"I don't think I'm in here..."

I wasn't planning to come home this weekend, but I'm really happy I did. The Puck Drop spec-tac-u-lar was pretty awesome. My brother was volunteering with UNYTS since a family friend is a VP of something or other, so we were there super early. Good ol' Catholic schools and their service requirements.

We had pretty close seats, but not pretty great seats. I've only sat in the 100's twice, and neither was that close to the glass (we were 6th row today). I realized today that you can only pretty much see your end of the rink, but whatever. I guess I'm spoiled by seeing everything from the 300's. And that sounds silly to say, ha.

Stupid glass things wouldn't let me take a picture of Rookies 1, 2 and 3.

I liked watching the scrimmage, even though I'm pretty sure I had no idea who most people were. Two different colors with some of the same numbers but no names. Besides the regulars, and then Nathan Gerbe and Tyler Myers, who worked by height alone, it was all guessing from there. I did like the kids behind me and their reasoning, "He looks like he's not American." Genius!

I noticed Teppo and Thomas Vanek both didn't play... Vanek wasn't in the jersey unveiling either but still signed autographs. Go figure. Anyway, according to the Buffalo News, Vanek and Goose are a little beat up.
Oh, and there was no logo at center ice, and no ads on the boards. I know it's just preseason, but it seemed super weird.

Then the jersey unveiling. I loved the intro video clip and then the theatrics along with it... dry ice, RJ announcing, the clips along with each player (even though the whole 'pick up your head really quickly then look at the camera and smirk/stare' was pretty amusing), everything. Every player who came through the zamboni entrance and onto the ice just made it feel like hockey season again.
I also loved the cheering for Teppo, which was easily the loudest, and a welcome for Craig Rivet and Patrick Lalime. Just awesome.




I also got sucked in to wating for autographs with my brothers, my sister, and her friends. The first line we were in wasn't that bad (near the section 100 entrance), but when a security guy told us that players were up on the 200 level sections and more tickets were there, I was stuck waiting in line so they could get stuff signed by Mike Weber and Danny Paille. I didn't get to go up but they got my yearbook signed, which was nice even though I had to ask! Then the line next us near Sabretooth's House was announced as Ryan Miller and I think there was a stampede. The staff had 300 tickets for each autograph line around the arena, and what he had left for that was gone in about 15 seconds. And then about a quarter of our line was gone too.

Eventually after waiting for a while, we find out it's Hank Tallinder and Drew Schiestel's line... both very nice. Hank was pretty funny. When he was signing, he said, "Let's put a big one right here..." and did it probably as slow as he could. Or at least that's what it seemed to me. He also made a mark with the sharpie on my page after signing and was like, "Oops! Well, I'll have to fix that." Into a smiley face.

Oh Hank, you're such a jokester.

...and he knows it too.

Then after, somehow we jumped into the last few tickets of what was supposed to be Paul Gaustad and Jason Pominville's line... turns out they had left just a few minutes before we got into the line and it was turned into Tim Connolly and T.J. Brennan. The security guard led me to believe false statements! Evidently their tables were back to back. Anyway, I was disappointed, but it was still good. T.J . Brennan looked at my yearbook and was like, "I don't think I'm in here..." until he actually took it from me, looked through and did find his little blurb. "Oh, wait!" It's okay T.J., just do what your shirt said, hug it out. It'll solve all problems, just ask Michael Scott.

Oh, and I have some videos if anyone wants to check them out. This post is already tl;dr, so let's make it better!



(Please excuse the taping in that one. I guess my youngest brother can't work his own camera.)



All in all, it was a really great time and I'm really glad that the Sabres did something big for the start of preseason/basically hockey season. And now, I'm sooooo much more excited for the season to start. Yay hockey!!

(I have a post talking about Pommer's contract and this summer and real stuff ready to post... eventually. And I'm hoping before the end of the year I can finish my 100 things. Just maybe.)