Hope in a blue hockey world

Dont think for a second that I feel bad at all for waking up the toddler kiddies at 10:00 pm on a school night to tell them that the Sabres just scored and it's 2-0 in the 2nd period. Later, still watching the game, my wife explains why she's been staring at me for the past fifteen minutes.

"I thought you said you dont feel bad about waking them up to tell them that the Sabres won."

"No. That they scored. The game is still on."

"I know. Now. Thats different," she said. "You should probably feel bad."

Back to the game.

I cant be jinxing anything if the game I'm watching is Tivo'ed and probably (hopefully) over already, so I shout off a text question to my brother, probably at work at the hometown sports desk.

"Who's the last American goalie to win the Cup?"

You probably dont know what it's like to be a Sabres fan, so I'm going to tell you. Lets start at the end. This year feels different. I dont watch every tick of the game with a skeletal knowledge that it's not really going to be OK. This year, I'm watching as if I'm along for the ride as they win, because they're simply winning.

The game is Tivo'ed, like I mentioned, but I'm watching in real the time official review of the Jason Pominville goal in the 3rd because I'm relishing the tension. This is hockey excitement, and I'm not sure that many Sabres fans are much familiar with it, because, usually, hockey tension is infused with that deep confidence that we're going to get @!$%#ed again.

The puck definitely went in the net before the net came loose. The only question is whether or not the puck first bounced off Pominville's glove, which was really simply moving to brace mind and body against the impending impact, a split-second away. The fans are getting a little restless, but it's a good sign that they are taking to long to review it. And then it comes, the official pointing at the net: Goal!

To many, most even, intense and dedicated American sports fans, the culture, fandom and emotion of NHL hockey is a completely alien reality. In Buffalo, it's a painful reality. But, like I said, things are changing.

In the old days at Memorial Auditorium, the Sabres owned the real guts of the city. The Buffalo Bills, even with O.J. Simpson, were a consistently bad team. The NBA's Buffalo Braves had to move to Cali because Buffalo was a "hockey town," so they moved and became the Clippers. At least we dont have to root for them anymore. A bright spot for Buffalo professional sports.

For the Sabres, they had the French Connection — Gilbert Perreault, Rene Robert and Rick Martin. In 1975, they made it to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Philadelphia Flyers, who were just as lawless then as theyve always been. But it wasnt the Flyers who beat the Sabres that year, it was a bat, flying through the Aud during Game 3. It was hot outside and the technology of hockey rinks in the 1970s isnt what it is today. The heat created a nearly impenetrable fog in the arena, and most of the game was played with near-zero visibility at ice level. Jim Lorentz of the Sabres killed a bat with his stick in the middle of the game.

Boston had their curse of the Bambino, the Cubbies have the goat, and the Sabres have their bat.

The series ended with the Flyers lifting the Stanley Cup.

It should go without saying that the Stanley Cup is the most treasured and storied trophy in all of American sports and perhaps beyond. When the Sabres made it back to the finals in 1999 to play the Dallas Stars, it was Brett Hull for the Texas team who skated around the "new Aud" — the HSBC Arena — with the Cup over his head, after winning the series in Game 6 without scoring a game-winning-goal. The obviously illegal play wasnt even reviewed, because it came in overtime of an elimination game to end the season, and you cant stop that kind of momentum.

Buffalo doesnt know much in terms of momentum. The Bills played some great seasons, but never brought home a Super Bowl championship, instead becoming famous for not winning the Super Bowl in any of four consecutive trips to that final contest. The economy of Buffalo has been in a slow decline ever since the Bethlehem Steel Plant, in the Southtowns, nearby the Aud and the center of Buffalo's enduring "blue collar" identity, stopped making steel in 1984. I remember that. I was a kid, but my uncle had worked the plant, in the furnaces.

Every mayor since then has developed interested but unsustainable ideas for revitalizing the city, and still the lakeside community is in relative disarray. Young people are still leaving town after college, money is moving further and further out of Buffalo proper and into the suburbs. The tax drain of the state's metropolis is a slow death for cities like Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany, which had been major points of industry and interest ever since the birth of the Erie Canal. Now, it's just a folk song, and most of Buffalo nearly is, as well.

Until now.

When the Sabres went to their most recent Stanley Cup finals, they werent a favored Eastern Conference team, and this was during the time in the NHL when the Western Conference ruled all. Whether it was the Red Wings, the Stars or the Avalanche, winning the Cup meant either that you were from the west or that you had to upset a western team to do it.

Until now.

In 2007, the Sabres won the NHL's Presidents' Trophy for the most points in the regular season. They are the best team in the game.

Theyre only up one game in the 2nd round, against the New York Rangers and the gigantic foreign hero figure of Jaromir Jagr. But as I watched the game last night, not only did I feel like I was in the crowd, like I've been so many times in the past, when I lived in Buffalo, before I, like so many others, abandoned the city in search of a viable income, but I felt like the crowd and I knew something that we havent ever known before. That the Sabres really are the team to beat this year, that they really might pull it off. Chills ran down my spine.

I didnt jinx last night's game. The last American goalie, according to my brother, a sports editor at the Binghamton Press, was Mike Richter, in 1994, for the New York Rangers. The Sabres have an American goalie now, not the controversial but stellar Dominik Hasek of 1999, but the stellar and likable Ryan Miller.

They dont have the French Connection, but they have former rookie of the year Chris Drury, Daniel Briere, Brian Campbell and Maxim Afinogenov, some of the game's hottest stars.

Theyre even wearing their old blue and gold sweaters from the 1970s and 80s, when I grew up as a fan. And that makes it even more fun to wake up the kids in the middle of their night to keep them posted on all goal scoring.

I dont believe in jinxes anymore, I dont think. I'm still hedging my bets, but I'm getting really excited. If the Sabres do pull this off, the crowd should throw thousands of toy bats on the ice, forever ridding Buffalo of whatever curse it thinks it has, and hopefully changing things forever, for the better.

The reason Buffalo fans love the Sabres is because of hope. Thats the reason any sports team has fans. Each season brings hope, and gives us something to cheer about, regardless of anything else going on. The "regardless" for Buffalo fans has been big — losing jobs, losing homes, losing one's hometown, nearly. Which is why there is so much thunder in the arena these days.

And even though the kids are young and inherently hopeful, it doesnt hurt to give them a little foundation for the future. They won't always have free meals cooked hot every night, and sports shouldnt be the only thing that gives them hope, but it's one thing, and each bit of hope we can pass down, these days, is invaluable.

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