Eye for an eye

The Buffalo Sabres play the Boston Bruins Wednesday night in Buffalo. It's probably one of the most anticipated games of the season ... for, perhaps, all of the wrong reasons.

Let's review for a moment. Last week, a loose puck floated into the Sabres' end in a game in Boston. Ryan Miller, the Sabres' goalie went out to get the puck and knock it away to prevent a possible breakaway. Milan Lucic, the Bruins' physical forward who won't be described as shifty any time soon, knocked (if you are a Sabres' fan, use "slammed" instead) Miller over. Miller went down, the referee stopped play, and there was a mild scrum afterwards as a few Sabres gave Lucic a shove. Lucic picked up a two-minute charging penalty.

The Sabres seemed to go down meekly after that, and reaction from there quickly multiplied. On one hand, the Sabres weren't happy that someone had hit their goaltender -- it's one of the unwritten laws of the game, although officials only treat goalies a little different than skaters when it comes to contact in open ice. The fans and media all pounded the Sabres for their timid reaction to the play, in some cases saying the team was "soft." NHL discipline czar Brendan Shanahan reviewed the play and decided not to hand out a suspension on the play, even though Miller suffered a concussion and has not returned to action yet.

The episode points out that there's something of a faultline when it comes to such matters along the fan base of hockey.

One on side is the "old time hockey" crowd, for lack of a better name. This is the crowd that likes a good hit and loves a good fight. These are the ones who called for the firing of Ruff and/or the trading of some current Sabres for some tough guys.

The other side sees actions like this and wonders what the fuss is all about. Those fans don't want to see the Sabres take the law into their own hands -- that's why we have referees. "Frontier justice" supposedly went out with the Jesse James era.

Both sides have a right to their viewpoint. The traditionalists grew up with hockey that was played in a certain way, and like it. The newcomers prefer to watch speed and skill, and if they don't get it, they stay home or switch the channel. Hockey always has had some trouble attracting the newcomers, particularly in areas where the game isn't part of the culture (think the Mason-Dixon Line and south). It doesn't want to offend the old fans, but wants to attract new ones. Remember, it's the only major team sport that allows fighting within the context of the game.

The new way of thinking has been winning the argument over the last 30 years, but an episode like this comes up every so often and reminds us that we have a ways to go before reaching any sort of settlement. In fact, an agreement by a Congressional super-committee on budget cuts seems more likely.

On Wednesday, Lucic will be booed by the sellout crowd when he comes out on the ice and touches the puck. He'll be drawn into a fight by one of the Sabres, they will exchange punches for a while and sit in the penalty box for five minutes, and the game will go on. Some sort of point will be proven, I guess. We'll then more or less forget about it.

And so it goes.

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He shoots, he scores

Me thinks the Sabres should sign this nine-year-old for duty the next time there is a shootout:

Yikes

My former high school classmate, Becky Harbison, had some comments about seeing excerpts on the Rob Ray book in The Buffalo News. And she even let me comment on the comments.

So I did.

Thank you, Becky. Head to http://clarencegrad72.blogspot.com/. And it was nice to see another Clarence Class of '72 member, Jim Donnelly, at today's book signing. Jim had a heck of an outside jumper in his day, even when he had a broken leg back then. He just swung the cast forward, leaning back, and stuck another jumper.

Listing in a new direction

A short note on the life of someone who is about to become a co-author of a book:

Rob Ray and I teamed up for a short autobiography -- more of a memoir, even if I don't understand the difference -- that is coming out in November. I've been checking the Amazon.com boards for the past few weeks to see how it looks. Amazon doesn't have the right cover picture up, but the title is right and the price is right (Check it out at http://sportsbooks.homestead.com/Rayzor.html.).

The fun part is that Amazon.com has a best seller list, broken down to great extremes. The book popped up a while ago around #75 on the best seller list for hockey, which was pretty exciting in of itself. Then the other night, it went up and up by the hour, it seemed. It peaked at #10 for hockey and #23 for winter sports books, which isn't bad for a book that isn't due out until mid-November.

Now, there's a scene in the Tom Hanks-directed movie, "That Thing You Do!", when a band comes out with a single and its members hear the song on the radio for the first time. And they start screaming.

That's exactly how I felt when I saw #10. For at hour at least, I had a "best-selling hockey book." I didn't scream, but it would have been worth it.

Hopefully, more thrills are coming in the weeks ahead.

(P.S. It went as high as #2 on the hockey list around the end of September, but soon sunk off the top 100 several days later. Guess we'll actually have to publish a book to keep sales going.)

Fan mail

I did something unusual the other night. I watched a sporting event on television -- Buffalo Sabres vs. New York Rangers -- in a bar with some friends. The game was exciting, my friends were fine, the picture and sound were crisp, the beer was cold and the popcorn was free.

Still, it was an odd experience. I had to listen to some other fans during the game. Yuck.

Keep something in mind here -- the Sabres were the league's best team during the regular season. They beat the Islanders in the first round of the playoffs, and had a 2-1 lead going into Game Four in New York. By any standards, this is a pretty good team ... no matter what was going to happen on this night.

For two periods, I had to listen to fans' comments at the next table. They were enough to make me scream.

Jochen Hecht was a horrible player. Jaroslav Spacek was acquired for no apparent reason. The passing was horrible. The coaching was worse. The referee always hated Buffalo. You'd never know it was a 2-1 game, decided by a non-call on a goal in the final seconds. And so on. Some of the remarks were punctuated by obscenities, just to add a little spice.

Now, some of these people were wearing Sabre apparel, so they obviously had some rooting interest in the team. So if these were the friends of the team, what do the enemies sound like?

I'll be happy to defend anyone's Constitutional right to be wrong about their views of sport. But that doesn't mean I'm forced to sit next to them.