Bittersweet Symphony

by Anne

There is no more ambivalent time of year than the NHL playoffs. My first exposure to this phenomenon was the Sabres' unexpected run to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1999. I was 13, emotional, and ridiculous. In the intervening twelve years, a lot about me has changed, but my roller coaster emotions during the playoffs have not, and being a tried and true Buffalonian I'm definitely not alone.

For months, fans scream, cheer, rant, rave, complain, laud, and, in general, prognosticate their team's futures and playoff chances.

Then, the blissful day arrives when your team clinches their coveted spot in the top eight teams of their conference. Hooray! Hockey in Late April! Then hopefully May! Then, hope against hope, in June as well! The sun is shining! Food tastes better! There's a spring in your step and a song in your heart. It's going to be a glorious time for the fans, the players, and the city they represent. What could possibly go wrong?

Then, the playoffs actually begin... and so does the stress.

It's no big secret that everything is magnified during the playoffs. The goals are bigger, the wins are riotous, and the losses are soul-crushing.

Every year (ok, well, every year the Sabres make the playoffs) I go through this. I'm a somewhat emotional person. I tend to take the playoffs a BIT too personally.  There are many ways in which I have evolved since the age of 13, but my overt emotional involvement with the Buffalo Sabres in the playoffs will never change.

Are there terrible moments during the playoffs? Yes, absolutely. Are there glorious moments? Duh. Would I trade it for anything? Are you new to this blog? Fuck no!

I'M NOT SCARED.

LET'S GO BUFF-A-LO!!

USA Advances!

by Anne

For the first time since 2004, Team USA advances past the quarterfinals!!

Hooray!

I was doing my awesome Anne Happy Dance which I wish I could demonstrate on here so you could all do it. It involves a lot of hip shaking and and "raising the roof" style arm movements accompanied by a few well timed "aw yeah"s for good measure.

So I'm in my kitchen happy dancing away, scaring the cat and I have the following thought: "Woo! Semifinals! So who do we have to pl- oh. Damn." We have to play Russia. Friggin' A. Well it was nice to make it to the Semis.

During the game, Kyle Okposo missed on a wraparound attempt that he probably should've been able to stuff in and in the replay we were inadvertently treated to a super slo-mo version of Kyle saying "Eff me." It was pretty nice.

YO. What the hell. I'm looking for pictures while I'm typing this and the gallery is five pages long. Normally its three. Maybe its because it was Finland's final game? Whatevs.

Unlike the other games, I actually got to watch this one. Universalsports.com has a really nice high-quality streaming video of the games (its free). I thoroughly enjoy watching my team rather than just looking at a continually refreshing boxscore.

Because I was actually watching with my own to eyes, I got to see the Sabres fans in attendance:

They were moving way too much and so this picture quality is not so great.


Gerbe-Derby getting international love!

The game was definitely a seesaw. The first period was all Finland as the USA took a slew of penalties and played a lot of the 2nd half of the period short-handed. Finland fired 20 shots on Robert Esche in the first frame but Esche stood tall in net and kept his team in it. The Finns didn't solve Robbie until the first minute of the second at the end of a penalty that had been taken in the last minute of the first.

It looked like the Finns were ready to build on their lead until they took a penalty. Finally, Team USA got their heads together and managed to turn the game in their favor. The Finns took the next five penalties and even though they only scored on one of them, the rest of the game was all USA. All five goals were scored in the 2nd period and the USA won 3-2, mostly thanks to the play of Robert Esche.

Even the announcers were like "He's been in RUSSIA for the last two years. Can you BELIEVE it?" I mean he's not the greatest goaltender in the world but I think he'd be a good back-up. HINT. HINT. He's only 31. I'm not sayin'... I'm just sayin'.

Being in the Semifinals means if the USA wins (which they won't) they will play for Gold/Silver. If they lose, they will play for Bronze. Either way, they have a shot at a medal for the first time in many years. I honestly didn't expect this team to do better than last year's team but I was wrong, obviously.

Now for some photography:

Nick Foligno pushes Senator teammate Jarkko Ruutu to the ice
I like that Foligno kid, he's a good egg.
Too bad he's a Senator.
But HA, Ruutu


Dustin Brown scored the USA's first goal on a 5 on 3 after some beautifully crisp passing from his teammates
Hainsey shot it from the blue line, cross-ice to Suter just above the dot, to Brownie who was, well where he is in the picture.
It would seem this is a good way to score on Pekka Rinne, so TJ Oshie did the same thing on a 3-on-1 rush a bit later:


Nice.


Never fear, Little Foot's intense eyebrows showed up for the game


Let's discuss a few things.
1. How tiny is Jason Blake?
2. How tall are those boards?
3. Was Antti Miettinen hit by a sniper?
4. Why is he using his Minnesota Wild gloves? Is he just that particular? Would team Finland not foot the bill?
5. Could Team USA look less impressed by this game? Little Foot looks about ready to nod off, Nick Foligno looks like he's yawning and Joe Pavelski... well, he always looks like that.

Team USA takes on Russia Friday at 10:15 am EST.

HAPPY FREE AGENT DAY!!!!

by Anne

I consider the trade deadline the hockey fan's Christmas. Mostly because it's all day long and you could hear about a trade at like 8:00 a.m. in Anaheim. Since free agent day coincides almost directly with my birthday, I consider free agency day to be the hockey fan's birthday.

Last year, I avoided the whole Briere/Drury debacle by being in Italy on July 1 and Spain on my actual birthday (July 4). So, as I am on American soil this free agency day, I consider it to be quite fortuitous for our boys in blue and gold.

We've locked down Goose who's totally excited to still be here, almost as excited as I was when I read the news on TSN. There was jumping up and down and squealing. Ahhhh female sports fans, we have our own unique way of celebrating. It's roughly the same way I celebrated when I found out a friend of mine was pregnant, actually. WOOO! MORE RANDOM BAR AND GROCERY STORE ENCOUNTERS FOR ME AND THE GOOSE. Cuz, honestly, where else do people aged 23-26 gather other than bars, grocery stores and work? Ok, creepily enough I might soon start working at the Arena. Maybe I should start shopping at Tops...

Anyhoot, I love delving into "anayltics" sometimes:

To the person who found this blog by searching for "man buds" umm, welcome? I'm not sure what "man buds" are, but I hope we were able to aid you in your quest.

What's up creepers who searched for "Drew Stafford is mine" and found this blog? Does that then make him MINE if it's on this blog somewhere? I don't recall ever typing these words except in perhaps: "Brian Campbell is S(h)ara's favorite Sabre, Drew Stafford is mine" Well I mean, hey, I think Staffy's pretty B-A but that doesn't make him MINE. Besides S(h)ara and I were young and foolish and have new favorite Sabres now. Although the race is back on next season, boys.

"Andrew Peters girlfriend 2008" is that like NHL 2k8? Do you go on virtual dates with Petey and have to pass hockey-player-girlfriend related tasks?

Why is "Thomas Vanek" our top player name hit? Mad love for ya, SabreBritney, but I don't think I talk about you all that often. Although, for a hot minute his play in the World Championships was the only hockey related/ Sabres related thing I had to talk about, maybe that's why.

"'what a guy' orphans blind" I'd love to know what this person's ultimate goal was in using these search terms.

Anyway, I have class from 1:30-4:30 today and then I have to take the bus home so I will miss the most exciting hours of free agency. I don't want to talk about it. BOOOOOOOO. I'll have to wait til I get home to find out the good stuff. I'll be able to pay attention to the first hour, and hopefully that's when the most exciting Sabres-related or most exciting non-Sabres-related deals go down. WOOOO!