The Electric Building on Roosevelt Square, crowned in Sabres blue and gold at night. One Team - One Goal… this entire city is living life vicariously right now through the fortunes of our hockey team.

Pete and Artvoice publisher Jamie Moses grinning ear to ear at the “Best of Buffalo” party

Tonight we headed to the Town Ballroom downtown for the annual “Best of Buffalo” bash sponsored by Artvoice. For the past two months, our readers have been voting online and via paper ballots for their best picks in all sorts of categories… restaurants, bars, eateires, politicians, celebrities, events, just about everything. So tonight the winners were announced, with a back drop of musical entertainment, libations and complimentary food samples.

The good news: the place was jammed wall to wall with revelers, contestants, fabulous drag queens and assorted bon vivants wanting to be part of the action. The bad news: twice the people and half the food from past years. So we said “hi” to some people we know, chatted around a bit, had a drink, did the photo opp with the Big Boss, and headed out to Casa Di Pizza with uber-blogger and cool new friend Nathan Strang to share a large c&p pie and watch the Devils/Sens game.

Congrats to all the winners - they will be listed in this Thursday’s edition of Artvoice.

The more we look at the plans for the proposed new ballpark for the Oakland Athletics, the more excited we get. Imagine an intimate 32,000 seat venue with state of the art technological enhancements.

Says A’s owner Lew Wolff, “In the batter’s-eye area in center field, that will open up into a public park where fans can look into the stadium before the game and watch batting practice. At game time, the area will close up and we’ll provide either a feed of the game if it’s sold out or a movie for people to enjoy. The area will also open up to our version of Yawkey Way, about a half-million square feet of shopping areas.”

Cisco Field will provide a cellphone system fans can use to purchase tickets and upgrade them on game day. There will be digital signs everywhere and embedded cameras around the ballpark to promote amenities and goings on. “If we have a surplus of hot dogs, we’ll use our digital signs to reduce the price so we can get rid of them,” he said.

The other thing is, you’ll be able to literally live at the ballpark.

The Baseball Village will include 3,000 townhouses of various styles and prices (”We’ll even let non-baseball fans buy them,” said Wolff). Income from the residential portion of the project will help pay for the ballpark, which is expected to cost $400-$500 million, not including the land.

The ballpark will be cozy, with comfortable sight lines, little foul territory, and the feeling of being on top of the field, an idea Wolff proudly says was stolen from the Red Sox and Cubs but with the benefit of modern architecture. “It will be a complete departure from what we have now at the Coliseum,” Wolff said. “Our pitchers are good. They’ll have to be even better.”

Complete information on Cisco Field including renderings are on the team’s website.

Jim Fink of Buffalo Business First talked to us earlier this week about the explosion of fan websites and blogging, and the article runs in this week’s print edition of Business First. Our comments appear in the article. Here’s the online link.

Stephen Watson of the Buffalo News wrote this feature article which deals with the growth of online fan sites and focuses in on Bfloblog in particular. Our congratulations to Mark and Kevin as well as all their loyal followers and linked sports sites for an excellent piece and well deserved coverage.

In the “small world” category: Kevin Hosey, who is pictured in the article as a regular blog poster, was once upon a time Editor of the Cheektowaga Bee. And I, once upon a time, was a Cheektowaga Councilman. So basically he “covered” me and my Board when I was there and he was the consummate professional journalist. I had some rough personal patches early on in my stint in office and Kevin treated me with fairness and concern rather than just beating up on me like some other media outlets were doing. I will always be grateful to him for that. So a big “shout out” to “KJHosey”!

Quick thought on today’s game…since I missed parts of it as did Peter. Take the fact that it took the Rangers almost 5 periods to put away the Sabres in their own building in a game they desperately had to win. I think that bodes well for us, no?
I said Sabres in five before this began… I am sticking to it.

Been watching as much of the NBA playoffs as possible between NHL games as possible(dammit, when’s that new HDTV coming in!)….and just chiming in with a few rambling observations.

Place to be as a fan: Oakland. The Oracle Arena witnessed its first postseason game in thirteen years and the fans in the joint treated it like a Finals game. The Warriors responded to the fandemonium by annihilating the top seeded Mavs 109-91.

Worst title defense in recent memory: Miami goes out with a whimper in a four game sweep. I didn’t catch much of this one, I’m glad.

Ummm….D-Wade, maybe getting that shoulder fixed should have been a higher priority.

Sucks to be a fan of: any NBA team in the state of Florida. 0 for 8, OUCH!

Not yet ready for prime time award goes to: The Toronto Raptors. I really like what’s being built up north and there’s a nice young core in TJ Ford, Andrea Bargnani and Chris Bosh. But Kidd, Carter, and Jefferson they ain’t. They need another year or so to develop….

Kobe won a postseason game this season. Wonder if he feels like he put one over on Shaq, who got swept this season.

AI….7 for 20, throwing up a few prayers in game three…..sigh…..a lepoard’s skin never changes.

Can we just end the Cavs/Wizards series now??

And I still have nothing to say about the Jazz/Rockets series. Maybe later. (Going off topic here…but where can I get my AH YOU jersey at??)

Andy Marte is back in Buffalo, sent down from the parent Cleveland Indians on a rehabilitation assignment. Last season, Marte played in 96 games for the Bisons and hit .261 (93-357) with 23 doubles, 15 home runs and 46 RBI.

The Bisons return from their road trip this Saturday, and it looks like we’ll be grooving to the beat of the Chacarron once again at Dunn Tire Park!

If you ever have the good fortune to step into a big league pressbox around these parts, chances are you will run into Mike Haim. But you won’t often see Mike’s name in a newspaper byline or up in lights, for he is one of these media guys who does much of his work behind the scenes, and he does it well.

What are some of Mike’s assignments? He covers games for Associated Press; He covers games for Sports Ticker; He freelances for several area publications; He is a member of the statistics crew at Buffalo Bills games. Want more? He even picks up writing assignments from time to time for visiting clubs who face the Buffalo Bisons. And at Bisons and Sabres games, while most of the local media contingent goes en masse to the home team dressing room, you will find Mike sauntering over to the visiting club for postgame interviews and comments, because that’s the job he usually gets to do.

Mike got his first taste of all this media stuff as a kid attending games of the NBA Buffalo Braves. “I would find a way to sneak down to the scorers table and media row after games and collect press notes and media guides. Everntually they just kind of knew me down there and I was in” Mike recalls.

Fast forward to the present and the “new kid” is sneaking into the pressbox, as Mike brings his young son Marshall to Bisons games from time to time, and one can predict that it will just be a matter of time before the next generation of Haims joins the media contingent.

Mike has always been a big fan and supporter of the USRT, soaking in the stories of our travel adventures. We too like listening to Mike’s stories, the people he has met, the articles he has written, the experiences he has encountered while doing what he does. We tip our hat to a good friend and colleague!

Peter posted on this topic yesterday but I’ve got my own thoughts and here they are…

The Sabres have formed quite a bond with the “Irish Tenor”, and the story of his return to Buffalo was front page headlines in the Buffalo News.

I’m not buying into it…and it has nothing to do with Tynan.

I grew up hating the Irving Berlin spiritual “God Bless America”. My memories as a teenager was watching that Dead Fat Woman in Philadelphia step out onto the ice at the Spectrum and croak out that song. And that was it. Game over. Flyers win. The Flyers always won.

A generation later, this song holds a much more bitter meaning for me. The Bushies and the Cheneys and the Halliburtons just love to truck out this song whenever the temperature gets too hot wtih criticism of their Iraq misadventure… forget about the half trillion dollars (and counting) for their fucking war, forget about the 3300 (and counting) dead soldiers. Let us sing to the heavens… let our spirits soar… and together we feel so good and all is well with the world! UGH!

As for last night, I could write you the same sorry story… Tynan sings the song, the Jumbotron displays photos of soldiers, dressed in their desert khakis and holding their rifles, sitting on their tanks and displaying their missiles and other instruments of death.

As I look around the seating bowl and see happy children eating their popcorn and cotton candy, my thoughts turned to other children who might not be smiling. I ask, how many Iraqi children had their homes and villages flattened from those very same tanks we’re viewing in those pictures? How many Iraqi children are orphaned from that same missile battery we saw on the screen last night?

The results of the Tynan show was predictable – a collective orgasm from the crowd. Nothing like images of soldiers and armies and war to get a sports audience going.

What did I do? I did what I always do in sports venues when they play the Dead Fat Woman’s song. I took a seat. Hey, I’ll stand for the Star Spangled Banner and sing loud and proud anytime. But I will not pay homage to that piece of propaganda bullshit.

If you don’t like my take on all this, then go ahead and let me have it. I’ve sat my ass down through many a 7th inning stretch and gotten an earful from people around me. I held my ground then. I’m not about to back down now.

Giddy-up guys!

For two periods, the Buffalo Sabres played like they were doped up, managing just nine shots on goal and thanks to some very solid play in net by Ryan Miller, they were kept in the game, staring at only a 2-1 deficit after two periods.

Giddy-up guys!

When the third period started, everything changed. Buffalo got an early goal, a Chris Drury tip in on a perfect pass from Toni Lydman. A few minutes later Thomas Vanek jammed in the game winner, after setting up a perfect pass to Campbell on the point and then crashing the net to bury it.

From there the Sabres put on the burners…wave after wave of attacks which had the crowd up on its feet time and time again.

But the real drama was in the last two minutes, as Buffalo was called with a penalty with 1:48 to go. The Rangers pulled their goaltender, giving them a two skater advantage, and from there it was heart in your throat time and gut check time. “I really wasn’t all that panicked” said Ryan Miller after the game. “I didn’t get to see the call on Briere but I certainly did see Avery punching Briere in the face after the whistle and that wasn’t called.”

Buffalo did a bang up job clearing the puck during that last minute, and the officials missed a seeming offsides call with 10 seconds that had Lindy Ruff steaming afterwards. Even the Rangers attackers held up expecting a whistle but none was called. Ruff was awarded a gross misconduct penalty at the end of the game for his bottle throwing rant.

So what happened in the locker room between the second and third periods? Brian Campbell replies “We just needed to get the puck in front of the net more and create scoring chances. We all talked about it and that quick goal early on so totally lifted the entire bench.”

On my pedestal - what more can you say aboout Dainius Zubrus? Again he threw his body around, forechecked with total abandon, played puck control in the attack zone and delivered punishing hit after hit. If the Sabres advance and end up playing Ottawa, the Sens will have a handful to deal with and a force they didn’t see in Buffalo when the teams last played.

In my doghouse.. Max Mr. Giveaway Afinogenov and the fact that you didn’t see him on the third speaks volumes. Oh.. and yoo hoo, Jochen!!! Feel free to show up some night.

Lastly, props to Ryan Miller for not only his stellar play tonight, but not getting sucked in to a war of words with the Rangers. When told that Jagr had remarked “They probably think it’s over,” Miller calmly replied that the Rangers deserve every bit of respect and that this is only one game.

So on to the Big Apple it is for a Sunday afternoon game on NBC. Score early..take the crowd out of it.. show why you’re such a great road team. Can’t wait!!!

Do not let this man sing prior to game time tonight!!!!!

Listen, nothing personal against the guy, he’s a great story about overcoming obstacles in life. But part of the lore of the playoffs is superstition and traditions.
Playoff beards-in.
Stepping on every crack in the sidewalk - in.
Tossing an octopus on the ice prior to game time - in.
Keeping every routine thing the same…where you watch the game….what you wear….in.
Having the same person sing the anthems prior to every game - in!

Oh by the way, Ronan is 0-1 in the postseason singing “GBA”…if the Sabs lose tonight, let’s hope it’s the last time they bring him in to sing during the playoffs. Too much is at stake.

I finally have a day off from my real job that coincides with a morning skate, so off I went!!!

I notice that the media contingent is beginning to swell with more of a national presence from up north and the Ranger media as well. Despite basically carrying the same market there appears to be a larger contingent of Ranger media than Islander media.

All the Sabres who took the day off yesterday(Stafford, Lydman, Campbell, and Connolly) were up and skating today. In his comments Coach Ruff stated that”all will be able to play tonight” and that “if we play to our strengths, it’s our best hockey”.

Coach also was asked about advice on being shorthanded(concerning Roszival) and answered” to concentrate on who you have and not who you don’t.”

The word is similar coming from the Ranger dressing room concerning Michal Roszival, he was skating during the Ranger warmups this morning and while Coach Renney wouldn’t tip his hand he did say Roszival “look good and felt good” and didn’t rule out dressing seven defensemen for tonight…..

Sean Avery was a bit low keyed answering questions saying that the team has to concentrate on doing the little things needed to win a game. But Avery being who he is found time to pop off at a local reporter(initials AB) for asking what he perceived to be “a stupid question”.

Gee Sean, maybe you ought to “hold the throttle back” as the reporter said. You did find the box twice and had a -3 on the night.

Other things of note….

The playoff beards in the Sabre locker room are starting to take shape, about all the players are in on it though I noticed that Tim Connolly is maintaining the sahved head look and the matching shaved face to go with it. Assistant PR guys Chris Bandura and Rob Crean seem to be in on the act as well.

Newsday columnist Mark Hermann has been taking some good natured ribbing about his presence as guest columnist in the News for the past two-three weeks. One person joked about him being hired full time on the Buffalo News staff….after a certain blogger asked him about whether he covers the Devils too, he joked that he already had a house up here….seems like a good guy. And a far better columnist than that Ned Barnett in Raleigh….

Does there need be any more proof of the existence of Sabre fever…

Last night at HSBC Arena the “Party In The Plaza” went dry.

And the crowd was noticably smaller.

Well, the beer is back! News release just hit my email box from Kevin Snow at the Sabres…

SABRES TO MAKE BEER AVAILABLE AT “Party in the Plaza” PRE-GAME PARTIES

The parties will take place rain or shine with free admission, as a game ticket will not be required for entrance to the party.

“Should We Be Scared?”

This week’s Puck Stop. Check it out!

Was it me, or did it seem that the postseason REALLY got underway tonight?

The Sabres used a three goal burst late in the second period to propel them to a 5-2 win over the Rangers. Thomas Vanek picked up a pair of goals. Pominville and Kotalik each added one a piece and Drew Stafford added an empty netter to finish off the Sabres scoring.

The Rangers came out and held their own in the first ten to fifteen minutes of play using a physical style of play to keep Buffalo in check. After that the Sabres seemed to turn on the jets as rush after rush of attacks came down the ice for Buffalo. Only some stellar play by Henrik Lundqvist kept the game scoreless in the first.

It was more of the same until Vanek finally broke through with just under six minutes left in the second, and soon after it was like the dam had burst as Kotalik would add his and Vanek would strike again all within a four minute span.

The Sabres pretty much had the game iced thanks not to a fourth goal but from killing off a five on three power play that ended with about eleven minutes to go. Taro lit the cigar at that point…..

Sean Avery yapped about how he was going to hurt Sabre players….Game 1 stats: eighteen minutes on the ice, four minutes in the box, minus three rating for the night. Thanks for the assistance Sean!

In the postgame the Rangers lamented the fact that they gave the Sabres many power play opportunities. Brendan Shanahan said that ” I liked the way we started for the first ten minutes….then we gave them the momentum…we put them on the power play time after time and we kinda let their offensive players get into the game..”

Toni Lydman seemed upbeat after a night of chasing around Jagr but noted the difficulties in that task:”Jagr is tough to defend against. We try our hardest to stop him but he has size and strength. We need to work on that more but we have so much confidence with Ryan backing us up it makes our job easier.”

Hey Drew you just nabbed the empty netter, how’d it feel? “I was down on the ice and I could see the refs arm up and a penalty being called. Next thing you know the crowd is roaring. I never saw the puck actually go in the net.”

(And I’m sure they practice the dragged-down-on-the-ice-while-shooting-puck-into-the-net-play EVERY DAY in practice.)

Other thoughts, useless or not…..

The Sabres five goal outburst is one shy of the entire series output of the Atlanta Thrashers in the first round….Jaromir…I don’t think we’re in Atlanta anymore…

Unique fan jersey of the night: A Tretiak USSR jersey spotted in the 300’s.

The walk down Washington Street to the arena featured a new dot matrix board in front of Dunn Tire Park, I then looked to my right and saw a countdown to the Cup mural at the top floor of the City Grill building.

Also wondering if it was the weather or the lack of alcoholic beverages that kept the size of the crowd down in the plaza tonight.

The new marquee is up and running in front of the ballpark

Check out the countdown in the windows at this office building on Main and Swan. (Click on photo to enlarge and get a better look)