Team Canada is more interesting than Team USA

by Anne

Clearly I am an American citizen, having been born in New York State. Therefore I will be cheering for Team USA come Olympics time.

Yet, Team Canada boasts so many more players that I hold near and dear to my heart.

Sure Team USA has Miller, Kesler.... uhhhh and... ummmm David Backes? But Team Canada boasts such beloved favorites as Jarome Iginla, Rick Nash and Jordan Staal.

Must. Look. Less. Doofy. Than. Brothers.


The man can do no wrong


Nooo, please don't become a mountain man again, Nasher!
I'll adore you regardless but, pleeeeease?

If the sight of Derek Roy's photo didn't make me dry-heave, I might have posted it. However, as I cannot bear to subject you all to the grotesque eye-roll inducing portrait, I will leave it out.

There are, however, three portraits that cannot go un-ridiculed noted:

Dan Boyle will defeat the enemy with his Stink-Eye of Death


Tazer is only allowed out of the bell-tower to play hockey and stare uncomfortably at his opponents.


Vinny looks like he's about to puke and topple head-first into the camera
It suits him...?


A mutiny a-brewin', Lindy?


Marty St. Louis is horrified. Simply horrified.
He's just seen who his linemates are...


And its not these guys. They're Sid's wingmen
I love it.


What are the odds they're speaking English?


Adorable.

Proof that Marc and Jordan don't like Eric:


Jordan chills while a trainer... does something with Marc's ankles


Jordan: I'm gonna break Eric's stick
Marc: Ok, just make sure its really his and not mine this time, bro.
Nope, there are no photos of Eric with either of his baby bros. He must be a jerk.

That concludes my foray into the enemy's orientation camp. Not surprisingly, Team USA's stuff is not as interesting.

I AM NOT GETTING DEFENSIVE

by Anne

And neither are the Buffalo Sabres.... yet.

COME ON! We've seen that we don't have the defensemen in the minors to fill in the (at least) 1 or 2 spots we have vacant. We've definitely got Toni, Hank the Tank, Sissy and Patches. We might still have Teppo and Pratters. Sekera will most likely be making the leap. Ok. That would give us more than enough bodies to throw on the ice. HOWEVER! We need at least 1 more strong veteran that will be around for a few years to (probably) partner with Sissy.

I secretly thought we might get Ron Hainsey from Columbus because I read about him in passing the other day and he's just the kind of obscure signing that Darcy likes to do. However, not so much. According to WGR's conversation with Hainsey's agent, the Sabres haven't expressed any interest in signing him.

According to Darcy, we're also all but out of the running for signing Orpik. BOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I know, I know, trades are still possible, but I WANT MY DEFENSEMAN NOWWWWW!!!

ALSO: Where my Paille at? Big Bear? Grizz? TEPPO?!?!?

You know what else is not a wondrous thing to start your day with? Well I'll tell you:

So I went to Timmy Ho's (no, the coffee place, I'm not having an affair with Tim Connolly) to get myself an iced coffee and a muffin. Delish. The guy who took my order was clearly not a native born American or even North American citizen. So, to cut the guy a break, which his co-worker was not, I spoke slowly and made sure I didn't rush my order. I was all pumped for my tasty breakfast, my iced coffee was perfecto, and I took my first bite of my wheat and carrot (don't judge my awful taste in muffins) muffin when, blech, barf GROSS it was NOT a Wheat and Carrot Muffin but that abomination to all muffinkind: a Fruit Explosion muffin.

For those who might not know Timmy Ho's GROSS muffin choices, a Fruit Explosion muffin is basically a raspberry flavored jelly-filled blueberry/cranberry muffin. The same stuff they fill the donuts with. To some people? Genius, brilliant, they can't get enough of that jelly. However, I am not one of those people. I enjoy this raspberry jelly when mixed in with my Breakaway Berrier, but that was a fluke, a rare happening, a potentially gross flavor masked by my love for both Ryan Miller and chunks of dark chocolate in my ice cream.

There are very foods in the world that grosses me out more than jelly-filled donuts or muffins. Really I can't think of any food off the top of my head that makes me gag more. NOT a pleasant way to start the day. I thought of one. I get really grossed out when I hold a peeled avocado. What a GROSS texture.

Anyway, it was not a good way to start the morning.

Dev Camp is over, I hopes it went well for da boys. There's a nice feature on SabresTV about a day at Dev Camp including a hysterical bit about them working on their skating skills set to awesome ice capades style music. Featuring my latest frenemy, Nathan Gerbe and some ring around the rosy style team skating.

There's lots of Lindy talking to the players, and a great conversation between him and Tyler Ennis. I'm no longer posting SabresTV segments on here, because on PCs they eat the screen and COMMAND your attention. Not on Macs though for some reason.

HOPEFULLY OUR NEXT UPDATE WILL BE TO PROFESS MY UNDYING LOVE FOR OUR NEW TOP 4 DEFENSEMAN!! WOOOOOOO!!!!

Road Trippin' It

by Anne

So Cory (sister's boyfriend) and I trekked it up to NU today to see the prospects skate it out from 3-5. It was way more fun than I anticipated it would be. I was afraid I might lose interest after a while, and yeah, some times I found myself watching the players on the bench or Lindy, but for the most part I was pretty committed to watching the scrimmage.

Cor declared team Golden Oldies was his team, and I was forced to root for the Navy Newbies. Ok, they were only the Oldies because Stafford and Kaleta were on their team. Anyway, team Navy featured Gerbe, Kennedy, Myers and Sekera among others, and they held a commanding 4-1 lead into the 2nd half and held on to win 5-4. Who picked the right team? This girl.

At one point in the 2nd half, Kaleta had some few sweet moves to get around a couple defensemen, and we were all cheering him on when he totally wiped out and landed right on his tush. Then we all, including him and Lindy, laughed at him as he looked for a penalty, haha.

I know its a drum that's been beaten to death but Nathan Gerbe is really really good. He was nuts. He was EVERYWHERE on the ice and scored a couple of goals. He didn't seem to be intimidated or slowed down by anyone or anything. He came out on the winning end of quite a few battles with guys like Mike Weber. He and Kennedy skated well together, and you can definitely see they get along well. At one point, Gerbe was sitting almost at the end of the bench and Kennedy came and sat down next to him and just shoved him out of the way so he could sit down, Gerbe was unfazed.

At one point I think Ennis blocked a shot because he seemed to be in a considerable amount of pain when he was sitting on the bench and kept gesturing to his side... or so it seemed... I couldn't really tell exactly where he was hurt, to be honest, he was kind of far away.

After practice, Myers, Stafford, Gerbe and I think Southorn stayed back to work on some drills. Some other players were down at the other end, but they were far away so I didn't pay them any mind.

Darcy was wandering around going in and out of the locker room, he pretended not to hear me when I asked him about what he was planning on doing tomorrow. Just like Andrew Orpik pretended not to hear me when I asked him about his brother. Jerks. Just pretend not to hear me, I can take it!

Phrase I enjoy that gets tossed around all to much: "He's a special player" "He's a special kind of player" They can't ALL be special, guys!

Anyhoot, it was lots of fun and I'm pretty sure tomorrow is the last day for it, so if you can get up there, check it out, its a good time.

Good Boy, Pie!

by Anne

From a Q&A with Mike Weber from Sabres.com:

Who was one person who helped you along in your first camp?

"Daniel Paille was probably the biggest one. He was there my first year. He was a guy coming around making sure everyone knew how to get back to the hotel and knew where they were going to eat. He was the guy I looked up to then. Hopefully I am as good as he was. He was an excellent leader for us."

Aww! Pie-YAY! Good job! Look out for the lil' ones when you was just a little one yo'self! I've always wanted Pie to rock a letter some day in his career, hopefully it'll be with the Sabres..Darcy... I know, I know, he's got his qualifying offer on the table, and I'm sure he'll take it. I just love Pie! He's my 2nd favorite Sabre of the moment. I don't feel like re-creating the flowchart, but he's up there. 2nd place rotates between Staffy, Big Bear and Pie, depending on who does something awesome or adorable most recently. Hence, PieYAY being #2 for the time being.

Wanna see some totally miserable hockey players? Okay! Here ya go:

My favorite part is when they're riding the bikes. After the stair climber, my least favorite cardiovascular revving activity is riding a bike that goes nowhere. I hate gyms.

Who's headin' up to camp tomorrow? This girl. WOO! The paint is almost dry on my "GERBE, WHY DO YOU CONTINUALLY REFUSE TO BE MY FACEBOOK FRIEND?... OK SO I ONLY ASKED TWICE... BUT, COME ON!" sign. Woo! I'm not sure which scrimmage teams to cheer for so I'll just wholeheartedly throw every ounce of fan in me at whichever team has the most players whom I can identify on sight. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU, "MATT GENEROUS". Seriously, who the eff is "T.J. BRENNEN" or "BRENNAN" If I can't spell your name, you need to work harder. I can spell Afinogenov and Paetsch without even hesitating.

Went to the Bison's game today, after a 20 or so minute rain delay we beat the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees 7-5. Wooo! I enjoy Bisons' games. They played the Sabres intro music and it made me feel all weird inside. Good weird, but weird. Remember when for like 6 1/2 minutes I was afraid my unabashed rooting for the Penguins would carry over into next season and jeopardize my love for the Sabres? HA! What a fool I was for a hot minute. Especially now that Roberts and Malone are out and Orpik is heading out and hopefully out and up to Buffalo.

Good times.