Reason I Love Hockey #8

B. Tom Golisano

I planned on including him even before I recapped this week's Game to Remember, but his "recent" appearance in the broadcast booth convinced me to bump him up a few numbers (not that there's any rhyme or reason to the order, here). What is there to say about B. Tom? Well, the man's a bonafide hero.

In the summer of 2002, Sabres fans got to watch as John Rigas and his sons were carted away in handcuffs for committing wire fraud, and assorted other nefarious deeds. The corporation which owned the Sabres, Adelphia Communications, went bankrupt. If you think the unknown futures of our co-captains has turned Buffalo into a bundle of nerves, imagine what it was like when the entire team was at risk of leaving town. You know those unwashed crazy guys who wander around street corners muttering "The end is near" over and over? It was a lot like that. The 2002-2003 season started with the Sabres under league control, and by January they had filed Chapter 11. As the season wore on, it was looking more and more likely that the Bills were going to become the sole source of future sports heartbreak for Western New Yorkers. And then B. Tom Golisano showed up on the scene. Unlike the prospective owners who made offers before him, he declared his commitment to keeping them the Buffalo Sabres, and when he took over ownership of the team from the league, Buffalonians were hard pressed to find something to complain about. Well, for a little while at least.

B. Tom (the B stands for Blaise, so I don't blame him for going by his middle name, but B. Tom is an affectionate nickname) admits he knew nothing about hockey when he decided to buy the Sabres, but he did know a thing or two about running a business. He famously turned a company he started with a single Visa card into a multi-billion dollar corporation. So he took a look at the floundering team, and knew he could make it a success. He saw through the failures, the low attendance, and lost money, and recognized that the people of Buffalo love their hockey passionately. If he made it worth our while, we would make it worth his. And since he took over, that's exactly what's happened. He's stood by his promise to keep ticket prices low, and the fans have responded by flocking to HSBC. He grabbed a team on the brink of extinction or relocation, and in a few short years turned them into the biggest bang for your buck in American sports. Officially.

Even better, I love that owning the Sabres has turned B. Tom into an honest-to-God hockey fan. Instead of just sitting back and letting the dough roll in, he's apparently been bugging Lindy and Darcy to school him so he knows what's going on. As evidenced by his presence in the booth the other night, he watches hockey away from HSBC (though I suspect seven games in one night is a bit of an overstatement), and he's truly excited by the game in front of him. Whenever he's shown in the owner's box after a win, he's always smiling, and not just because the tickets are sold out. B. Tom, Mark Marinaccio says it best: Domo Arigato Tom Golisano.