Well, If You Want the Bills and the Sabres So Much, Why Don’t You Take All of Us?

Dear My Canadian Family/Ma famille Canadienne,

Let Rochester become a member of "The Eh Team." (T-shirt available at Noisebot.com)

Last Sunday, Western New York let you borrow the Buffalo Bills for a game. You gave them the Rogers Centre, a dull and lifeless home. They, in turn, gave you a dull and lifeless football game. I apologize for the unproductive exchange. Maybe when we have a quarterback, a new coach, and uninjured defense, this will go much better.

Because you were probably pretty bitter at the inferior goods we sent to Toronto, you decided last Monday to express interest in purchasing the Buffalo Sabres. Not all of you exactly, but the CEO of the best thing to come out of Canada since Tim Hortons Coffee, Research in Motion (RIM), which manufactures Blackberries. (I love my Blackberry like a second cat.) If they were for sale, RIM’s CEO reportedly is interested in buying the Sabres with a stipulation that some of their home games be played in Hamilton, Ontario.

Well, Canada, it seems that you are interested in all things Western New York. So do I have a deal for you.

Take us all.

Forgiving Rian Lindell, Finding Fun Balance Beam Mounts, and a Successful Phil Kessel: What I’m Thankful for This Thanksgiving

Don't worry, Rian Lindell - I'm still thankful for you.

This Thanksgiving day, I have a lot to be thankful for. In the spirit of many blogs today, I will now provide a laundry list of all the things – sports related, that is – that I am thankful for:

I am thankful that the Buffalo Bills are still in Buffalo.

I am thankful that Dick Jauron has resisted the urge to throw in JP Losman when Trent Edwards has gone through his growing pains.

Reluctantly, I am thankful for Rian Lindell, because for every 47 yarder to win the game he misses, he blasts 50 other field goals and extra points through the uprights. (And I still don’t understand why more people are not naming their sons Rian with an i.)

I am thankful for the Buffalo Sabres’ third jerseys, because they remind me of my childhood.

I Liked, Therefore I Was (A Short Discussion on Sports Fan Philosophy)

Preteen me started out as a biased, novice, ignorant sports fan. When I became a fan of a team, an event, or an athlete, I became a supposed fan of that sport. In other words, I liked, therefore I was. I was a fan of the in-school pep rallies we got to have every late January because the Bills went to the Super Bowl, thus I was a fan of football. I became a fan of Steve Young’s striking good looks, thus I was even more a fan of football. I was a fan of my dad dragging me to Rochester Amerks games when he was able to score free tickets, thus I was a fan of hockey. I wanted to be Kristi Yamaguchi, therefore I liked figure skating. I liked the hoards of hot guys in indoor track, thus I joined the track team.

Here’s the converse of becoming a fan in that fashion–you absolutely despise other events, teams and athletes, but you can not tangibly explain why. I hated the Dallas Cowboys, because they were the arch enemy of both Steve Young and the Bills. Never mind that the early-mid 90s Cowboys were amazing on both sides of the ball, were crazy dominant, and probably were not the dirty cheaters my father pinned them to be. I hated them with every ounce of hate a twelve year old could muster. They caused the Monday after the Super Bowl to be the saddest day at school–every time you spotted a stray streamer in the #52 School gym from Friday’s “Go Bills” pep rally, you got choked up. I liked the Amerks, but I couldn’t tell you why I was booing the Hershey Bears–I couldn’t tell you if they were actually any good, what college teams the players came from, if they had a good defense. As for indoor track – I liked the hot guys, but my running form was awful and I couldn‘t tell you what half the events were–plus, when my coach tried to get me to practice hurdles, I often tripped over them not for lack of vertical leap (hey, I had been a gymnast, thus I had vertical leap to spare,) but because I was staring at the guys on my team. It’s not just me–think of a Boston University or Boston College student whose first introduction to hockey is in college. They hate the other school’s team, although most of them, at first or ever, can tell anyone else exactly why they should hate them.