They said it was a full house (18,690 uh huh, yeah right), some sloppy and ragged play, the Buffalo debut of newest goaltender Jocelyn Thibault, and a 4-1 Columbus victory.

That pretty much describes the preseason home debut of the Buffalo Sabres.

A first period scrum involving all ten skaters resulted in major penalties and a game misconduct for Andrew Peters, earning the crowd adoration as he offered the fans a salute. Clarke MacArthur’s one timer from the point in the 3rd period was the lone Buffalo tally.

Walking down to the arena from my usual parking spot, it felt a lot like the Stanley Cup playoffs. The sun was shining, the air was warm and sultry. But this was not the playoffs, and as I arrived near the corner of Washington and Perry, it was not packed throngs of people and live music out on the plaza. Just the quiet shuffle of patrons making their way towards the building, and the arena music piped out onto the street.

It feels a little naked and incomplete sitting in the seating bowl without a centerpiece scoreboard, and is reminiscent of the ’96-’97 debut season, when the first Jumbotron went crashing to the floor, and fans spent most of that season depending on the end zone small scoreboards for their game info.

Such was the case tonight, but the difference is that the Sabres have installed dot matrix ribbon scoreboards across the end zone fascias of each 300 balcony. And folks, the review from here is not a positive one. To put it bluntly, these boards suck. Blue background with white lettering, the information is scattered and disjointed and all in different fonts, and the penalty clock font size is so small it makes it hard to read. I’m really hoping others notice this and fix the software or whatever to make these boards useful.

Moreover, if this new technology is a precursor to the much anticipated new HD scoreboard, then my anticipation immediately turns to disappointment,.

The pressbox crowd was very sparse tonight, but it was good to see some the regulars who sit down at our end – our seatmate George Kuhn from Sports and Leisure Magazine, Dave Sully from WJJL, Steve Manson and Randy Schultz from WNY Hockey, Matt Ondesko from Metro Source and Mike Haim from AP, among others. Pete will be in the AV chair next Saturday for the Pittsburgh game, and they’re passing out the 07-08 season creds, so I’m dropping by as well.

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