Dear Mr. Golisano
By Tim Redinger
"Dear Mr. Golisano — I am eight years old. My parents say the Sabres have no heart. My friends say if you read it on the internet, it must be true. Please tell me the truth, can the Sabres win the Stanley Cup?VirginiaBuffalo, NY"
Virginia,
Your parents are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of old age. They do not believe what they cannot see. They think that nothing can be won with a team of undersized players who can’t work as a team. All minds, Johnny, whether they be men’s or children’s are little. In this great league of ours the Sabres are mighty, and only some are capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, this team has heart. It exists in the stellar team that Darcy Regier has put together, and that we have faith in. Alas, how dreary Buffalo would be if the Sabres had no heart, there would be no child-like faith, no poetry, no romance to make existence tolerable. We should have no enjoyment in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in the Sabres! You might as well live in Florida! You might get your parents to hire men to watch HSBC Arena from September to June. Nobody sees the heart, but that is no sign that there is none. The most real things in the world are those that neither men or children can see. Have you ever seen me in HSBC Arena? Of course not, but thats no proof that I am not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.
We could tear apart this roster and add players that would make us more of a contender, but there is a veil covering the unseen potential that these players have, and trading them would tear the chemistry of these team apart! Our faith in second tier players can push aside that even the united strength of Stanley Cup champions can’t beat. Is it all real? Ah Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding than growing a young team from draft picks and seemingly bad deadline trades.
No heart for the Sabres! Thank Goodness! It lives, and it will live forever. A hundred years from now, Virginia, the heart of this team will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Larry Quinn
(On behal of Mr. Golisano).
**The Sabres have enough heart to continue to inspire the empty faith and dreams of a young fan base, but their parents know the heart of this team long since died, and is buried where Memorial Auditorium once stood.
Ok, so it might not be all that doom and gloom that the Sabres lost tonight to the Boston Bruins in another close match, but the score did not dictate how this game actually went. The only reason the score remained tied until late into the third, was because of probably the only Sabre who actually has the heart of the Buffalo Sabres, Ryan Miller.
All year I have been discussing how the Buffalo Sabres are going to fail in their quest for a Stanley Cup because of the long wear and tear of the extended season because of the Olympics on Ryan Miller. Not so. Miller seems to be the only one on the team giving it his all on every shift.
So many times tonight I watched as the Sabres skated around TD Bank Garden like it was an early season game with little to know meaning – not like it was the third game of the conference quarter finals. Truth in that can be seen by taking a look at the Bruins first goal. Ennis falls behind the net during a forecheck, and gets to one knee while watching the play develop in front of him before deciding to skate back into the play, which at that point was already to late, as the Bruins went 180 feet to score on an odd man rush.
Tim Connolly was a ghost again tonight, as he continues a campaign of Yashin like play in the post-season. A twitter post during the game said it all – the Sabres were content to play it out until overtime to get one point. Wrong answer. In the playoffs, unless your Detroit or New Jersey – you can’t sit back in a 1-1 game and hope for your opponent to make a mistake.
In game one the Sabres took the game to the Bruins and got a victory. Games two and three have been all Bruins. No, Virginia, this team cannot win a Stanley Cup.
""