Buffalo Sabres at Carolina Hurricanes: Peanut Gallery Pregame Thoughts
By Adam DeRose
The Buffalo Sabres travel up the East Coast for the second game in their back-to-back set – can they salvage one game out of this mini road trip? Adam shares his thoughts!
Today is important for two reasons:
- It is Little Ziggy’s 2nd birthday!
- The Buffalo Sabres are playing in the Promised Land (Raleigh, NC) against the Carolina Candy-Canes.
Normally I am always up for a road trip! However, driving 11 hours down to the Promised Land with 2 kids under 2 isn’t fun…unless I am driving at night, and I’m not about to do that drive again (that’s a story for another time)! Instead, we had other plans for the birthday boy!
Grandp Ziggy was back in his hometown of Buffalo for Christmas. He was supposed to fly back to his son Michael—who lives in the Promised Land—this past Sunday. However, the Promised Land was hit with a “massive snow and ice storm” and RDU canceled all flights.
Needless to say, Grandpa Ziggy did not make it back to the Promised Land to escape the harsh Buffalo winter. The original plan was for Uncle Michael to take Grandpa Ziggy to tonight’s Sabres game at PNC Arena, but that wasn’t going to happen. Uncle Michael had the flu and Grandpa Ziggy wanted to stay in WNY so that he could attend his great grandson’s—and namesake’s—2nd birthday party!
So, with all that being said, the Sabres—or as Grandpa Ziggy and I call them, the Bums—are playing the Candy-Canes this evening. Last night, the Bums were in Tampa and only played for about 20 minutes, hence their 4-2 loss and ending their 2 game winning streak.
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I’m going to be Captain Obvious here and say teams that play back to back games don’t normally play a good second game. With that being said, I don’t think the Sabres will do well in the Promised Land. Yes, the Sabres should have a ton of fans at the game since Raleigh is the new Mecca for WNY-ers. Uncle Michael and Cousin Alex (Grandpa goes to the Buffalo games when he is there) say that PNC Arena is half filled and most of the fans are Buffalonians. So, it should be a home-away-from-home game for the Sabres…if they so choose to show up. Historically speaking, the Sabres almost never show up for their transplant fans! I have been to the Promised Land for four games and I have only seen the Bums win once, in a meaningless game.
And that brings me to another point—just bear with me! Why the hell is there hockey in Carolina?! It’s college basketball town! They have Duke, NC State, UNC, and Wake Forrest (though they moved out of town a few years ago). On top of that, it’s NASCAR Country! If it weren’t for the Yankees, them Southerners wouldn’t know what Labatt Ice, Molson Ice, or Genny Ice are! According to them, ice is something they put in their sweet tea drinks! When is Carolina’s owner going to sell 51% of the team so that they can be moved to Quebec City, where a Stanley Cup victory can actually be appreciated! It’s the STANLEY CUP! Not the WINSTON CUP!
And speaking about ice, hopefully the Cane’s ice crew figured out their fudge up from last month. Lord knows they had enough snow and ice on Sunday and Monday. Hopefully they saved some to fix the ice for tonight’s game.
Enough of my ranting and babbling. Here’s my thought’s for tonight’s game: the Sabres and true hockey fans show up to games in the Promised Land, however, the Bums have been notorious for not showing up. I say the Sabres will be down by two goals late in the 3rd Period. Our Genius Head Coach will pull our goalie, so that we can lose by three goals.
I asked Grandpa Ziggy what he thought. He said he would be watching the game.
Lastly, you may be asking why I call Raleigh the Promised Land. My Uncle Michael was born and raised in Buffalo. After graduating from Buffalo State in 1980, he skipped town for greener pastures, which eventually brought him to Raleigh. It was a bright, bustling, and booming town on the upswing; as opposed to the downward spiraling Buffalo. As a kid, he would tell me how wonderful Raleigh was, but I could never see it through his eyes. There was no Broadway Market, Mighty Taco, good pizza, chicken wings, Ted’s hot dogs, Weber’s Mustard, a great fish fry, Canadian beer, beef on weck, horseradish, pierogies, etc.
Yes, RDU has a really great flea market at the fairgrounds, but Buffalo had the Super Flea and Farmer’s Market on Walden Road in Cheek-ta-vegas!
To me, Raleigh can be summed up in a few lines from Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, “It’s got so many people, but it’s got no soul. And it’s taken you so long to find out you were wrong when you thought it held everything…”
Any-hoot! Tonight is my kid’s 2nd birthday, and I’m not going to make him suffer on an 11-hour car ride or 4 hour flight to the Promised Land. Instead, Shannon and I are going to take him to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins @ Rochester Americans game….that means the Baby Pens vs. the Amerks.
By the way, the Zigster is a HUGE fan of Amerks mascot, the Moose. Go Sabres and Amerks!