swordplay

Spreading Disease, One Listener at a Time

Ahhhh... 95 degree weather, shorts and flip flops. Yep, it's the perfect time to start talking hockey again on Swordplay. I guess we can officially call this "Day 1" of the new blog year.

I must admit, Regier has been impressive: He's drafted (what appears to be) well; he's brought much-needed toughness to an incredibly once tough-less team; and he's already foreshadowed the possibility of using his many assets to score that "big name" superstar (hopefully a true #1 center). Albeit subtle, I honestly didn't think that this off-season was going to turn out this exciting at all, let alone this quickly.

But amid all my excitement I still find myself overwhelmingly bummed out. And if you're one of the eleven readers of this blog, I know you probably think I'm gonna start taking shots at Ruff and Miller. Not the case, homeboys and girls.

Now, I don't want to get all "Bucky Gleason" on you right away, but I'm really disheartened over the amount of ignorance that bleeds through the veins of Sabre Nation. And I'm not just talking about many of the fans, but the likes of both Buffalo hockey media -- state-run and non-state-run.

First, you have Kevin Sylvester (I honestly don't know if I really need to expand on that topic, but I will, I will). I think we can all agree that he was the worst play-by-play man in the history of sports. Duh, the Sabres obviously knew that too. But they're nice guys up there in Buffalo, so they took the only broadcaster worse than Phil Simms and Joe Beninati and gave him his very own morning show. Q: Harmless, right? A: Holy shit, no! I'm definitely on the fence, but I'm pretty sure that he's even more horrifying as an analyst.

He just lacks the ability to give any real insight when it comes to anything Sabres or hockey in general. For one, he operates under the cloud of Terry Pegula, so even if he did have anything slightly detrimental to say about the team, he couldn't (which ultimately renders the show irrelevant). But even more so, he's barely educated enough about the players on his own favorite team, what do you really think he knows about anyone else in the league?

It just seems that he hears something or reads something and then, BAM!, it's all of the sudden the topic of discussion for the next two hours. It's extremely tiring to me. First it was Bobby Ryan Day (he's so last season); then it was Shane Doan Day (great, another winger); then it was Rick Nash Day (the prize of the league, yet another winger). Wednesday was Brenden Morrow Day (another winger yet again, but anyway). I read Tuesday night on nhl.com that St. Louis was inquiring about Morrow. Ok, I took it all in. Found it kind of interesting. But then thought to myself: Would ol' Kev have mentioned his name had he not read that article yesterday? I don't know for sure, but I'd put most of my chips on probably not.

And I won't even get into how much the show reminds me of an episode Beavis and Butt-head when Sylvester welcomes Andrew Peters on as his sidekick.

But for reals, I've wasted far too much of my fingertip breath on him already, so let's move on to Howard Simon.

Now, I don't want any of you to be confused over what I'm trying to say here. A comparison cannot be made in any way, shape, or form between Simon and Sylvester. Howard Simon is a true professional radio host. Loud and most of the time funny, he puts the "personality" in radio personality, while Kevin Sylvester is just the luckiest guy on the planet (a guy blessed with more "right place at the right time" shit than I would have in 30 lifetimes).

But regardless, Simon's POV is still off-base. It was only ten days ago that he said something along the lines of "Vanek AND McNabb for Bobby Ryan." Seriously? It's apparent that he hasn't been watching the same Buffalo hockey that I have been for the past seven years. Maybe not even the same NHL.

Maybe he's overpaid when it comes to his productivity, but Vanek is basically the exact same player as the other guy Simon covets: Rick Nash. Crazy, am I? Hardly. Rick Nash has played 520 games since the lock-out. In that stretch he's accumulated 451 points. Not bad, that's an average of .87 points per game. In that same period of time, Vanek has played 27 more games, scoring only 4 less points, giving him a .82 point per game average -- 5 hundreths of a point less.

So these dipshits in the Buffalo media spend their whole day wet-dreaming over a guy that they pretty much already retain. And on top of that, Howard would apparently give up this much for Bobby Ryan when the Sabres already have a statistically superior (Nash-like) player. So let's change it up a bit boys.

I'm not saying they never have, but one would think that they would spend a little more time talking about the number one center this team desperately needs rather that the array of identical flavors of the week floating around this time of year. God knows how long we've been doing that.

But I'm not gonna sit here and say it's only the fault of the people on the airwaves. The Buffalo fans have to take responsibilty for their own stupidity as well. I ask you to start watching and understanding the games rather than reading stat lines and yelling "SHOOT!" on a power play. And educate yourself on other players around the league rather than just focusing on Milan Lucic.

Sabres fan are given the benefit of the doubt for living in a cold (hockey) climate, selling out the arena even when their team sucks, and talking shit about having ice girls because it's an "insult" to their team. But this doesn't ipso facto mean they necessarily understand hockey. As my brother likes to say, any team that doesn't have ice girls doesn't really deserve to win the Cup in the first place. But I digress.

Take the article comments in the Buffalo News, for instance. I realize a few dozen regular commenters in a newspaper aren't necessarily representative of all of Buffalo Hockey, but at least half of them can't even spell the players' names correctly. So, I'm sorry, if you don't know how to spell Pominville or Hecht after seven years, you're a goddamned idiot who -- wait for it -- ipso facto doesn't know shit about hockey. So I don't care what you think about Ruff and Regier.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that at least 80% of Sabres fans comprise the silent majority who buy their tickets, attend the games, sit quietly until someone scores, and generally understand the organization and ice hockey in general. Sadly, however, it's the other 20% that we have to hear from on a recurring basis that's basically starting to drive me insane.

I know we can't do much about mental midgets in the media, but you'd think the Sabres organization would at least try to put a little better veneer on its broadcast team when it comes to complementing Rick Jeanneret.

So Mr. Black, would it be too much to ask to at least be able to look at some friggin' ice girls?

Now Can We Fire Someone?

Or trade someone, or something?

After a week and a half of the Sabres looking like the team we were all promised, they're obviously back to their normal selves. They were only able to hide their true colors for 4 games.  

What happened, Trevor? Did you start rooting for them again? Haha.

Looks like the perfect opportunity to make some moves...again. But don't worry, I'm sure even more patience will be displayed by ownership, management, etc.

I haven't watched, read, listened to, or have done anything else Sabres since the day of the last Rangers/Sabres game. The hard drive on my computer failed and it was in the shop until yesterday. At one point I actually started to miss the Sabres a little bit. Yeah, I was a little surprised by that too. But I got over it fast.

Living in Texas, I actually got to see them play the Stars Friday. From what I remember (I was pretty drunkskie) it wasn't much of a game. Plus, the broadcast was so terrible on Dallas' end, it was almost unwatchable. The pre-game show and intermission reports looked like they were filmed in my parents basement with a home video recorder from the 1980's, and during the game they didn't even include a countdown clock during power plays. When it was all said and done, shitty hockey and poor broadcasting ruined the game and made it pretty unwatchable (at least the play by play guy was better than Kevin Sylvester). That isn't my point though.

All I'm trying to say is that once again I have absolutely no confidence in this team moving forward. My original thought was that we would be doomed for at least the next two years. Judging by the lack of action taken by...well, anybody up to this point, I'm fairly certain that I'll be right.

I can't believe how retarded this organization is. And the fans aren't much help either. There obviously isn't any pressure from any angle that makes these guys feel like getting up and trying to win a game once and a while. It's embarrassing for me. I feel that I've [wasted] a lot of time and money on this team, and if it turns out that winning isn't even  something that really matters to them at the end of the day, I'll be the fool for keeping my belief in them for all these years.

Stop going to games; boo the shit out of them; sell all your tickets to Leaf fans; do something radical for Christ's sake!

It's great that Buffalo people are so supportive toward their city and teams, but it's time to get a little angry and demand that you're worth more than 2nd (or 27th) best.

There are no more excuses. The team is healthy, but still heartless. They have tuned out their coach and the GM doesn't know how to approach the trade deadline. Darcy was foolish enough to say publicly that he isn't sure if he'll be a buyer or seller at the deadline because he believes they may be in playoff contention by then. When asked if he had a list of players he may want to go after in the case of him being a buyer, he couldn't produce one name that he'd rather have than Brad Boyes. That's no shit.

I've always believed that Darcy was a shitty GM. I never actually realized he had no fucking clue at all.

I'm losing interest fast. I love the Sabres but I'm not going to waste my time following them when they don't even have an idea about anything. What's the point? In the short existence of this blog, we've given 10x the amount of evidence someone like Mario Lemieux would need to fire his GM.

But no, the Sabres will just stick with the status quo forever. We'll keep Lindy and Darcy around year after year so they can fail many more times than they have already. We'll keep overpaying worthless cry babies to not show up for games. We won't trade anyone because we're all such good friends.

That's what this team has become to me. Give me a reason to think anything different.

How Quickly the Sheep Have Followed

Last night, after listening to the WGR550 post game show through only the first few callers, it seemed that the Buffalo faithful had already turned around their spirits. Get a quick two points in the win column and we're back to "making it all the way." I seriously get pissed listening to this rubbish, and I really start to question my own intelligence for being a Sabres fan myself.

No one ever mentioned that the Sabres got outshot by 20, barely showed up for the game, or acknowledged the fact that if Pekka Rinne would have started for the Preds, Buffalo most likely would have lost. The attitude just seemed like, "everything's cool, Miller's back."

I don't want the Tootoo/Miller incident to overshadow the point I'm ultimately tying to make in this post, but I obviously need to bring it up. So I'll just say this: Miller getting run was nothing more than an act of irony. Jordin Tootoo -- who is sort of a dick hockey player anyway -- was simply trying to cut in and go forehand, got a bump from Ehrhoff, and had nowhere else to go. His body went limp as soon as he realized he was going to hammer Miller, so that's your first indication of innocence. It was nothing compared to how violent the Lucic hit was. From there, Buffalo naturally responded, which made the situation look much worse than it actually was. Granted, I don't think Tootoo neccessarily made a 100% effort to avoid Miller either, it's well within his rights to judge how his actions will effect his own safety as well.

I must say that I felt the referees handled the situation admirably though. Ryan Miller could have easily gotten a roughing penalty for continuously bashing Tootoo's head a dozen times, face first against the ice. But be warned, this incident occured in the immediate wake of the last situation, so don't expect the refs to be that forgiving from now on every time someone makes contact with Miller.

Still, it seems like this is all people are going to talk about for the next two weeks now, once again, pulling the wool over their own eyes and focusing on anything but the serious issues this team faces.

But, I'm not going to go on forever and beat the dead horse I already have been for three weeks now. I'm not going to tell you what to think. You're all going to have your own opinions on which goalie you like more, or whether or not you think Ruff is or isn't the man for the job. By now, you know what I think.

All I ask from now on is that you look at these situations with an open mind. When Miller gets hit, don't automatically cry suspension. If they finally beat a decent team and their backup goalie, don't just assume that they've turned their season around. Make this team prove it to you on a night in and night out basis (or a shift by shift basis, we all know they like to take a lot of those off). Make them earn your respect and appreciation. Without us, the fans, there would be no Sabres. It kind of sucks to image a world without the only constant, true sports love interest I've ever had. But I feel like this team takes advantage of our love sometimes, and in turn, we make it much too easy on them when it comes to stealing that love back.

I believe that our close-knit fraternity known as Sabre Nation are amongst the most intelligent and knowledgeable of any NHL fans. We follow the games just as closely (if not more) as any other group of fans in the world. So, I just want to see us be a little more unbiased and to stop settling for what has seemed like the status quo for the past 41 years.