I can never quite take the writer hat off. I attended last Tuesday night’s Boston Bruins – Winnipeg Jets game at the TD Garden, my first NHL game of the season. I average one NHL game a year. (Depressing, I know, but I lack time and funds.)
I told myself to just watch the game. I left my notepad in the car, and didn’t even carry a pen with me. I told myself I wouldn’t tweet either, since the service at the Garden when filled is seriously lacking.
Despite my attempts to just enjoy the game, I still had two quick notes I had to write up post-game. You can take the tools away from the writer, but you can never make them stop thinking like one. Here they are: read more…
Down and out about many things this Saturday morning, I tried to cheer myself up by drinking coffee and flipping through my Google Reader to catch up on articles I had missed during the work week. Two of the articles were from longtime Rochester sportswriter Scott Pitoniak’s blog. I grew up reading his work in the Democrat and Chronicle, and since the paper let him go, I’ve been following his reinvention online.
In a piece this week, Pitoniak reflected on the 19th anniversary of the greatest comeback in NFL history, the Buffalo Bills defeat of the Houston Oilers in a wild card playoff game. The Bills came back from a 32 point deficit under the leadership of backup quarterback Frank Reich, forced into play after the Oilers injured starter Jim Kelly when the two teams met in the last game of the regular season.
In Pitoniak’s piece this week, he quoted an interview with Steve Tasker about how usually loquacious Bills head coach Marv Levy inspired the team during halftime, despite their being down 28-3:
“All he said was, Don’t ever let ‘em say you gave up,” Tasker recounted. “There was brilliance in his simplicity. He didn’t berate us for crappy play, and he didn’t try to give us some rah-rah speech, which would have come across as disingenuous and phony. We had been to two straight Super Bowls, and he appealed to our pride. It wound up working. We chipped away and kept playing hard, and a miracle occurred.”
To say that I was exactly what I needed to read this morning would be an understatement. “Don’t ever let ‘em say you gave up.” That’s going in my wallet. Marv Levy may have never won a Super Bowl, but he’s provided me with enough kick-in-the-butt quotes and moments to last a lifetime.
(The other piece Pitoniak posted on his site this week is perfect for anyone not familiar with the pre-Indianapolis Colts work of Bill Polian, who was let go by the Colts this week. Polian was a mastermind for the Super Bowl years of the Bills, and did excellent work crafting the early years of the Carolina Panthers. Bills fans would love to have Polian back within the organization, but Polian and owner Ralph Wilson have not been on the best of terms.)
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick gave one of his regular cagey and depreciating press conferences Friday, answering questions about Sunday’s regular season ending matchup against the Buffalo Bills. He was displeased with many of the questions, and gave little insight into how he views Sunday’s opponent.
After reviewing the press conference transcript, I decided to decipher Belichick’s statements, and translate them into what he really wanted to say about the Bills. read more…
On New Year’s Day, I’ll join hundreds of fellow transplanted Buffalo Bills fans and thousands of New England Patriots fans and take in the last regular season game of the year at Foxboro’s Gillette Stadium. It will be my second game at Gillette this year, and my fourth ever game at the massive complex.
Like any stadium, you learn a few tricks and tips after a few visits that make your trip all the more enjoyable. After I attended November’s Monday Night Football Chiefs-Patriots game, I jotted down this list of the tips I’ve learned to share with other non-Gillette regulars. read more…
On Christmas Eve morning, the Buffalo Bills’ official Facebook page and Twitter account asked Bills fans: “What will Santa deliver for the Bills today?”
The Bills were playing the Tim Tebow led Denver Broncos at 1pm on Christmas Eve. Even though the miracle Broncos had been snuffed by the New England Patriots the week before, the consensus was that the hopeless and injured Bills would lose.
On top of that, the game would be blacked out in the Buffalo and Rochester areas because Ralph Wilson Stadium did not sell out. In some markets, an owner will buy out the remainder of the tickets to ensure a sold out game, but Bills owner Ralph Wilson (or whomever is acting on his behalf these days) did not. To add to that, the Bills had squandered a successful first half of the season to fall to a 5-9 record, with no chance of the playoffs in sight. Add to that the general pessimism surrounding the Bills’ brass after they signed shaky starting quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to a long term contract but have yet to restructure key cog running back Fred Jackson’s deal (they have merely “assured” him of one, but haven’t inked anything official.)
Given all of that negativity, why would a social media manager ask such a question? You could expect at least eighty percent bitter responses. But the Bills’ asked, and here are some of the actual responses they received:
The Facebook comments section – several hundred deep – felt like a big group therapy session, or at least an extremely curmudgeonly family Christmas dinner. Surprisingly, the Bills pulled out the upset and used a strong day on defense to defeat the Broncos 40-14.
Was it harmless for the Bills to ask such a question via social media, or does it illustrate how out of touch they may be with their fan base?
