I actually picked up on this story last night… Illuzzi’s site no less, and took it with a grain of salt since it was on, well, Illuzzi.

But lo and behold, this story has legs, and looks like the Bills want to stage not only a preseason game up at Rogers Centre but a 2009 regular season game as well.

From the way the sainted Scott Berchtold is coming across, it seems that the Bills are fine with it.

In a statement, a Bills spokesman said the team plans to “increase its focus on the northern sector of its market” by playing a regular-season game in Toronto. The Canadian fan base, spokesman Scott Berchtold wrote, has led to the Bills’ recent sellout streak, which enabled home games to be televised in the Western New York market.

Oh really Scott? Well you guys opened a ticket office in Toronto and that bombed, didn’t it? Have you ever opened your arms and your pressbox towards the Canadian media and asked them to come and cover games? Have you ever gotten a real group sales effort going north of the border, calling clubs and organizations to buy blocks of tickets? Have you ever thought of setting up a dedicated themed area in the parking lot for Canadians and offering prizes and contests to make them feel welcome? Have you ever thought of doing something creative with your concessions menu, perhaps adding Canadian microbrews and food specials such as Pizza Pizza and Poutine to the mix? Did you ever have any “at par” days back when the US dollar fetched a loonie and a half?

The Bills covet Canada now? Boy we sure couldn’t tell in the old days when now dead Bills hatchet man Vincent Tobia ran around town suing tavern owners who had the audacity to put blacked out games on their TV sets via the dish. Oh he got huge settlements for the Old Geezer and fattened his wallet as well. But he did hit one roadblock - he could not “get” the bars in Fort Erie who were showing the games, he could not interfere with the internal laws of another sovereign nation. But not for lack of trying.

Ah, but that was then, and this is now, so let’s take a prized home game and move it up to Toronto. THAT will solve everything. THAT will open up the Canadian market to beef up those season ticket purchases and snap up those remaining suites and club suites. Sure. OK. Whatever.

Kevin at Bfloblog is spot on with this point..

And I’m sure it’s just the cynic in me that believes that the Bills and the NFL are just sowing the seeds for a team to move to Toronto. Unfortunately, that team may just be the Bills. Not that I believe that Ralph Wilson will ever sell, but making the Canadian market a possibility sure does open up more potential bidders for Mr. Wilson’s estate.

Well here’s my take… we have paid and paid and paid to keep and enhance this facility so that the Bills can remain in Buffalo, and it’s not like there are oceans of empty seats. We do sell out these games. Furthermore, we taxpayers just paid out even more to fund their new scoreboard and ribbon board enhancements. Nobody cut a check to Golisano to do the same at HSBC Arena, yet it seems OK that we can continue to enrich the Old Geezer.

As a taxpayer, in return for my funding of this team, I get this benefit - the economic impact of hosting 10 home games a season at Old Geezer Stadium. Take away one or more of those games, and the cost to this community runs into the millions - the loss of sales tax revenue, bed tax revenue, and the multiplier effect of food, merchandise, hotel rooms, restaurants and everything else that is involved with the staging of one NFL game. Toronto wins, we get nothing. That is unacceptable.

So you want to take away one NFL game from the taxpayers of Erie County? Fine… then I ask only that the NBA Toronto Raptors shift three regular season home games to HSBC Arena in exchange. Oh, and one of those games has to be vs the Knicks. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander, and I am hoping that our politicians and leaders don’t roll over and accept this proposal without examining every angle and impact first.

“Power(ful) Play”

This week’s Puck Stop. Check it out!

After spotting the Toronto Maple Leafs a 2-0 lead after two periods, it was an insane third period tonight at HSBC Arena. Buffalo gets 4 goals in regulation, including the game tying goal with 3:33 left in regulation. Then Ales Kotalik’s tip in on the power play with 3.7 seconds left in overtime seals Buffalo’s dramatic win.

Once the Sabres overcame their second period cobwebs, the game took on an electric tempo, reminsicent of the great Buffalo Toronto games we have witnessed in the past. Both teams started lighting the lamp and answering, and of course, the building got louder and louder with both contingents of fans. “For entertainment purposes, it was just great for the fans” said Lindy Ruff afterwards, then added “But not so great for the coaches.”

The sellout streak that goes back to April of 2006 is over; the team announced a paid attendance of 18,217, close but no cigar, and there were small gaps of empty seats in each of the corners of the 300 deck. Maybe Monday night is not the most attractive for a game, or maybe single ticket prices from $85-$203 are just a bit high for this market. The next gold game is against the same Leafs on a Friday night and being a weekend date and a holiday weekend, that one should do better.

There were enough Toronto fans in the stands to enjoy this one at first, and while the Sabres started out hot peppering Andrew Raycroft with shot after shot, the team could not get one past him, until Buffalo finally broke through in the third period. From there it became a track meet, just like the types of games the Sabres excelled in last season.

The team seems to be doing a good job working the kinks out of the new electronics. They’ve upped the font on the end zone out of town scoreboards, and the lower ribbon beneath the video is now used to alternate out of town scores, shots on goal or the penalty clocks.

Interestingly, the team has yet to reveal specifics about the scoreboard, including stuff such as the manufacturer, the cost and other details. I asked Mike Gilbert about this today, saying that the new board is awesome and the Sabres should be shouting from the rooftops about their cool new toy. He told me there is a reason for the delay and everything we want to know will be unveiled in due time.

The Sabres are home for one more this Friday against my buddy Michael Peca and the Blue Jackets.

You know it has to be a Sabres Leafs game when the dressing room is jammed with reporters, and 8 camera tripods are bunched in close to film Lindy Ruff’s morning comments.

On the ice this morning it was just one goaltender - Jocelyn Thibault, practicing with the guys, as Ryan Miller was away in Michigan attending memorial services for his cousin who recently passed away. Miller is expected to be back by game time. Just the other day Ruff was waffling about the date when Thibault would get the start in net, but this morning Jocelyn was the center of attention. Ruff praised Thibault’s strong work ethic - “He was always the one out there the longest in training camp. He would always spend extra time working with the younger players. And if Ryan (Miller) should go down with an injury, we feel confident he could step in nicely.”

Much of the buzz from the Leafs media contingent has to do with Buffalo’s newly found offensive prowess. The team is getting plenty of shots on net and scoring chances, and with Toronto lighting the lamp as well this season, everyone is expecting a wide open and high scoring affair.

The guy with the most swagger in the dressing room these days is Jaroslav Spacek, and why the heck not! He’s got four goals, and Ruff complimented him this morning by saying “He’s probably the best defenseman we have right now, in penalty kills, on the power play and 5 on 5″. There’s a new song going around called “Spacho - Man!” done to the famous Village People tune, and Jaroslav is eating that up.

About 1000 tickets remain for sale, and let’s hope for a big walk up to keep the sellout streak intact. So that means you Leafs fans too get your asses down here and bring that colorful currency of yours!

7 PM start time and I’ve got the Artvoice chair tonight. I also got a call and an email from roadtripper Joe Connor, who is traveling the country visiting football venues in a car powered by used vegetable oil. Pete and I met him last year at Dunn Tire Park and we were a bit sour on him because he totally dissed our ballpark back then and we thought most of it was unfair. Anyways, he is in town and will be attending the game so I might at least hook up with him and say hi.

The Toronto Maple Leafs come to Buffalo tomorrow, and as long as I can remember, that would translate into the hottest ticket in town, what with all those crazy Leafs fans descending onto our city, plus the super charged raucous atmosphere that makes these games a special event.

Yet looking at the tickets.com website, it appears that there are oceans of tickets available. I did a search for 10 tickets in the upper deck, and presto… 10 came up in sec 303, row 7. I tried for 8 tickets in the club level, and no problems, 8 on the blue line.

The news doesn’t get any better… I looked at eBay an hour ago an there are 160 auctions posted for tickets for tomorrow night. Many have a starting price somewhere near or below face value and are closing with no takers.

So what gives here? The Sabres are bursting at the seams with season ticket holders and wannabes on a waiting list, right? Leafs fans are ga ga for their team, and the Loonie is stronger than ever, making a visit to the States a bargain.

My guess is that the team may have overreached a bit with its pricing matrix. Season tickets are in demand because the cost is attractive and reasonable. Our seats in sec 113 run $31 each, yet the face value for tomorrow’s “gold” game is $135 each.

Small wonder that when single tickets went on sale, the “value” games were the first ones to go, while the “gold” games seem to be languishing. How many people are going to pony up “gold” prices on a Wednesday night in December, right before Christmas, to see Briere and the Flyers?

It would be a shame to see the sellout string come to an end; I would like to see that number continue to climb for years to come. But even if the Sabres get a last minute walkup and announce the magic “18,690″ figure, scan the seating bowl and look for those yawning gaps of empty seats… in the corner 200s at the Harbour Club end, or close to the ice around sec 123-100-101. If you see blue, then you know that the same guys who tally attendances at Bisons games are up to their nefarious business.

The Sabres were by far the better team against the Washington Capitals tonight. It simply took about thirty five minutes for it to show on the scoreboard.

Caps backup goalie Brent Johnson had done an admirable job shutting down the Buffalo attack up for the night, but the dam burst when Jaro Spacek scored the first of four late second period goals at the 14:51 mark of the stanza. Max Afinogenov, Jason Pominville and Adam Mair each added markers soon thereafter to finish off a period in which Buffalo pelted the Caps with 24 shots.(Record: 26 - Cleveland 2/25/78)

Washington began to show some signs of life in the third period with a goals from Mike Green and Alexander Ovechkin, but the Sabres matched them with markers of their own from Derek Roy (Mr. September) and Brian Campbell, whose tally was set up by some magical stickwork from Maxim Afinogenov. Jaro Spacek’s second of the night finished off the scoring.

The Sabres power play continued to click, as the special teams lit the lamp another three times. When asked to explain the success of the power play unit, Coach Ruff stated that “we’re getting plenty of shots….we’re getting easy entry into the zone…and we’re getting presence down low when we’re shooting from the back. Especially from guys like Gaustad and Vanek”.

I’ll add another thing about the power play, this season we are seeing less of the what I’d call overpassing. Gone are situations where the team passes up a decent attempt in favor of the perfect shot(though through a risky pass). A player gets the puck in the back, they have an open lane, they let it rip. Simple as that, and last season’s team never seemed to grasp that philosophy.

Brush with greatness??? sighting? Went to our typical postgame hangout at the Washington Square Lounge after we decided that Morrissey’s was way too packed to stay in. After downing the first pitcher of “pop” a second one soon showed up, compliments of Andrew Peters (coolest USRT name ever) who was chilling with some friends and family at a nearby table. Don’t know what it is about NHL pugilists being some of the meanest badasses on the ice yet the nicest ones off it and Peters fits that rule to a T.

Next up is Monday night when LeafsNation invades the HSBC Arena. Got to beat this team, we don’t want to walk out of the venue with those arrogant, smarmy fans giving it to us.

Everyone on the team is looking healthy and chipper as the Sabres prepare to take on the Washington Capitals at HSBC Arena tonight.

The 6-0 shellacking of the Altlanta Thrashers the other night was just the tonic that the Sabres needed to get thngs going, and Jaroslav Spacek is happy to get things going on the power play. “One thing we are trying to do is get the puck high some more, and get more pucks on the net. So far it seems to be working and we are having some success” said Spacek. Lindy Ruff chimed in about the power play as well. “The guys are creating more trffic around the net and you can see what kind of opportunities that result.”

I also asked Lindy what his goaltender plans are and will we be seeing Jocelyn Thibault get a start in net anytime soon. “My first concern is getting Ryan up to speed where he is 100%, and once Ryan is 100%, then our next concern is how to get Jocelyn into the game.”

On the ice, the guys were spending a lot of time doing 2 on 1 drills. Considering it was a Saturday, it was a sparse crowd in the stands to watch the practice, I’d say around 200 or so.

Pete gets his second straight start in the AV chair tonight; I’ll be in the building as well. Will the crowd still be booing Ovechkin for his cheap shot on Briere last year? My guess is that is ancient news.

We’re thinking of blowing off our traditional postgame watering hole Washington Square Lounge tonight and instead checking out W.J. Morrisey’s on Mississippi Street. That will be a last minute decision.

The NFL, NHL and NBA always have a “schedule day”, a day and time where they release their entire season schedule all at once. Ditto for the AHL.

But not so in Major League Baseball. Each of the 30 teams releases their schedule at a time of their own choosing. Scroll through the team websites and you will find that a few teams have posted their entire 2008 calendars, others have posted just their home games, while still others have yet to make any announcement.

So how does this all affect us? Well basically we have identified four weekends next season which tie around Pete’s three days off work schedule. Now we are attempting to get the full list of who is home and who is not on those weekends so we can make plans. And interestingly, even if a team like, let’s say the Nationals, don’t have their schedule posted yet, sometimes we can still find out where they’re at on the dates in question just by backtracking through other team schedules that are up.

The USRT has three Major League Baseball venues in the plans for next season - of course the new ballpark, Nationals Park in DC is at the top of the list; then there are plans for farewell visits to both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium. Oh yeah, the new IL ballpark in Lehigh Valley, Coca Cola Park deserves a mention as well, we have set a date for that visit next June.

But alas, neither the Mets, Yankees or Nationals have announced their schedules as of yet, and we have not culled enough info from other sites to put any reasonable plans together. For whatever reason, the New York teams are always among the last to announce their calendars, this we have learned from past experience.

So we wait, and check the websites every few days. Lots of fun, this road trip planning, but when it comes to MLB, a bit exasperating as well.

Their rental car got broken into on Lower Terrace, a miscreant thief trying to pry out the vehicle’s GPS… Some knucklehead Dallas fans lit up a barbecue grill in a hotel room at the Adams Mark in the wee hours Monday night, and with smoke billowing through the hallways the hotel had to be evacuated… While visiting Niagara Falls, they decided to WALK from the cataracts to the Spanish Aerocar attraction down the gorge (”well it didn’t look that far on the map”)…Cueing up at the Peace Bridge on the return to Buffalo, they waited with trepidation to find out what Homeland Security had in store for them at the inspection booth (no probs)…

In other words, Chris Boyes and his family had the time of their lives.

Last night Peter and I met up with Chris and Carolyn and their two kids at Fat Bob’s in Allentown for a farewell dinner. For them the week here in Western New York went way too quickly. It was a holiday jam packed with sightseeing, shopping, adventure, the Sabres opener, and for Chris, the marquee event of the trip… a journey to see the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park.

I picked Chris up at the Adams Mark about 4pm Monday, and after a quick stop to pop into Dunn Tire Park to show him the ballpark we pointed the car southward, meeting up with Pete at Duff’s. For Chris I could already sense his excitement. As we drove down route 5, I was pointing out the sights (Outer Harbor, nature preserve, Bethlehem Steel yada yada) but all he wanted to know was “how far to the stadium”. When we sailed down Lake and crossed over Abbott, he craned his neck and got his first glimpse of what he had traveled so far to come see.

After the traditional Buffalo meal of beef on weck, chicken wings and cold Molsons (2 for 1’s), I passed Chris off to Peter, as I had to head back to Cheektowaga for a political meeting (hey our next County Legislator Alan Bedenko was addressing the Cheektowaga Democratic Committee how I could I miss that!) I later blew out of there and drove back to RWS to meet the guys, getting to the seats just as the teams were being introduced, and Pete and Chris had already gotten their fill of checking out the tailgate scene, a visit to the Bills store, and the photo opps. Now it was showtime.

For me it was a thrill watching the game through Chris’ eyes… he is such a die hard Buffalo fan and even though he is 37 years old, he displayed almost a childlike boyish enthusiasm, up on his feet cheering loud, singing the “Shout” song along with the fans, and hugging and high-fiving everyone around us.

And what a show he saw! Bills fans were partying like it was 1991, and I have not heard the stadium so loud since the Glory Years. For a night game on a holiday, I thought the stands would be full of ugly incidents and fights but we saw little of that. For on this night Buffalo put its best face on for a prime time national audience, and as often as I pontificate on what a crappy and hostile place RWS is to attend a Bills game, I couldn’t be prouder of my fellow Buffalonians for the spirit they showed, and on a night where we wanted so much to impress our very special visitor.

Of course by now we know the brutal and heartbreaking outcome. One could not have asked for a more classic performance out of our team’s bedraggled defense, and for almost an entire evening we dared to hope that the Bills would shock everyone with a miracle win. But it was not meant to be, and when Dallas kicked the 52 yarder to complete their improbable comeback, I felt like crying, Pete looked like he wanted to do likewise, and Chris had the look of utter shock on his face. Fans around us began filing out, but the three of us just stood there for a few minutes and stared, allowing the realization of what an incredible game we just witnessed to sink in.

By last night the shock had worn off, and the Boyes’ spent one final day around town, shopping at the Walden Galleria and taking a drive back down to RWS to check out the Bills store and show the kids the outside of the building. All four of them spoke so highly of the warmth and friendliness that they had encountered from WNY’ers, the beautiful attractions and wonderful assets that we have here and take for granted, and of course, seeing the Sabres and the Bills live and in person.

Chris Boyes promised a return visit to WNY, next time son Jack will be older and will undoubtedly come along to see his first Bills game. Peter and I spoke of a possible USRT visit to England sometime down the line, a trip to Wembley Stadium and of course to catch a game of Chris’ beloved Wolverhampton Wolves in the Premier League. The Boyes’ have promised us that they will roll out the red carpet.

As we bid this nice family goodbye on the curb on Virginia Place, it hit me that the Ultimate Sports Road Trip is far more than seeing ballparks and stadiums and the bricks and mortar. It is making friends with extraordinary people, and we have been so lucky to have met so many terrific folks over the years.

Chris Boyes stumbled upon the USRT website by chance a few years back, saw these two guys from Buffalo, and began an email penpal relationship with us based on his love for Buffalo’s sports teams. We were so delighted to at last be able to meet Chris in person, and show him and his family the best of what Buffalo is all about.

While many of us enjoyed the Buffalo Bisons of 2004 Cleveland Indians dispatch the New York Yankees in four games in the ALDS, I got to thinking how a long and productive era in Bisons history might be coming to an end after the next season. That’s when affiiliation agreements between MLB teams and MiLB teams expire, and the conventional wisdom is that the Cleveland Indians will be pairing up with Columbus as the Clippers open their spanking new downtown ballpark. Cleveland might be looking to tap the Columbus market as they regionalize their franchise, as well as establish their branding on the regional sports network Sportstime Ohio.

So should the Indians bid good bye to Buffalo, who will the be our new parent club come 2009? While there was a time when teams would come courting the Bisons, a perfect storm of events could happen that incredibly could leave Buffalo left with table scraps.

The big elephant in the room is the New York Mets, and when the last version of musical chairs happened two years ago, the Mets were dispatched to New Orleans in the PCL, and that has been a nightmare for the team. It would make a lot of sense for the Mets to come to Buffalo. But suprise, surprise. It is Syracuse who is making the big push to land the Mets. The hideous astroturf at Alliance Bank Stadium will soon be history as natural turf is being installed. The Chief’s long affiliation with the Blue Jays is wearing thin after a long string of losing seasons. And as the linked article says, the entire Syracuse baseball hierarchy is excited at the prospect of going after the Mets.

So if Cleveland bolts for Columbus, and the Mets end up off the board and heads to Syracuse, Buffalo’s next choice would then be the Pittsburgh Pirates, who at one time was Buffalo’s parent club. Pirates GM Neal Huntington knows the Buffalo team well, having once worked with the Indians farm system. The Bucs are now hooked up with Indianapolis, so what if they end up staying put?

That would leave the Toronto Blue Jays, which makes geographic sense but would offer little synergy between the two cities for several reasons. Additionally, one only needs to look at the record of the Jays’ farmhands at AAA in recent seasons and that does not inspire confidence.

Then of course, the Washington Nationals, who would be displaced from Columbus, would also be available, and would certainly want to stay in the International League.

One thing is for sure… there will be a two week window next September where any official franchise shifts will take place. But the quiet jockeying for position will begin months earlier, and hopefully the Bisons will be the team up to the task of choosing its own destiny.

The Boyes family, clockwise from top left, Peter Farrell(needing a haircut) Chris,Carolyn, and twins Zoe and Jack.

Yep, I’m pretty certain a phrase that I’ve never heard before in my life came out of the mouth of Chris Boyes as we were hanging out at the Adam’s Mark the evening prior to the Sabres home opener.

As we mentioned in a post earlier this summer Chris has been a Bills fan for over two decades and in the process picked up a following for the Sabres as well.

So it is on this weekend that Chris is in the Buffalo/Niagara region and bringing his wife Carolyn and twins Jack and Zoe with him. And with us being longtime Buffalo area residents, we’ve attempted to put our best foot forward to show off the place we call home.

Save for an anonymous @$$hole who broke into their rental car during the night, I think we did well……We brought Chris and Jack to the Anchor Bar Thursday to acclimate them with the true home of the Buffalo chicken wing and intoduce them to our city. It was there I asked an obvious question: Why be a Bills fan?

Chris answered that American football was starting to pick up in the UK and several friends were watching, most picking teams that were renowned and successful and the Bills at the time were not as this was those mid 80’s down years. Chris wanted to follow a team when it was down and be able to watch it make its way up to the top. Thankfully for us, he hasn’t hopped off when times went bad.

One thing is certain, bandwagon fan this is not, Chris has been known (verified by Carolyn) to at times get up in the middle of the night to catch his Bills on the ‘net as those prime time games start at 130-2 AM overseas. Chris can recall with the best of Bills fans the best and worst of the past two decades. Being that Dallas will be the opponent when he visits the Ralph, he recalled the time back in the mid 80’s when a winless Bills club stunned the Cowboys for their first win of the season.

Since they were connected with a couple of really cool sports bloggers/roadtrippers(heh heh), The Boyes family had some really great seats for Friday’s home opener. When we came down to greet them, they were all decked out in some blue and gold gear, right down to Jack’s Sabretooth baseball cap. Unfortunately for them, the Sabres couldn’t pull out the win after a great start to the game…guess means that they gotta come back again right???

They’re in the Falls this weekend doing, well the obligatory Niagara Falls business, then it’s back to Buffalo, where Chris will indeed fulfill his nearly generation old dream of attending a Bills game at the Ralph.

Yep, visiting Buffalo a dream come true….it really is. It’d be nice to hear that more often. Any others like you overseas Chris?

Smoke pours out of the Sabres logos on the cool new TV set at HSBC Arena

Two new banners are unfurled high in the rafters

The President’s Trophy on display at center ice

Be still my beating heart! Is internet service up here at HSBC Arena at long last available? Or is someone teasing me? I fire up the laptop and there is my home page, not that dreaded message from the thieves at I-Evolve.net demanding $29.95 for a night’s use. Well, I’ll take what I can get and at least for one night can file my report right here from my seat.

It’s Opening Night and the streets outside the building had all the feel of a playoff game - temperatures ridiculously hot for early October, Perry Street closed off for the Party In The Plaza, and fans all geeked up for another year of Sabres hockey.

I was all fired up myself for what I hoped would be a stirring and emotional pregame show. Yeah I wanted to see the highlight reel - the big games, the big goals, the emotional playoff moments, even those big playoff goals in the closing seconds against the Rangers and the Sens. What we got instead was the 21st century version of Talkin’ Proud. Pretty Buffalo streetscapes, skyscrapers and Buffalonians smiling and going about their business, all done to a cute song titled “I Love This Town.”

The “banner raising” was anything but… they merely unfurled the two banners - one for the Northeast Division title and the second for the President’s Trophy, right from their permanent spots in the rafters. Then they brought out the actual President’s Trophy and placed it on a table at center ice. The players treated it like it was a stack of thawed Topps burgers.

So much for the goose bumps.

The scoreboard and electronics review is a bit better - they fired up the lower ribbon underneath the video board to display penalty time and shots on goal, and there is an out of town scoreboard scrolling scores on the end zone ribbon boards (again guys, font is a tad small). Yeah they were updating the ALDS playoff games in addition to the NHL scores.

The game, however, was a disappointment for the Sabres. The guys started out pretty well, sending wave after wave of attackers and making smart plays at first. But the Islanders scored two late power play goals in the first period on a two man advantage, and after one it was knotted at 3.

Defense? What defense! Checking? What checking! Captain of the month Jochen Hecht looked like he was afraid to touch the puck, defenders Toni Lydman and Dmitri Kalinin also seemed lost out there, often out of position, refusing to take out bodies in front of the net. If this is the new defensive minded and physical Sabres, there is work to be done. The constant turnovers (Coach Lindy Ruff stopped counting at 30) was abysmal.

Former Sen Mike Comrie was a house of fire, scoring four points, including the game winner in the second period.

The Sabres go to the Island tomorrow night to complete the home and home. Time to set this ship right. And fast.

Buffalo News Sabres beat reporter Tim Graham covers his final game tonight - the season opener of the Buffalo Sabres against the New York Islanders.

He now heads down to South Florida to assume the job of Miami Dolphins beat reporter for the Palm Beach County Post.

Pete and I both wish him the best. A solid reporter and a class act.

In Tim’s honor, the logo accompanying this post is most fitting!

“Just In Case Harry Changes His Mind”

This week’s Puck Stop. We decided to pick a few longshots who might be suitable to work the broadcast booth alongside Rick Jeanneret.

Check it out!