrespace meetup in Feb!

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6 hours ago, BMWR100RT said:

Great thread. I'm 57. When the Sabres were an expansion team I had a cheap radio from WT Grant (way before you kids time) that I used to listen to games on after my parents sent me to bed. There was a great game in the first couple of years against Montreal when the Sabres called for a goalie pad measurement and Montreal's goalie (Dryden?) had oversized pads. The Sabres scored on the ensuing PP and won. To me that game was like David slew Goliath. At the time Montreal was like the Patriots are now. I remember it like yesterday. I was already hooked, but that game took me over the top.

I remember watching that too.  It was the Sabres 1st playoff series ever (72-73 season) also the 1st win ever in Montreal.

There was some story going around about a Sabres guy that snuck into the Montreal locker room to measure them.

I googled around and found this story which talks about it and other funny stuff about Punch and others.

Here is an excerpt:

With the score tied 2-2 late in Game 5, then-Buffalo coach Joe Crozier asked official Bruce Hood to measure Habs goalie Ken Dryden's pads. (That season, Wieland had noticed that the Hall of Fame netminder's pads looked like they exceeded regulation width. Before Game 3, he clandestinely ventured into the visitors dressing room at Memorial Auditorium, investigated the matter, and passed his findings along to Imlach.) The referee's ensuing measurement confirmed what Wieland suspected: Dryden was wearing illegally oversized equipment. 

The Sabres didn't capitalize on the resulting penalty, but Robert scored the winning goal in overtime. Wieland rehashed the episode in his book, "Then Perreault said to Rico...": The Best Buffalo Sabres Stories Ever Told, writing that "The author was honored by the players at their final banquet with his own gilded 'goal pad measurer' made out of three pieces of wood."

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/66322718/

 

 

 

Edited by Cheektorado
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