this email has been making the rounds in buffalo today — and on the radio…

“Lord Stanley, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy playoffs come, thy games be won, on the road as it is in Buffalo. Forgive us our many goals, as we forgive those few who score
against us. And lead us not into overtime, but deliver us victory in regulation. For your cup, your power and glory will be ours, Forever and ever. In the name of Ryan Miller, Mad Max, and the holy Ruff.
Amen

Hail Lindy full of grace, the Lord Stanley be with you, blessed are you among defensemen and blessed is the strategy of thy coaching genius. Holy Lindy, father of the Sabres, pray for us sinners now in regulation and in sudden death.
Amen

Our God
Who art in HSBC
Miller Be they name

Thy puck come
Thy save
be done
On the air as it is on ice

Give us this day
our STANLEY CUP
and forgive us of slashing
as we send out Peters
for those that slash
against us.

And Lead us not into golfing
but deliver us from injury

For Miller is the Goalie
the power and the glory
for ever and ever…

Also, the Sabres 10 Commandments:

10 Thou Shall Not covet thy neighbors Labatt’s. Thou shall not be envious of his autographed Ryan Miller jersey nor his hot girlfriend in the pink Sabres hat.
9 Thou Shall NOT bear false witness, like saying you were at the game when Dave Hannan scored in quadruple overtime against New Jersey in 1994. The Aud held 16,500 people, yet everyone in Buffalo “was there.”
8 Thou shall NOT steal Rick Jeanarette sayings and pass them off as your own. Really, Top shelf where momma hides the cookies was your idea? Ya, don’t say?
7 Thou Shall NOT allow Brian Campbell to commit adultery. Whatever, Brian Campbell.
6 Thou Shall NOT kill. (”Not applicable to Leafs fans”)
5 Honor Lindy Ruff. If he says eat your peas, then eat your peas. I’m talking to you Derek Roy!
4 Keep holy the Sabbath, which is any day the Sabres are playing. Your boss will understand why you need 16-28 days off over the next 3 months…if not, Commandment 6 may be waived. I have no patience of religious intolerance.
3 Thou shall not take Jochen Hecht’s name in vain, even though it may be fun to say things like, “You must be Jochen” or “Jochen do it.”
2 Thou shall not worship false idols. Careful Sabretooth. Careful.
1 There is only One Team, One Goal!”

i love my wife.

she is official!! woo!!

alison was sworn in to the nys bar today. nifty and regal ceremony (thank you for the vocab, tanya!) at the old courthouse on madison and 25th. mercifully short speech from the bench by one of the five justices…

off to qdt after that for some good times with steve, ronda, phil, alex, christy, mike and mark.

i could not be any more proud of her. you did it honey!!!

alison and i returned home from a weekend upstate JUST in time to watch the bosox take on the yankees. on our new tv. in hd.

it was the first sporting event we watched in hd.

and with 160+ games in the baseball season, we certainly do not watch a ton of baseball…

the bosox, however, decided to celebrate our hd-ness by belting out 4, that’s right FOUR, homeruns IN A ROW! it has only happened TWICE in the last ~40 years and we saw it live!

very cool.

mike lowell hit another homer later in the game to seal the the win…

i feel bad for chase wright (the yankees minor leaguer making his second start with the “big” club), but at least his name SOUNDS like he’s a professional athelete. ;-P

I was honestly too beat to post when I returned to Manhattan last night…

Three of my fellow hockey players at Chelsea Piers and I headed out to LI to catch the Sabres beating the Islanders 4-2.

Some notes…

Before the game…

* Spent about 90 minutes at Blue Moon before heading out to LI — really nice folks and it was great to talk to a few Sabres fans that got there real early to watch the game…
* On the pre-game radio show on the way out, there was a Nolan clip with him saying (regarding the bottle throwing on Monday) “if I wouldn’t get in trouble with the league, I would have thrown bottles too…” I can’t believe he said that.

Notes on the game…

* There was a lot of good “jump” on the Sabres side
* The Sabres had a LOT of sticks in the right places — not just for shots or passes, but getting into lanes (offense/defense/neutral zones), knocking pucks out of the air, etc…
* Vanek, Drury and Mair were all “noticeable” presences on the ice for me…
* Briere actually (*gasp*) backchecked on at least half of his shifts
* Sitting in the corner in the end where the Sabres shot twice and watching Max come down at full speed was inspiring…
* Timmah! really has some great stick moves, but he looks very tentative on the finish — especially if he is moving to the net — and in the corners…
* DP looked pretty solid — the Islanders D did not do a good job of moving Sabres from the net, though…
* From the opposite end of the rink, it looked like Blake jumped into the boards on the Teppo hit
* From the opposite end of the rink, there was no way for me to tell if it was a goal or not at the end of the game and my view of the scoreboard was blocked…

Notes on the Coliseum…

* There were a LOT of Sabres fans in my section (335) and a few rows in 334 as well
* Those fans, however, did get really cocky toward the end of the game with a lot of “in your face” stuff that IMHO was not warranted in someone else’s barn…
* There was a nice couple (and their 4 year old) sitting right below us and they were very cool
* Just across the aisle from me was an Islanders fan, in his 30’s, wearing the same Isles jersey he must have had when he as 12, who spent the ENTIRE game SHOUTING at the top of his lungs at EVERYTHING going on on the ice. Profanity, etc… Sadly, he did not even know who #55 was on the Isles…
* Found a small group of guys that we play hockey against at Chelsea Piers two rows below us — small world…
* The bottle throwing is just crazy to me. Stupid.

All in all… It was TOTALLY worth it.

Irony/weirdness… Our brand new 56″ 1080p TV arrived yesterday — on the day I was actually AT the game.

one of the posters i have seen ’round town lately. which is funny just to start with.

and even funnier if the graduation date of your fiancee is 6 june 2006.

and even funnier if she is graduating from law skool.

it has been a good few weeks at ye olde online poker tables.

for those of you that do not know, i play quite a bit of poker almost exclusively at poker stars.

i have cashed out more than $1100 in the past 10 days alone. which, certainly, is not a “large” sum of money, but, hey, if you are getting married — every dollar helps!

most of my “ITM” has come from multi-table sit and go tournaments. recently, i started playing 20 table tourneys (180 people). this type of tourney really “suits” my game. i am, generally, a tight aggressive player and as i am working on my other gears i have found that 20 tables is almost perfect training ground. i was getting blinded out at bigger and smaller tables and this became an excellent place for me to try a bunch of different stuff.

it’s great to play your friends.

i have a bunch, certainly, at chelsea, but the pylons seem to be the all-star roster of the folks i have really gotten to know.

in our first game against them this season, we went to overtime and won on a fluke goal just before the OT period ended.

this time around, we continued to show that we cannot play with a lead, gave up two quick ones and lost by a score of 4-3.

i think we could have taken more advantage of the pylons not having their regular goalie, but, then again, the replacement was nine foot tall.

honestly? i would rather lose a game like that than win a game like last week’s. most of the time.

we are now 5-6 and in some serious need of wins to make the playoffs.

let’s get this out of the way. the blue bombers took a rough loss by the score of 10-3.

i was really happy to see guy langlais back in the line up. guy is a great guy (pun intended) who i have played with and, mostly, against at chelsea piers. he has been out with a shoulder injury for a few months and he certainly showed that he is back in the swing based on his performance. his aggression on faceoffs and his movement in the offensive zone were great.

there were multiple problems on our bench. a lot of bickering.

there were problems on the ice. almost an entire team of folks that just did not look like they were ready to play hockey.

we are now in a solid sixth place (the last playoff spot) with fourteen points — four more than seventh and two points out of fifth. we are off until 2 june…

from cnn.com:

“In “Evan Almighty,” Carell’s character is directed by God (Morgan Freeman) to build an ark. The movie, expected to be released next year, also stars Lauren Graham, John Goodman and Wanda Sykes.”

goooood.

homer’s heroes took down the red menace on sunday night by a score of 8-4 bringing us to 5-5-0-0 on the season.

i want to say it was a great, fun time, but, frankly it was not.

the game was rough from the start — which, honestly, is fine.by.me. as long as the game is called fairly. and, certainly NOT to my credit, i blew my stack at the refs in third period.

one of our guys — danny — is pretty dang fast, has amazing stick skills and a great finishing ability. he tends to get rocked every game we play — partly because other teams have no other way of stopping him and partly because he’s a damn hot dog. after three or four “non calls” in the first period, danny was again whacked in the offensive zone. he certainly took some retribution license on that and was assessed two minutes. slamming the penalty box door got him another ten. and so begins my witty report with the refs.

fast forward to the third period… danny is on a semi-break to the net, moving fast, with an opposing player behind him. the opposing player jumps up, wraps his arms around danny and tackles him head first into the goalpost. the opposing player got two minutes. begin.bitching. i’m yelling up and down about “intent to injure”. i’m still yelling when i get to the faceoff circle and the ref tries to toss me from the faceoff. i tell the guy that i’m the home team and i get to put my stick down last — which does NOT go over well. he tosses me and i can’t keep my mouth shut using some choice words that my mother would not be happy about.

now i’m in the box. i’m not sure for exactly what or for how long, but i’m there nonetheless.

i ask the other ref what the penalty is for and how long it is. he, in turn, does not give me that information and uses similar “non mom” choice words to indicate that.

i ask about the penalty assessed on the “intent to injure” play. i indicate that some people need to go to work the next day and that i think the call was bs. he, in turn, uses choice words.

then i turn to my bench and indicate that i must not have brought enough money this week.

which gets me tossed.

whatever.

we pay over $8000 a SEASON to the rink for these games. the refs make upwards of $65 a GAME. i have been in a bad mood plenty of times, but if they don’t love the game and they are not able to explain themselves… i have no tolerance for that. this is, effectively, beer league. this is not my job. (as much as i would like it to be!) letting a game get out of control is both senseless and dangerous.

anyway. we won. woo.