Redemption!

There was a lot of heart-clutching, superstition-invoking, hair pulling last night during the third period and overtime of the Sabres-Leafs game (Recap on BfloBlog).

We watched most of the game from the Good Time Saloon while celebrating our friend Dan's birthday with a few drinks. I honestly wasn't feeling too positive about the potential outcome of the game, especially since Jocelyn Thibault was in the net for his first Sabres game. Goal-tending was more my concern than scoring opportunities. I actually wasn't concerned about our ability to convert power plays. That's a first for this Sabres fan!

As the minutes of the third period ticked down and the score steadily went up for both teams, I took on the role of our King-Of-Superstitions friend and Red Sox Fan, Kevin, by yelling at Matt to not turn his back on the television lest he be the cause again of a Leaf's goal. Then, great relief and shouting as we watched one of the Leafs knock the puck into his own goal with 3-seconds left in overtime.

As we drove home, Matt said, "You're thinking that this wipes out what Rory did, and I'm not talking about the time the puck was at his feet in the game against the Hurricanes."

"I tried to forget that Rory had any part of that goal in the season-ending game against the Leafs back in 2004. But yeah... that goal ABSOLUTELY redeems him," I answered.

"Would've been better if Tucker had been the one to put the goal in his own net," Matt said.

"No doubt," I replied and then proceeded to call Darcy Tucker something that rhymed with his name.

Two Former Buffalo Sabres Score For Vancouver

YAY RORY!!!!

Canucks 2, Senators 1
Roberto Luongo made 34
saves, Rory Fitzpatrick scored
his first goal of the season and
Vancouver won its third
straight to end Ottawa’s seasonhigh
five-game winning streak.
Taylor Pyatt added a goal
and an assist for the Canucks.
Luongo, who stopped 30
shots Tuesday in a 4-0 win in
Montreal for his third shutout
of the season, had 10 saves in
the first period and 11 in the
second before Daniel Alfredsson
scored 8:13 into the third
to pull the Senators within one.
His shutout streak ended at
154 minutes, 42 seconds.

Vote For Rory

A friend of mine in Colorado sent me an important message the other day. It seems that someone in Auburn, NY has taken up the cause of supporting NHL Defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick and created a page to get him voted onto the NHL All Star team. You too can help out by visiting Vote For Rory.

BFLOblog did a post about it. Then Off Wing Opinion added a lot more, including some articles. We're over 30,000 votes for Rory. Not bad for the kid from Irondequoit.

There Goes Our Boy...

I just read the sad news on BFLOblog that Rory Fitzpatrick maybe headed to Vancouver.

Shoot, I've never rooted for Vancouver but I guess there's always a time to start. They also have Taylor Pyatt.

I'll keep wearing the jersey of course.

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

Well, it's over. Only one thing to say:

Thank You Sabres!

Ok, a couple more things. As I've said before, this was a great season. I got a little emotional after last night's game ended. But then I thought, "Carolina had to work their arses off to win this series." With all the injuries that took out some of our best players, and all the new guys on the ice, some might be misled into thinking that a game against the Sabres would be a cakewalk. When it takes going to Game 7 to beat them, it's evident what a strong team we have.

Forgive the Fleetwood Mac post title, but it's appropriate. We have next year, and if the make-up of the team stays relatively the same (Please Keep Fitzpatrick!) then another trip to the play-off's should be in the Sabres' future.

McKee Out

To quote someone from a few games ago that was part of the open thread comment on bfloblog.com, I'm about to shit kittens.

Defenseman Jay McKee is out of Game 7 due to an infection.

It feels almost macabre to say, "Is that all you've got?? Come on, we can handle it!"

This makes Toni Lydman and Rory Fitzpatrick our star defensemen now. One of my friends who is a sportscaster said to me in Game 6 against Ottawa, "I just have this weird feeling that Fitzie is going to end up the hero somehow in one of the series." This may be the only time I quote Bob Segar and say, "We've got tonight!"

LET'S GO BUFFALO!!!

Headline: Fitzpatrick Becomes a Key Sabre

I get ragged on a lot about being a "homer" and a fan of Sabres Defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick, but you know what? He's one of our key guys now, so I was glad to see that the Buffalo News did a story about his role in the play-offs. I won't disagree that Rory needs to be a little more patient about clearing the puck out of the zone, but he's shown he's capable of doing just that in several games so far over the past couple weeks.

And I promise not to jinx the game tonight and will put on my #8 jersey as soon as I get home from work.

It's Hockey Night

We started and ended our weekend with two great Amerk's hockey games.

Friday Night - Rochester
The game was a little sticky in that it seemed like Amerks' had a hard time getting their game together. Thankfully it all worked out and we won 5-3 against the Albany River Rats. A heckler sat behind us and kept yelling at #42 David Cullen because he had made some dumb mistakes. He redeemed himself a little by scoring a goal later on. Goalie Ryan Miller did some incredible dance moves when blocking shots. May I say pretty-fucking-amazing moves? I think so.

Sunday Night - Buffalo
Before a crowd of over 15-thousand people, we saw a record-breaking 2-0 shut-out on blue ice. That's pretty great, but what made it awesome for my dad and I was that we got to see #8 Rory Fitzpatrick score a short-handed goal (that's a goal made when your team is down a man on a power play). Lots of cheering and yelling. It was a much tighter game than Friday night. You would think that playing several games in a row would have worn the team out, but they were in good form. I think playing before a larger-than-usual crowd helps too.

The Verdict on the Blue Ice
In the stands, it wasn't that noticable. In fact, after the players started skating it was all "white" anyway. The one thing that needs to change is those darn orange face off areas. The orange line that replaced the "blue line" works fine, but after players have made the go around the rink several times, the lines delianating the face off areas gets a little blurry. We did look at the jumbotron to see how the colors translated to tv, and it wasn't too distracting. I think we can expect more blue ice and funky colored "blue" lines if the NHL ever has a season again. If.

From the player's point of view it was a little more distracting. Here's a short list of stories:

Democrat & Chronicle: Blue ice, orange lines didn't faze Amerks players
Sports Illustrated: Blue Ice Makes It Debut in HSBC Arena
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Amerks' Mastery of Barons Continue

Fitzpatrick Joins Amerks

I was excited to receive the news from my dad this morning that Rory Fitzpatrick will be playing the rest of the AHL season with the Amerks. This means we'll get to see him back on the ice whenever we get up to Rochester for a game. Right now, I'm going to try to convince Matt that we must get to Buffalo for the April game they recently set up. There were almost 18,000 people at the last game the Amerks played at HSBC arena.

Happy Valentine's/Anti-Valentine's

A little something for everyone... romantic or gagging-with-a-spoon...

We had a really nice Valentine's Day(s). I managed to score free tix to Friday night's Sabres game from my co-worker. Matt and I weren't too sure the game was going to be that much fun since the L.A. Kings were playing pretty aggressively during the first period. Then our guys finally got their acts together during the second period. Matt had commented, unsarcastically, that it seemed like it was going to be Rory's (Fitzpatrick) night after he got sent to the penalty box for unsportsman-like conduct in the first period. Then the Sabres starting catching up goal-wise. Then the best moment of the night (sports-wise *winkwink*) happened. We finally got to see, live and in person, Rory score a goal. This goal finally put the Sabres in a winning position and the crowd starting getting nuts. The next period established the blow-out of a game (8-3) with lots of enthusiastic yelling for one more goal and hopes for a hat-trick for Afinogenov. An awesome time in the end (news story here). Plus, Matt helped further school me in various aspects about hockey. It will probably be one of the only sports I really understand. After the game we hit up Pearl Street Brewery for a beer and a light snack. We then decided it was too late to sensibly drive back to Jamestown and were able to score a room (no pun intended) at the Hampton Inn & Suites on Chippewa. It's a nice place if you're looking for something in downtown Buffalo. Somehow we were able to get a jacuzzi room for the price of a regular room. Guess we looked like nice people! The only bad part was me managing to pull a muscle in my neck when I was taking a shower this morning. I haven't had this happen since I was a kid, and it certainly sucks! Pain reliever and heating pad have been put to use, but I really can't turn my head to the left all that well. But that was the only sucky moment of the day. Matt took me out to dinner to The Watermark in Mayville. I had a surf and turf dinner of 3 jumbo shrimp, 6 steamed clams, and a 6 oz steak. All was very good and done to perfection. Much happiness and good times!

Now for those of you who sent anti-Valentine's, generally think that the holiday was manufactured by the "greedy bastards at Hallmark" (note - this is not my sentiment!), or are QuirkyAlones (formerly known as Singletons), here's an all-time classic for you all. The following is a transcription of a note my wonderful friend, Anne, sent me sometime in high school. I dig this out whenever I run across a friend who's looking for some words to laugh (or cry) by when enduring this sometimes torturous holiday:

Julia, woo! Sucky holiday! Yes, every year I expect Valentine's Day to be like some old Parisien (sic) movie (set in Paris) with roses and some hot French guy with a beret. But nooooooooo, it consists of sulking in homeroom while everyone else gets carnations & hating couples. And yet, this pathetic hopefulness continues each year. Ok, score one point for having the nerve to give Justin a valentine. Score one more since he said (mumbled) "thank you". But subtract one cause he was surprised/embarassed. That's good I guess but uh-oh... what if he gets the wrong idea. No, I wanted him to get the idea... oh well! Maybe next year! Ciao! Anne

Fitzpatrick Scores First Goal of Season

I wasn't at last night's game, but I kind of got the feeling at Friday night's game that Rory just might score another goal. Well, it finally happened.

Sabres new 'home ice'

Although they lost in overtime, my dad tells me the Sabres' game in Rochester last night was fun. My dad was also happy to relate that "They announced Rory's (Fitzpatrick) name first in the intro's, which was kind of nice for the home town boy." Matt and I are really looking forward to the regular season game on November 12th. It will be real cool to hang with my dad and watch hockey.

Kickin' It Old School

Matt and I had a blast today doing a shift as part of WBNY's 20th Anniversary Alumni Weekend. We taped the show, so if you want copies email me. I think it went better than I thought just because Matt and I were able to bounce off each other a lot. We chatted quite a bit, but you know what.. we could, so we did. There were some funny technical difficulties at points like carts not playing when you pushed play, so there was this weird dead air in between songs. I also discovered that I forgot how to take readings for the engineering logs. It has been 4 years though.

Last night we hung out with Matt's friend, Kevin, and had dinner at D'Arcy McGee's and then headed over to Mr. Goodbar for a beer. It was an early night due to daylight savings time and the fact that we had to leave the hotel by 6 AM (!!!). Matt did convince me that we should go to the last Sabres game of the season. Final score 2-2 against the New Jersey Devils. Good game though. Lots of tense moments where the Sabres almost scored... but didn't. I was pretty excited to see Rory Fitzpatrick play. He had an opportunity to score at one point but his teammates just couldn't get the puck to him. I think Matt and I agree that the general mantra of Sabres fans is "Shoot the effing puck!!!". So we're a bit tuckered out, but it was a fun weekend.

Tomorrow: Def Leppard in Erie, PA. Will we conquer the impending snow storm?

Addendum: Listened the the first tape of the show. The tape recorder recorded fast.. so now we have to figure out a way to slow down the tape so I don't sound so damn chirpy.

Go Rory!

HOUDA NAMED AMERKS TEAM CAPTAIN

Taylor and Fitzpatrick named assistants

ROCHESTER NAMES CAPTAINS AT MEDIA LUNCH:

Rochester Americans Head Coach Randy Cunneyworth announced Tuesday that veteran defenseman Doug Houda has been named the team captain for the 2002-03 season. He also released at Nathaniel's Pub that Chris Taylor and Rory Fitzpatrick will serve as the Amerks assistant captains. Houda enters his fifth season with the Amerks and brings over 1,000 games of professional experience to the ice each night. Taylor has been an assistant captain for the past two seasons and led Rochester with 66 points (21+45) last season. Fitzpatrick becomes the first Rochester native to wear the "A" on his Amerk sweater. The Irondequoit native enters his second season with the Amerks

I grew up two houses away from Rory. I used to hang out with him and the other kids in the neighborhood to play hide and go seek, kill the carrier, go swimming, ride bikes, and all sorts of stuff that kids do. It's cool to see him doing alright for himself.