Tapping the Sticks — A Buffalo Eulogy

Photo by [Flickr User]. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

I dont live in Buffalo, NY anymore, but I was born there, went to college there, and started my career there. I never had season tickets to the Sabres or Bills games, but I've attended my share.

My family spent all our holidays in Buffalo where grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins lived. Through my family, I was brought up a Buffalo fan through and through. My poor dad — he tried to keep me from it, to protect me from it. He pretended to not pay attention to the football games or the hockey games. But he always talked fondly of the Rockpile, and he took me to my first game at Rich Stadium and what is now referred to as the "old Aud" — the Sabres used to play a regular game on New Year's Eve — we went to a few of those games, too. It didnt matter what he did to try to protect his kids from the heartbreak of rooting for Buffalo teams; it still seeped through.

I had cousins of my age, though, too, who had a say in the matter. I was introduced to the Sabres at an early age and rooted for the team that long-haired Lindy Ruff played on, along with the Olympic hero Mike Ramsey. I learned about the French Connection, and I learned to despise the Philadelphia Flyers and the Boston Bruins, and I learned about the heroic antics of Jim Schoenfeld, our kind of tough guy, who was strong enough to break the chains of the boards with a check, and who wasnt afraid to stand up to the refs.

Even though I didnt spend all my childhood in Buffalo, the city's experience got through to me. My uncle worked at Bethlehem Steel. My cousin grew up to work at the Ford plant (which, by the way, is misplaced in the scene from "Buffalo 66"). I loved the time I lived there as an adult and, to be honest, I probably would have stayed there forever — with my friends and family — had my first wife not so despised the place. But I loved it. I loved the in-between nature of its downtown nightlife — almost a big city, but not really. I embraced Buffalo culture. I became a fan of the television writer Tom Fontana — I rowed in a boat at the West Side Rowing Club (I could write an article on my connections to that place alone) that was named after his father, who was a family friend and a fixture in the rowing community, who used to write for Hill Street Blues (many of the street names heard on the station's intercom are from Buffalo) and wrote a rowing plot arc into an episode of St. Elsewhere, and went on to create "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Oz." I frequented local food co-ops and made a point of knowing where to go to eat, drink or be merry in every neighborhood in town. And I went to a lot of games.

My dad, having grown up in Buffalo, went to Syracuse to pursue a rowing career and, through him, I became a solid Orangemen fan (now just "Orange"). It was with this team that I had an "approved" object of fanhood, growing up on stories about my own old man going to school with Jim Boeheim. My sister was baptized by the Catholic priest who for years sat behind the Orange bench with the team. Syracuse was okay, but Buffalo was not. This approach proved prescient when, finally, in 2003, the year my first marriage dissolved, the Orange won the NCAA Tournament. Years of anguish had been erased when Hakeem Warrick blocked Kansas' last chance shot. And years of cheering against Georgetown in the 80s were redeemed. Other Finals appearances — losses — became irrelevant — merely backstory to Our Champions.

But I didnt go to college at Syracuse — couldnt afford the student load possibilities — so I went to college at the University at Buffalo. We'll leave the Bulls out of this discussion — we've only been D-I for a few years so far.

During my last years of college and into my "regular life," the Bills were losing their four straight Super Bowls. And not in random fashion either. People remember those games. Most of all, I remember the first one and the last one — the only two the Bills could have — should have — won.

The Sabres were mired in mediocrity for all of these years. I was too young to remember the 1975 Finals loss to the Flyers (though the event was still there), and so we rooted for the Sabres for just as long as we could, and back then it wasnt a complete failure to make it to the 2nd or 3rd round of the playoffs. Then came 1999. It was enough to make us forget about the mediocre best of times of the past 20 years, even those things which made us proud — Pat LaFontaine, Clint Malarchuk, Alex Mogilny, Brad May. In 1999 it was different. But then it happened, just like it happened to the Bills against the Giants, except it was worse.

Two words: No Goal. Before it became a bumper sticker, it was a tragic truth. I stayed up all @!$%#ing night watching that game go into endless overtimes. No goal. @!$%#ing Bucky Dent? @!$%# Brett Hull.

It's been a reckless ride as a Buffalo sports fan. I cant explain it, other than it's there, just like our relatives are there. Despite my father's efforts, both my brother and I are deadly Buffalo fans — deadly as a suicide. We regularly commiserate about our shared pain. We dress each other's kids in toddler Bills or Sabres gear. And neither one of us is even making an effort to protect this next generation from the anguish of rooting for Buffalo.

I posted a seed today about the Sabres making their last trade of this seasaon, moving their only remaining All-Star out west for some prospects. In it, we mourn the end of this season. But it's more than that. Trading away Brian Campbell wasnt just about Brian Campbell or this season. It is the final act in the tragic play whose denouement began after the Sabres fell short of a nearly perfect season last year and lost their two star players, Daniel Briere and Chris Drury, to division foes.

Fellow fan cp33 pointed out in that seed how special last year was for the Sabres, and I was reminded of my modest string of articles that, from a distance and through different filters — political, family, social, literary — kept a watchful eye on the very special season that we saw take shape last year. And so I wanted to introduce or revive those articles here this evening as so many Buffalo fans are truly mourning something we've been watching die for almost a year now.

I dont know if there will ever be redemption for Buffalo fans. It's no consolation to point out to naysayers that the Bills won the last two AFL Championship games, just before the merger. It's no consolation to insist, rightly so, that the goal was, lets be clear: No Goal.

And having a little package of essays is no consolation, either. But I dont have to ask myself if I would trade these essays for a Stanley Cup, because when and if that Cup finally comes, part of the joy I feel will be a result of many of the things I explored in these essays.

So, here, for your reading pleasure, is a collection, in chronological order, of essays in which I mentioned or focused on the Buffalo Sabres. This is not a log of the 2006-07 season, or a documentation of the Sabres' playoff run, winning streak or fall from grace. This is a road diary of sorts — the scribblings of scenery and prose sketches of a writer who happens to be a huge Sabres fan.

What happened last year is now, we can be sure, finally over. Maybe, if you're like me and cp33, sitting and sulking, this can help you look back with fondness instead of frustration, which is most of what we've been feeling lately.

My Sabres Material:

It's not just a ball game anymore — October 11, 2006

The force of grace — October 16, 2006

Why the Sabres may never lose — October 17, 2006

Chasing the reality dragon — November 1, 2006

The precious in-between times — April 5, 2007

Are you a crackhead ballerina? — April 20, 2007

Hope in a blue hockey world — April 26, 2007

Where do we go now, where do we go? — May 15, 2007

And the Sabres piss away their past into the winds of their future — June 29, 2007

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