Well, that didn't quite turn out the way I'd hoped. And I'm actually not talking about losing the gold medal to Canada. Believe it or not, I didn't have any hopes regarding Team USA going into this tournament, aside from that they'd keep Miller in one piece and maybe let him get a little rest if they could manage it.
No, what I had originally hoped to gain from the Olympics was simpler and more selfish: I wanted a break. I know you wouldn't be able to tell this from how fanatically I've been posting in this blog for the last two months, but I got kind of burnt out on hockey. Maybe I was letting myself get too carried away by the fact that the Sabres weren't sitting out of a playoff spot come January, but I was totally ready to skip the push and get right to the good stuff. I know it's counter-intuitive, but it seems the better the Sabres are playing, the fewer games I want to watch them play.
So I was counting on the Olympic break to let me recharge. I actually have a two-week-old post entitled "Give Me a Break" floating around in my draft folder detailing my exact hopes and dreams, but it seems I was too busy, uh, taking a break to expand it past that oh-so-clever title. I was counting on the fact that I don't own a TV to mean that I wouldn't be watching any Olympic hockey--or, in fact, any Olympic coverage at all. I was counting on two weeks without regular season hockey to mean that I would forget all about it and then be ready to accept it back into my life when it returned, as is.
What I wasn't counting on was Team USA making everyone in the tournament poop in their pants. I wasn't counting on them being instrumental in sending both Sweden and Russia home medal-less. I wasn't counting on Ryan Miller being the center of this near-perfect storm, and I wasn't counting on everyone and their blogs talking about how awesome it was. I wasn't counting on needing to cancel plans and crash living rooms in order to be able to watch this afternoon's game. But there I was, eating up every last delicious second of it.
And here I am, more rabid for playoff hockey than ever. Joke's on me, I guess.
I'm ready for the grit and the energy and the near heart attacks. I'm ready for the volume at home and the abrupt silence away. I'm ready for the sudden death.
I'm ready to see the Ryan Miller who plays out of his mind. Who accepts second place like it's last place. His post-game interview was kind of heartbreaking to watch, and you know he would have rather been doing pretty much anything else, but I couldn't help but smile at the way he very typically refused to sugar coat anything. He had both the opportunity and the right to treat the silver medal as a victory. After all, it was certainly more than anyone had expected of them, and they put up a hell of a fight. The team had nothing to be ashamed of, and Miller least of all. But he's not going to bullshit us with those platitudes. He's going to tell it like it is: silver sucks. That's not exactly what one would call a healthy perspective, but when all is said and done, that's the perspective I want fighting on my side come May.
Most of all, I'm ready to see Miller's five hole not allow Crosby to play the role of hockey savior on the national stage, for a change. Shit's getting old.
For now I'm just going to have to make do with the same old same old regular season hockey. It starts up again on Tuesday as the Sabres face the Penguins, and I can't imagine what could possibly be a story worth talking about connected to that matchup.
All I can say? Thank goodness it's not going to be on Versus.
Showing posts with label Ryan Miller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ryan Miller. Show all posts
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Now More Than Ever
Predictably, I didn't get to see the game on Saturday night, but rest assured that the blogosphere has let me know all about it. Outrage is typically pretty prolific. To be honest, after all the bellyaching I've been reading over the past couple of days about how soft this game showed the Sabres to be, I was surprised when I finally took a look at the game highlights, which I'm kind of ashamed to admit I didn't do until just now. From the way the situation has been painted by a lot of people, I was expecting to see a timid and tentative team backing away from a Ranger onslaught for fear of getting roughed up or called for a penalty. I'll admit, in the moment after the hit behind the net there was nothing I wanted to see more than someone coming up to grab a hold of Gomez and maybe punch him in the face once or twice, but my disappointment doesn't extend much beyond that. Don't get me wrong, I certainly get why people are calling the team soft, I just don't understand why it's worth getting so worked up over. It's not like the they frittered away a three goal lead and a chance to move up in the standings because they're soft. In fact, it's clear the Sabres kept their focus, and while they didn't start a brawl, they didn't completely fold, despite the fact that they'd just watched their star goaltender hobble off the ice. I think they deserve some credit for that, considering how easy it could have been to panic, let alone how prone to distraction we've known this team to be.
As far as failing to send a message goes, I'm not particularly outraged. I loved the Ottawa brawl as much as anyone, but that was a completely different scenario standings-wise, and while it's true that starting something wouldn't have necessarily meant a loss, it's also true that it definitely wouldn't have brought Miller back. So why risk the game and the season with penalties and suspensions? To send a message that you can't rough up our goalie and get away with it? Everyone knows the Sabres let that ship sail a long time ago, and I doubt punching in Gomez's teeth really would have made future opponents think twice about getting in our crease. That's obviously a big problem in and of itself, but I think it's too little too late at this point to bother getting so het up about. Also, I'm particularly averse to the argument of "It was dumb to retaliate at the time, and risk a 5-on-3, but why not later when the lead was secure?" If you have to pencil in obligatory message-sending time, doesn't that make it a fundamentally perfunctory and hollow gesture? Instead of honorably standing up for your teammate, you end up being a bully. As much as I enjoy the odd scuffle born out of passion, that kind of eye-for-an-eye bloodlust doesn't do it for me, and I'm puzzled by all the fans who apparently think it's a crisis and an indication of the team's gutlessness that they failed to participate in that theatre. Personally, I'd much rather hit the Rangers where it counts and where it hurts: on the scoreboard and in the standings.
All in all, I agree with Kate: we and the Sabres have bigger things to worry about. Like playing the Ducks tonight. Talk about a litmus test for how soft we are. Anaheim isn't the Stanley Cup team they used to be, but they're still pretty pushy, undisciplined douches, and in light of that I want to remind all the Sabres of this helpful diagram:
This still goes double for you, Tim Connolly.
Let's not let this woulda shoulda coulda retaliation debate obscure the real crisis here: Thomas Vanek is out, Ryan Miller is out, and we need healthy bodies. Now more than ever.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Home, Sweet Home
So, Ryan Miller extended his contract by five years yesterday, and, as usual, I'm a couple of steps behind everyone else on this. Luckily, there are other, more dedicated bloggers than I out there who have done a pretty excellent job of analyzing the deal from all angles, but I still feel like adding my thoughts.
Obviously, this is a very positive move for the organization, but the sweetest part isn't that the Sabres finally signed a big name, or held on to someone they needed to keep, but rather that Buffalo finally has a player they can concretely believe wants to be here. Someone who had other, more financially lucrative options open to him, and chose instead to stay. Sure, we've always had those players to some extent. Last off-season I cheered when Adam Mair declared that he wanted to stay in Buffalo, that he intended to stay in Buffalo, and then actually stayed. Then, when Vanek signed the offer sheet that the Sabres ultimately matched, I chose to believe him when he said he'd wanted to stay in Buffalo all along. Sure, I may have just been falling for the shallow pandering of a player who'd just committed to playing 7 more years in this city and knew how important it was to get the fans on his side. But, I argued, if he hadn't wanted to stay, why had he bought a house here even before he had a contract? Still, there was the nagging fact that he had almost become an Oiler, and the lingering question of whether or not it would have really mattered to him. We'll never know for sure. And there are those players who have that "always one of us" air about them--players like Biron and McKee--who were sent or pulled out of town, despite not really wanting to go. (Note to Bucky Gleason: If you're looking for examples of players who were "forced to jump ship," these are the names you should be mentioning.) But in the wake of Briere and, especially, Drury moving on to bigger and better things, the choruses of "No one wants to play here," "We'll never sign a big name," and "We'll never be able to hold onto our young talent once they get successful" became stifling. For the past couple of months the consensus among fans on this Miller deal was that it wasn't going to get done, that he was as good as Detroit's at this point. Well, it's nice to have them proven wrong.
But this isn't just about shutting up the whiners (after all, this is Buffalo, people will just find something else to whine about eventually); more than anything, it's about having confirmation that this is a worthwhile team, that this is a worthwhile city, that we are worthwhile fans. As pathetic as it may sound, last summer when Chris Drury took a look at the money the Rangers offered him, took a look at the equal money the Sabres offered him, and chose to turn his back on the fans who had done nothing but worship him since the moment he set skate on our ice three years previous, it was hard not to take it personally. Some people lashed out at management, convinced that Drury couldn't have actually wanted to leave us, and some people labeled him a Slag-Faced Whore, convinced that he'd wanted to leave us all along, and that no amount of negotiation could have possibly changed his mind. But I'm willing to bet all of us, on one level or another, reacted to his departure with a certain amount of "Did we do something wrong? Why doesn't he love us the way we love him?" All the rest--the anger, the blame, no matter toward whom it was directed--was just a coping mechanism. It's a dangerous business, hinging an identity on sports heroes (having recently read Friday Night Lights, I was able to draw more parallels between Odessa, Texas and Buffalo, New York than should be considered comfortable), but it's pretty much what makes us Buffalonians such a wonderful and dedicated fanbase. More often than not we get burned (McGahee, Hasek, and O.J. Simpson are names that come to mind), but sometimes it pays off, and by signing this contract, by returning the faith of the Buffalo faithful, Ryan Miller is on his way to becoming the Sabres' Thurman Thomas.
He likes us. He really likes us.
One thing that especially hit home for me in his comments following the contract signing, which Schopp and the Bulldog brought up a number of times on the radio yesterday, was that Miller really appreciates the sports atmosphere here, the fact that hockey matters. He specifically mentioned that he enjoys that he can go out to Wegmans (product placement!) and be approached by fans who recognize him, respect his space, and just want to say, "Hey." He pointed out it's not something you get in most NHL cities, and he's right. Even with such dynamic superstars as Sidney Crosby, and such perfectly-run teams as the 2007-08 Detroit Red Wings, hockey can't shed the cloak of insignificance on the national stage. Since the national audience can't seem to be bothered to give a damn, you would think playing for a community that cares would hold a certain cache for players in the NHL, but it's normally not considered one of the main factors in guys deciding where they want to play. And for some players craving more anonymity (like Drury), the fanaticism can even be considered a disadvantage to playing and living here. So the fact that Miller brought up this example was heartening (not least because he better get used to it, at least for the next six years), but it also spoke to me on a personal level, since, having returned from six months in Europe two weeks ago, I was appreciating the same thing about my home.
Of course, there were many things that I missed from Western New York while I was abroad (chicken wings!), but one of the biggest surprises was how much I had in fact missed being in the middle of a hockey-crazy town. My unwilling separation from hockey for essentially the entire second half of the season was made easier by the fact that the Sabres were more or less sucking it hard, so I didn't really feel like I was missing out on all that much, but I really missed being in an environment where I don't have to depend on the internet for my hockey-talk fix (not that I don't do the majority of my hockey-talking on the internet, anyway). So I get a rather strange, but very real sense of comfort out of coming home to see my mom's editorializing of the poster that's hung in our kitchen for more than a year:
My mom? She's just another classless Buffalo fan like the rest of us.
Or out of sitting down to play hours of NHL 08 with my brother and discussing the authenticity of the game (more on that later). Or out of going to my dad's company picnic and discovering that if you're willing to talk Sabres, you share common ground with pretty much everyone, strangers or no. Or out of having my dad turn to me and ask, "What do you have to say to that?" after someone's made the claim that Hecht wasn't one of the players who stepped up this season, and being able to carefully and reasonably refute that argument. Caring so much about sports may drive us crazy sometimes, Buffalo, and it may make us a joke, but I for one hope we never take it for granted.
Obviously, this is a very positive move for the organization, but the sweetest part isn't that the Sabres finally signed a big name, or held on to someone they needed to keep, but rather that Buffalo finally has a player they can concretely believe wants to be here. Someone who had other, more financially lucrative options open to him, and chose instead to stay. Sure, we've always had those players to some extent. Last off-season I cheered when Adam Mair declared that he wanted to stay in Buffalo, that he intended to stay in Buffalo, and then actually stayed. Then, when Vanek signed the offer sheet that the Sabres ultimately matched, I chose to believe him when he said he'd wanted to stay in Buffalo all along. Sure, I may have just been falling for the shallow pandering of a player who'd just committed to playing 7 more years in this city and knew how important it was to get the fans on his side. But, I argued, if he hadn't wanted to stay, why had he bought a house here even before he had a contract? Still, there was the nagging fact that he had almost become an Oiler, and the lingering question of whether or not it would have really mattered to him. We'll never know for sure. And there are those players who have that "always one of us" air about them--players like Biron and McKee--who were sent or pulled out of town, despite not really wanting to go. (Note to Bucky Gleason: If you're looking for examples of players who were "forced to jump ship," these are the names you should be mentioning.) But in the wake of Briere and, especially, Drury moving on to bigger and better things, the choruses of "No one wants to play here," "We'll never sign a big name," and "We'll never be able to hold onto our young talent once they get successful" became stifling. For the past couple of months the consensus among fans on this Miller deal was that it wasn't going to get done, that he was as good as Detroit's at this point. Well, it's nice to have them proven wrong.
But this isn't just about shutting up the whiners (after all, this is Buffalo, people will just find something else to whine about eventually); more than anything, it's about having confirmation that this is a worthwhile team, that this is a worthwhile city, that we are worthwhile fans. As pathetic as it may sound, last summer when Chris Drury took a look at the money the Rangers offered him, took a look at the equal money the Sabres offered him, and chose to turn his back on the fans who had done nothing but worship him since the moment he set skate on our ice three years previous, it was hard not to take it personally. Some people lashed out at management, convinced that Drury couldn't have actually wanted to leave us, and some people labeled him a Slag-Faced Whore, convinced that he'd wanted to leave us all along, and that no amount of negotiation could have possibly changed his mind. But I'm willing to bet all of us, on one level or another, reacted to his departure with a certain amount of "Did we do something wrong? Why doesn't he love us the way we love him?" All the rest--the anger, the blame, no matter toward whom it was directed--was just a coping mechanism. It's a dangerous business, hinging an identity on sports heroes (having recently read Friday Night Lights, I was able to draw more parallels between Odessa, Texas and Buffalo, New York than should be considered comfortable), but it's pretty much what makes us Buffalonians such a wonderful and dedicated fanbase. More often than not we get burned (McGahee, Hasek, and O.J. Simpson are names that come to mind), but sometimes it pays off, and by signing this contract, by returning the faith of the Buffalo faithful, Ryan Miller is on his way to becoming the Sabres' Thurman Thomas.
He likes us. He really likes us.
One thing that especially hit home for me in his comments following the contract signing, which Schopp and the Bulldog brought up a number of times on the radio yesterday, was that Miller really appreciates the sports atmosphere here, the fact that hockey matters. He specifically mentioned that he enjoys that he can go out to Wegmans (product placement!) and be approached by fans who recognize him, respect his space, and just want to say, "Hey." He pointed out it's not something you get in most NHL cities, and he's right. Even with such dynamic superstars as Sidney Crosby, and such perfectly-run teams as the 2007-08 Detroit Red Wings, hockey can't shed the cloak of insignificance on the national stage. Since the national audience can't seem to be bothered to give a damn, you would think playing for a community that cares would hold a certain cache for players in the NHL, but it's normally not considered one of the main factors in guys deciding where they want to play. And for some players craving more anonymity (like Drury), the fanaticism can even be considered a disadvantage to playing and living here. So the fact that Miller brought up this example was heartening (not least because he better get used to it, at least for the next six years), but it also spoke to me on a personal level, since, having returned from six months in Europe two weeks ago, I was appreciating the same thing about my home.
Of course, there were many things that I missed from Western New York while I was abroad (chicken wings!), but one of the biggest surprises was how much I had in fact missed being in the middle of a hockey-crazy town. My unwilling separation from hockey for essentially the entire second half of the season was made easier by the fact that the Sabres were more or less sucking it hard, so I didn't really feel like I was missing out on all that much, but I really missed being in an environment where I don't have to depend on the internet for my hockey-talk fix (not that I don't do the majority of my hockey-talking on the internet, anyway). So I get a rather strange, but very real sense of comfort out of coming home to see my mom's editorializing of the poster that's hung in our kitchen for more than a year:
My mom? She's just another classless Buffalo fan like the rest of us.Or out of sitting down to play hours of NHL 08 with my brother and discussing the authenticity of the game (more on that later). Or out of going to my dad's company picnic and discovering that if you're willing to talk Sabres, you share common ground with pretty much everyone, strangers or no. Or out of having my dad turn to me and ask, "What do you have to say to that?" after someone's made the claim that Hecht wasn't one of the players who stepped up this season, and being able to carefully and reasonably refute that argument. Caring so much about sports may drive us crazy sometimes, Buffalo, and it may make us a joke, but I for one hope we never take it for granted.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Groundhog Day
Today's February 2nd, which to me means only one thing: Groundhog Day. This Bill Murray masterpiece takes its place in the Gambler Family Arsenal of Quotable Movies right alongside This is Spinal Tap and My Cousin Vinny, and this holiday gives us an excuse to work into everyday conversation phrases like "Did you really want to talk about the weather, or were you just making chit-chat?" and "Too early for flapjacks?" Not that we need one, really. I'll admit I've been a little nostalgic all day, thinking about all the groundhoggy fun they're surely having without me, so I thought, what better way to make my own fun than to combine the two things I'm most bummed about missing out on while in Germany? And let's be honest, being a Sabres fan this season has been not unlike being stuck living the same crappy day over and over again, wherein your hockey team keeps showing up to play 15 minutes of hockey every night, and just when it seems they've finally learned their lesson and turned it around for good, they're starting over again at square one. In honor of all that, Groundhog Day quotes meet the Sabres:
(Yes, I know this is the cop-outtiest of all cop-out posts, but you have to understand: It's been a month since I last saw a hockey game. A month. My withdrawal has gotten so bad that I'm actually planning on going to a sports bar at midnight on Sunday to watch the Super Bowl. That's football, people. I'm desperate, and not a little bit crazy, I don't doubt. Furthermore, if I pretended to know what's really going on with the Sabres right now, that would be a downright lie. Even eyewitnesses can barely seem to figure them out, and the ocean between us certainly doesn't add any clarity. I figure being honestly frivolous is better than being deceitfully intelligent. If you want actual hockey content, I suggest checking out Heather proving that Campbell sucks. Here? Just enjoy the pictures.)
Soupy: I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen.
---------------------
*Sarcastic clapping* Just put that anywhere, pal! Yeah! Good save!
---------------------
Hey, he could still be okay.
Well, not now.
---------------------
What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?
Andrew Peters: That about sums it up for me.
(Yes, I know this is the cop-outtiest of all cop-out posts, but you have to understand: It's been a month since I last saw a hockey game. A month. My withdrawal has gotten so bad that I'm actually planning on going to a sports bar at midnight on Sunday to watch the Super Bowl. That's football, people. I'm desperate, and not a little bit crazy, I don't doubt. Furthermore, if I pretended to know what's really going on with the Sabres right now, that would be a downright lie. Even eyewitnesses can barely seem to figure them out, and the ocean between us certainly doesn't add any clarity. I figure being honestly frivolous is better than being deceitfully intelligent. If you want actual hockey content, I suggest checking out Heather proving that Campbell sucks. Here? Just enjoy the pictures.)
---------------------
Hey, Soupy, you're at the All-Star Game again! Do you ever have deja vu?
Hey, Soupy, you're at the All-Star Game again! Do you ever have deja vu?
Soupy: I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen.---------------------
*Sarcastic clapping* Just put that anywhere, pal! Yeah! Good save!---------------------
Hey, he could still be okay.
Well, not now.---------------------
What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?
Andrew Peters: That about sums it up for me.
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