So much for our prognostications. Although Pete and I both nailed the highest priced games, and both of us successfully picked a Value game. Which means our challenge is declared a tie. (Take THAT Tim Schmitt and Matt Pearl!)

The Buffalo Sabres today announced their 2008-09 variable pricing formula for single game tickets, and a new tier, the “Platinum” category, has been added to the lineup, which also includes Gold, Silver, Bronze and Value priced games.

All three Toronto games, as well as the February 6 Montreal game, have been designated in the Platinum category… ticket prices will run from $78 in the 300 end zones to a high of $233 for club level seats for those four games.

At the other end of the spectrum, only three games, October 30 Tampa Bay, November 12 St. Louis and December 1 Nashville are the bargain value games. Those seats will run $22 to a high of $99 at the window.

A couple of surprises… the Sabres have assigned both Washington games, including a Tuesday night during the Christmas holidays, as a Gold game. I’m having a hard time buying that one… even with Alexander Ovechkin on the ice, Caps games are usually a snoozefest in my opinion.

Additionally, both Rangers games and both Flyers games are Gold games, and while all four are weekend games, I’m thinking that this whole Drury and Briere thing is part of what’s driving this to the premium category… Hasn’t all that gotten a bit old?

The entire breakdown is as follows:

Platinum - 4 games (3 weekend)
Gold - 10 games (8 weekend)
Silver - 15 games (11 weekend)
Bronze - 9 games (1 weekend)
Value - 3 games (0 weekend)

Best bargains on the schedule? In addition to the three Value games, the Sunday 2/15 Carolina game in the Bronze category could be a hot seller. The 12/22 Pittsburgh game is a Silver game, and although it is a Monday night game, look for that one to go fast. The 11/28 Pittsburgh game is listed as Gold, and that is always a big night out… I would have made that Platinum.

Interestingly, two of the three Ottawa games are Bronze, and those are always exciting to be at.

Biggest dogs? Besides the two Gold Washington games, the 11/14 Columbus and the 3/6 Phoenix got Silver designation, probably because they are on Friday nights. Bow-Wow!

The Sabres announced that single game tickets will go onsale on Saturday, September 20. As in the past there will be a presale for season ticket holders in the days leading up to that date.

Check out the entire Sabres schedule, prices and game designations at this link.

Over the past three seasons, the Buffalo Sabres have implemented a variable pricing formula for single ticket sales, assigning a “gold”, “silver”, “bronze” and “value” designation to each of the games on the schedule, depending on night of the week and the quality of the opponent, among other factors.

For the casual buyer, the difference between a gold game and a value game can be substantial… for example, in our 100 level II seats in section 114, in ‘07-’08 a value ticket went for $48, while a gold ticket fetched a hefty $161.

Last season eight games earned the “gold” designation, and early on the Sabres got bit in the ass, as a weeknight game in October against Toronto fell 400 patrons short of a sellout. I remember Kevin Sylvester making this remark to me in the media room after the morning skate that day - “Well I guess we’re finding out what our price breaking point is”.

I kinda sorta agree with Bfloblog and Kevin’s take on the schedule, which isn’t all that inspiring. Back in the 70s and early 80s, Sunday nights was a big thing on the Sabres schedule, and I remember doing the Bills/Sabres doubleheader on a couple occasions. But Sundays really isn’t a busy night in the NHL anymore, and the Sabres have gone to Friday nights as their marquee nights out.

So anyways, here is the Sabres schedule, and here are my picks. I also invited Pete to make his selection, which appear here as well, and we will have one of our “soda bets” to see who nailed this one, once the Sabs release their single ticket information.

Who do you think will win? Chime in if you wish, unless you’re Matt Pearl. We don’t need Matt to muddy the waters around here, seeing he took exception to MY commentary on the “hallowed” Anchorman’s challenge.

Andrew’s gold games:
Fri Oct 10 - Montreal
Fri Nov 28 - Pittsburgh
Fri Dec 12 - Toronto
Fri Jan 9 - NY Rangers
Wed Feb 4 - Toronto
Fri Mar 20 - Philadelphia
Fri Mar 27 - Toronto
Andrew’s sure fire value game - Mon Dec 1 - Nashville

Peter’s gold games
Fri Oct 10 - Montreal
Fri Nov 28 - Pittsburgh
Fri Dec 12 - Toronto
Fri Jan 9 - Rangers
Wed Feb 4- Toronto
Fri Feb 6 - Montreal
Fri Mar 27 - Toronto
Peter’s sure fire value game - Thu Oct 30 - Tampa Bay

-Andrew Kulyk

Schedule day is always a big one for the Ultimate Sports Road Trip.

By now we know the routine… the NFL releases their schedule in mid April with big fanfare; ditto for the NHL, which usually is released right around the baseball All Star Break. The NBA comes out with theirs two weeks later, and then the AHL piggybacks on them. As for MLB, the teams each release their respective schedules in dribs and drabs… some teams announce the following year as soon as the regular season is over, while others (i.e. Mets, Yankees, Braves and Red Sox) are exasperatingly late in announcing.

As for NCAA college football… the big aggravation there is that many teams don’t release start times until 12 days before the games are played, and that makes it tough to plan, say, a Saturday college doubleheader, or calculating driving times.

Even now, we’re going to be in Bloomington. Indiana on Saturday, October 11 for the Indiana/Iowa football game, as a prelude to our visit at Lucas Oil Field the following day. What time is that game? Who knows! Why does it matter? Well, the Sabres season opener is Friday night October 10. If the kickoff in Bloomington is 12 noon, we have to hit the road Friday and will miss the hockey game. If it’s a night game, we can depart after the Sabres, catch some zzzz’s in Cleveland, and continue on Saturday.

Anyways, we got very little help in terms of “alignment of the planets” from the NHL schedule gods (a Sabres at Leafs game 12/6 in Toronto the night before the Bills/Dolphins game would have been awesome, for example).

These past few days, we sliced and diced the schedule, and since Artvoice gives us a small travel budget for us to cover road games, that certainly helps out, so we decided on these hockey games:

Thur 1/1 Buffalo at Toronto

Mon 1/19 Buffalo at Florida

Wed1/21 Buffalo at Tampa

Sat 2/28 Buffalo at New York Islanders

We’ve added a couple more OHL games (including the soon to be shuttered Windsor Arena, home of the Spitfires and former venue for the NHL Detroit Red Wings, we’re stopping there on Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving as we make our way back from Indy). We also are filling out a roadie the second weekend of September, which may yet change depending on college football start times.

We’ve got the last weekend in October open as well, and right now we’re thinking AHL venues in the midwest which remain on our “to do” list. Or we might just stay home.

Here is the USRT schedule. Lotsa cool adventures await!

(By the way, we’ve also updated the roster of “new venues” on our web site. Construction is currently underway on seven new venues in the four major sports. Here is the lineup.)

So says the club today, as they announced that 97% of their season ticket base has re-upped for the 2008-09 season.

500 tickets will be made available to the season ticket waiting list, which at this point is at about 1000 names requesting 2500 seats. It will be interesting to see how much of that list the Sabres will burn through to reach their maximum threshold of season tickets.

If the Sabres hold true to their single ticket pricing matrix of the past two years, then Sabres season tickets will remain a big big bargain.

The team also announced that their 2008-09 schedule will be released at 12 noon on Thursday (although we will get a sneak peek at some of the games today.) We are setting our sights on some USRT adventures, so we will be pouncing on the data as soon as it is out!