00:01Yeah, I wonder, we talked a little bit about this.
00:03Do you have a thought on, like, how they might react?
00:05If they clinch tonight, like, is it, like, it's not champagne and ski goggles, right?
00:14Like, no, right?
00:15No.
00:16I would imagine, they feel like a team that sort of takes after Zucker a little.
00:25Like, he's kind of like the elder statesman.
00:27When he's 33, 32 years old, I mean, he's not even that old.
00:32Because, like, I'm not Holt, so he can't be old.
00:35Keep it up.
00:37So, like, I would bet there is a moment after the game, if they win and, you know, someone's passing
00:42the belt, like, there'll be a moment.
00:45But I don't know that it's going to be, I would imagine it's not going to be a huge thing
00:50for them.
00:50Just from the sound of Tage there in that sound.
00:52Right, yeah, which I think is appropriate.
00:55I think that's how you want them to feel.
00:56So, like, we, you know.
00:58It's different clinching the last day of the regular season and you're sneaking your way back in.
01:03And then it's a real moment.
01:04Yeah, right.
01:05But when you've got seven games to get something done, it's hard, I think, to get too excited about that
01:12moment.
01:13But yet, I think from the fan standpoint, this is where the players are so different.
01:20Like, yes, they're carrying the weight of the franchise not being in the playoffs for 14 years, but they haven't
01:25lived every one of those years.
01:27Right.
01:27Very few of them have even lived half of that.
01:29Right.
01:30Maybe even Darlene is the only one Thompson got here that same year or the year after.
01:35Whatever.
01:36There's just not a lot of them that have been anywhere near through what the fans have been through for
01:4214 seasons.
01:44803-0550 is the number.
01:47The drought could be ending tonight with a Sabres win in Ottawa.
01:51There's a sneaky way they can also get in with just a loser point if I think it's Philadelphia and
02:00Columbus, I think, is the other team.
02:03Zach, do you happen to know?
02:05Zach's doing something in there.
02:07If they lose in a showdown, it's Carolina and Philly.
02:12If they both win, the Sabres can get in with just one point tonight.
02:15Anyway, the drought's ending at some point here.
02:17It could be, hopefully, as soon as tonight.
02:19And what does that all mean?
02:21To you out there.
02:22803-0550 is the phone number.
02:25We'll go to Bill next.
02:26Hi, Bill.
02:26Thanks for calling.
02:27You're on the air here on WGR.
02:29Hey, guys.
02:31So, I'll try to make this super quick.
02:33I retired from the Navy about a year and a half ago.
02:37My son was born February of 11.
02:39So, he was a baby baby the last time we were in the playoffs.
02:44So, now he's my road dog.
02:46I got season tickets.
02:47It was a goal of mine the entire time I was in the Navy.
02:49Got them last year.
02:50Almost didn't renew.
02:52Decided to renew.
02:54And, man, going to these games with my kid, that was, you know, still, he was still pooping mustard seeds
03:01when he was the last time we were in the playoffs.
03:04And looking at him and watching how excited he gets and knowing how much I love this team and what
03:10we're doing, it's probably one of the best decisions I've ever made.
03:15And me and him are just completely over the moon.
03:19Well, Bill, I feel like 14, 13, 14 years old, if you just go back to yourself being 13, 14,
03:2715, I can't imagine an age where sports mean more to you than at that age.
03:32Like, that is peak fandom of everything that I've loved about sports.
03:37That was when I was playing and I was having the most fun.
03:39It's like that formative turn from, you know, your early teen years to, like, you kind of think you're an
03:46adult and, like, you get to enjoy it.
03:48I don't know.
03:48You remember everything when you were 13, 14, 15.
03:52And doubling down on that and making up for all the times I was away and deployed, training, all that
04:01stuff, and getting to, you know, recoup that time with him doing this, it's beyond incredible.
04:07Yeah, man.
04:07Bill, thanks for, thanks.
04:09And thanks for painting the baby poo picture as graphically as you did, too.
04:14No, but, you know, there is, that is a big, that has got to be a big piece of this.
04:22I didn't, my kid started playing hockey and loved it.
04:26And so, like, he was not a hard sell.
04:27My oldest son, my younger son, never really got into it.
04:30And, you know, totally cool with me.
04:32But the big guy was into it.
04:37But, so I never really had to, like, explain to him why I loved the Sabres so much, even though
04:44they were terrible for most of his conscious, like, you know, childhood.
04:49Again, he's four years old in 06.
04:51You know, he doesn't remember them being good.
04:53In 11, he's nine.
04:55And, you know, that was fun for a series, but it didn't really last.
04:59But I never really had to, like, do the work.
05:02He never asked me, why do you like hockey so much?
05:05Why do you write?
05:06But a lot of people, whether their kids played or not, you know, they don't all take to it the
05:11way my kid, my big kid did.
05:13And I think what I'm hearing from the caller here is just reminding me that there are people with kids
05:20that age and even older that maybe for the first time are understanding why dad or mom cared so much
05:28about it in the first place.
05:29Because, you know, if all it was was misery, your whole, and, like, dad swearing at the TV and wondering
05:37what the hell Phil Housley's doing, right?
05:40You're like, I don't know, this isn't fun.
05:42This aren't, you know, I'm going to go play video games.
05:44This isn't for me, right?
05:46Now it's like, oh, I see.
05:49I get it.
05:51The whole city, like, everyone who cares about sports is thinking about and talking about them.
05:58And that hasn't happened in a long time.
06:01I do think, too, what the Sabres being so bad for the last decade and a half have made me
06:09realize is that they really were my connective tissue to watching and being a playing hockey, right?
06:17I mean, I didn't play ice hockey growing up, but I can tell you what I did every single night
06:22from, like, age 9 to 14, just play knee hockey in the living room with a Sabres stick.
06:32In every game that I'm going to, I'm going to the Sabres store to ask my dad to get me
06:37a stick, like, just a mini hockey stick so that when my three friends from down the street would come
06:44and play full contact in my living room, that we would have, you know, sticks to go through.
06:51And then it was, you know, well, now we're wearing gear and Sabres jerseys, and then it's street hockey.
06:57And, you know, I think for me, once you're past the age of playing street hockey, which, again, 13, 14,
07:0315, these would have been rollerblades, 20 kids from three different, the surrounding neighborhoods with round-robin teams with, we're
07:14building, you know, brackets.
07:18Tell me somebody was keeping stats.
07:20Yeah, right, 100%.
07:22And so, and, like, you would be stoked about the kid that, my cousin was the kid in the neighborhood
07:28who had all the goalie gear and, like, different goalie masks and a Sabres mask and a closet in the
07:36garage with all of the equipment that everyone in the neighborhood's going.
07:40My cousin's not home.
07:41Hey, you know, can we go in and get the stuff so we can play in the street?
07:46I know Jake's not playing, can we get the stuff?
07:47You know, and, like, to me, that's why that age for me was, that was so much what I loved
07:53about hockey.
07:55And when I became an adult and playing hockey wasn't, I wasn't tied to the game anymore, my love for
08:03it really dissipated because they were so annoyingly bad.
08:08And just poking a dead body, it felt like at times.
08:13Like, do something.
08:14That your love for a game that really was such a part of your childhood, I didn't have the connection
08:21to it anymore.
08:22So when I'm not watching a Sabres game or, like, tweeting at people, like, saying, you idiots are still watching
08:27this?
08:28It's because there was no more emotional attachment to the game.
08:31I'm not watching playoff hockey because I'm like, well, now I'm going to watch the NBA because no one there
08:37can hurt me, really.
08:39You know, I'm a Knicks fan, but, like, at least they're making the playoffs, kind of.
08:42And, like, so I don't know.
08:44The thing that I may be most excited about, Bulldog, is, like, now when ESPN puts up the feature that
08:52the Sabres don't have to be listed next to the New York Jets.
08:56Right.
08:57To think you're the New York Jets of the NHL.
09:02That's tough.
09:03And that's where we've been living.
09:04That's right.
09:04Yeah.
09:05Always so important to have at least one kid in the neighborhood that has the gear.
09:11Yeah.
09:12Right?
09:12The Diebolds across the street from me, three brothers, two twins, Mark and Scott, and Mike was younger.
09:19And their dad was a plumber.
09:21I think this is right.
09:22Oh, so did he make nets?
09:23He made nets out of the PVC.
09:25Yeah.
09:25Like, any time, like, after school, oh, the Diebolds had to, oh, one of the nets.
09:32Yeah.
09:32And now we're, you know, so now we're playing with, like, there's a, you know, there's somebody's winter hat in
09:37a spare boot or something.
09:39There's a net on one side.
09:41And, great, you shoot the, and now the ball's rolling down the street.
09:44Yep.
09:44Because there's no net.
09:44Or my favorite.
09:45Like, at least you only had to go down the street to get the ball when you missed the net.
09:48But at least you had the net to catch, you know, the shots that were on target.
09:51My favorite part.
09:52They were chasing the ball ten doors down because there was no net.
09:55Car.
09:57Everyone's got to move the nets out of the street.
09:59You know, like, that, again, like, you know, what's funny, too, is everyone had, we had the backup nets, which
10:03was just the net and not a real hockey net.
10:08Right.
10:08Like, with, you know.
10:09Just the frame?
10:10Yes, just the frame.
10:11Just the frame, just something to shoot into.
10:12Yeah.
10:13I also, you know, had multiple times a property manager knock on my door growing up because there was a
10:20apartment complex at the end of my street with white garages.
10:24And when I was alone and no one was playing, I was going to the parking lot and ripping wet
10:30tennis balls at the garage door and wet, asphalt-y.
10:35I can see the mark.
10:37I can totally see the mark.
10:38And, you know, the wet tennis ball leaves on a garage door.
10:41And there's nothing better than the paneled because then you can make your own goal and, you know, do the
10:47thing and be the Rick Jennerette announcer that you're doing yourself playing.
10:52And, again, these are just things for me that when the attachment of not having those things of playing hockey
10:59in the street with my friends anymore were gone, it was a sobering moment when you realize, like, do I
11:05– it's not that I hate hockey, but I don't love it.
11:08And these guys are making me hate it.
11:10Right.
11:12803-0550 is the number.
11:14We're reminiscing about the drought.
11:16We're talking about the end of the drought.
11:18We're really talking about what the Sabres mean to you.
11:21803-0550 is the number.
11:24Nate Geary is in for Mike Shope.
11:26I am the Bulldog.
11:26You're listening to WGR.
11:28can't see youس neutropel.
11:28Anybody gostar?
11:28Now, thank you.
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