Woooo!

Hey, did you hear?

No, what?

Goose was just signed to a 4 year, $9.2 million deal!

REALLY? HONKKKK!

But that's my line!

4 years, $9.2 million! Then there are talks with Millsy and his agent that started today... I'm really looking forward to tomorrow and the next few days.

Oh, and I lied. "A Day in the Life" post starts tomorrow, ha.

When does October start?

So I keep forgetting about this sad little blog. Not completely, I mean to post, but forget. Oops. I'm not finding a lot to say that pretty much hasn't been said, which makes this boring. Oh well.

I'm totally stealing that "A Week In the Life" thing that's going around... starting next week. I'm going on our annual family summer trip, this time again to Philly, which'll be fun and give good pictures. The main reason is that one of my brothers needs to look at colleges, and this gives us an excuse to go to the Albany-ish area, then down from there.

Also, we're going because I convinced my parents that I needed to see Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers again. For the ninth time.
Don't judge me like that... once you see them in concert and all that jazz you'll understand! SK6ERS and hockey are my two obsessions, and I am fully aware, thank you very much. But seriously, they're not coming to the Square for the first time in 3 years, which meant no local summer concert. But, they're playing a free show on the 4th of July outside of Philly aka awesome! I could have gotten in on the guestlist on any other Hanson tour date, but since they were all over the country, that didn't happen. This will make up for it, kinda. Plus, how can you miss a song called "4th of July" actually being played on the 4th of July? /end SHAMELESS promotion.

Anyway, that'll start Sunday, dev camp Monday, and then free agency day, or better known as "He signed where for what?!?!" day Tuesday... also the day I leave. Hopefully I'll still be able to catch up on all the dramaz of the day, because god knows we have to see what happens to the 12 unrestricted Pens players. Along with Uncle Tepps, Pratty, and Mike Ryan. And our fun little bunch of restricted guys of Goose, Clarkie baby, Pie-eh, Bear, and Mancari.

So yeah. Not that I'm all that important or even update more than like, 3 times a month, but I'll be gone. Hopefully the Sabres don't spontaneously combust or anything crazy like that because if I miss that, there will be hell to pay. Not that I expect it but... Do you hear that, front office? You better. :)

Have fun y'all!

NHL Awards!

I missed the Awards last night. I'm kind of upset about it for some reason. I was out with some my Mountie high school girls that I haven't seen in a while, and when I came home, the Awards didn't record and my sister hadn't even known they were on! I'm debating my idea of sisterly bonding time at the draft party, though she'll be the one who will handle/join in on my squeeing... hmmmm.

The only thing that did record was the NHL Network red carpet coverage...

- When the interviewer Lisa Hillary was talking to Dion Phaneuf and was like, "You have a special lady here with you, can we bring her over pleeeeeaseeee?" First of all, the name Lisa Hillary, seriously? But Dion kept going, "If you want to..." or basically "Do it and die." So they bring Elisha Cuthbert over and she basically shoots daggers out of her eyes. ahahahah, too funny.

- Is Malkin seriously that tall? He was walking by and was a giant compared to everyone else around. I never noticed.

- The outfits, ooohh boy, lol. Ovie's was crazy with the red, and I loveddd Iggy's tie. Polka dots rock.

Anyway, I've read up on who won, and they went to I pretty much thought they would. I thought Jason Blake would win the Masterson (I'd totally have Goose instead, honk), Bruce Bourdreau for the Jack Adams, AO for the Hart of course, Lidstrom for the Norris... It's really too bad that Pommers came in third for the Lady Byng, but it's such a huge honor to be nominated. It's all good Pommers, you get your own Buffalo Blogging Scene Award in the category of Most Adorable and Loveable Sabre.

How can you ignore that?

And yay for Kaner and the Calder! I didn't get to see his whole speech, but they did play the shoutout to Buffalo on the news and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Like any other Buffalonian, when a local person makes it big, they are just so awesome. I did hear about the keeping 25 teammates away from his 3 sisters... I guess proof is in pictures.

Is he really the oldest/my age? And judging by this, his dad already knew the comment and LOVED it.

And oh, I seriously love WGR. Nick Mendola brings the LOLs all around, especially with this.

ETA: What do you guys think about this? Is Buffalo a football or hockey town? Judging by the poll results and my own opinion, I would say a hockey town. But again, there's bias, so who knows.

ETA x 2: Tim Russert died suddenly of a heart attack today. That's so sad. A Buffalo guy, through and through. RIP.

No hockey makes one pretty much insane.

Sooooo. It's the offseason officially. Yeah. So when does hockey start again?

Seriously though... I know there's gonna be fun stuff coming up, like the awards, and then the draft, then free agency, but I am so ready for trading camp and games to happen again.

Nevertheless, Thursday night at like 1am, I decided that I was going to look up info about restricted free agents. What I was looking for, I don't know. But somehow I got to reading the CBA.
I have no idea how I got there, seeing I was probably so tired that I just started going from link to link. What can I say, I've always been click happy!

While most of it I didn't really understand or care about, I pulled out the good stuff just like IPB did.
So I thought I'd post the really important points.

• A European player has it's own definition, as in not from North America. (yeahhhh.)
  
• In arbitration, the NHL and NHLPA flip a coin to see who gets to pick off the player list first and then start assigning dates.
• If a player is traded, they get 6 months rent/mortgage paid, and for last and this season, it can't be more than $3,200 per month.
• If a player is traded, their spouse (or Living Companion) and kids get a free flight to and from their new city, or airfare to look for housing then one-way to the new city.
• The only way there can be a game on the day after Christmas is if the travel time to get there is no more than 2 and a half hours.
• Any player who has played 10 seasons or 600 games (or games dressed for goalies) can have a single person hotel room on the road.
• Each team should make 2 tickets available for purchase for each visiting team player, but the max is 50 tickets.
• For home players, there are 2 complementary tickets and then a minimum of 2 that can be bought (supposedly done in the beginning of the season only).
• The tickets should be in the next to the highest price level excluding the price level for luxury suites, club seats and any premium seating, but in no event should the tickets be for seats that are located above the lowest bowl in the arena.
• A player can't endorse any alcohol or tobacco products.
• A player can't loan any money to any league official, including a ref, linesman, etc.

Then the rest was all money and I couldn't focus enough to even read the headers.
So yeah, there's some interesting stuff I never knew. Is it really relevant to know? Not really. I was bored and I'm filling up blog space. Don't shoot me yet!

The Dominator retired again today... this time I think for good. I watched the press conference online just to see what he was going to say. I have to say, I'm not his biggest fan, mainly because of the whole personality issue.
I did LOL when his cell phone went off twice during the conference, he seemed pretty embarrassed.
But yeah, he thanked Larry Quinn for being a friend (cue Golden Girls theme), players like Miro Satan (holy nightmares Batman!), and being proud and supportive of Hasek's Heroes (which made me not hate him soooo much). And then he "thanked fans in Buffalo who supported him when he played for the Sabres, saying they played a role in each save", which is a nice reminiscing point.

But then when was asked about Buffalo, "it was a different time" and then basically left it at that. Whatever, Dom. How can I even like you when you look like this!

No one should ever wear their hat backwards and pose like that. Not drunken college guys, and especially not 40 something year old goalies that I don't like.

And to end the longest blog ever... I found this article from WGR, and it's a great read. It's from Sports Illustrated in 1969, all about how sports teams have been here in Buffalo. This was obviously before the Sabres came to town, and it gives insight into it actually got here via the Knox's. Very good.

Hope everyone survives the heat!

An epic lack of sleep.

What an game. That's basically all that needs to be said. And here is a stream of consciousness since it is almost 2 AM and I need to post.
I've had a "OMG listening to this song/music & seeing signings & watching the Finals makes me more excited for the Sabres" post for a bit, but I've been too lazy to get it up. Oh well, that'll be soon... maybe.

• Poor Bugsy... having a broken nose, then taking the shot to the face.
  
  
  

  C'mon nosey, put your heart into it! (Credit loblolly @ LJ)
  

  
  
• I think it was AWESOME that "Sykie" called that he was going to score the game winner. He is obviously a psychic... I wonder who that would be for the Sabres. I say Jochen.
• I can't believe the next goal actually won the game in overtime! The announcers on every. channel. repeated it every 2 seconds, and somehow it happened. Hockey is weird.
• Those first two goaltender interference penalties were pretty weak in my opinion. As the announcers on NBC also mentioned 800 times, they have to clear that up this summer.
• I never would have guessed that they eat pizza after the OT's keep on going. For some reason it's a weird mental picture.
  
  
  Goose is not in any way promoting eating, drinking and skating... watch for that PSA soon.
  
  
  
• And I also like that they got it from Domino's. Sid LOLed at that for some reason. But seriously, you couldn't have gotten it from somewhere else? I'm sure there had to be a better place somewhere near the Joe... unless I am a spoiled Buffalonian and there isn't.
• Brooks Orpik. 42 minutes played, 10 blocked shots. I am a fan. And MAF was a beast. Insane.

So hockey lives on for another day. I'm glad, because I really don't think I was ready for it to end yet. I was a little wary of the Pens in the beginning, since I didn't really know who to go with, but it was great to see them fight this far. Bring on Game 6!

And I'm exhausted.

ETA: It seems like 1 million Sabre things have happened today. Another draftee, Dennis Persson, was signed, Kennedy had his press conference at HSBC, and Kalinin is NOT going to be offered a contract. Yeah, I said the last part right. I'm happy yet surprised with the decision, especially that Darcy came right out and said it. I guess it's not sitting well with Max (evidently they were like ~*BFFZ*~)... though I think Max's time was short anyway. Very very interesting in how this is offseason is going!