Fuck Is What I'm Feeling!

American Hockey Fan and the Sabres: as one rises, so the other falls. I'm not looking to assign blame or justify Buffalo's actions, and I'm certainly not suggesting that there's some sort of universal balance of fortune and loss that must be maintained between the blog and the buffalo, but I'm just saying, or questioning, nay, gently whispering, into Ritch's ear: "YOU COULDN'T HAVE WAITED THREE FRIGGING MORE DAYS TO LAUNCH THE NEW BLOG? WAS THE NEED FOR SALMON HEADERS SO GREAT THAT THEY HAD TO BE BROUGHT TO THE WORLD AT THE EXPENSE OF THE HAPPINESS OF FIFTY PERCENT OF THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THE BLOG? HMMMM?"

But perhaps I'm feeling a tad emotional.

We lost. We're out. Buffalo has once again taken my faith and happiness, fashioned it into a sort of makeshift sort of table, and bent me over it. I should be used to this feeling, or at the very least have seen it coming--the first three games of this series weren't exactly the Braveheart speech--but here I went and got all hopeful and excited, buying Sabres wear, betting money, talking smack to....well, Ritch, because there aren't really any Senators fans around, and because it's practically instinctual at this point, for both of us. And now, now I find myself right alongside him in the gutter, begging for scraps, albeit in a cleaner and more aesthtically-pleasing gutter, as at least my Cup-less team has the advantage of not having fallen as far from grace.

As for the experience of watching the game, I can recommend no better person to share defeat with than Jack Kukoda himself, whose silent, deadened stare for a full seven minutes following the winning goal reminded me that while I might attempt suicide that evening, he would almost certainly succeed. He even makes sure that his beer is dressed appropriately:

It was a good game to watch through the end, despite NBC's pandering to the ever-important equestrian market, but fortunately, the adrenaline pulsing through my veins imbued me with an almost owllike sense of vision, and whatever blurry 8-bit graphics Versus was throwing at me became crystal clear; also, I found I could briefly hear conversations behind closed doors 30-35 blocks away. Luckily, my heart has room for only one emotion, and at the time, it was white-hot hatred for the refs and their anti-Sabre stance, which had only recently replaced "thirst".

And so now that nothing can ever come to any good, I have to muddle through the days until the Cup itself, when I'll be rooting for....To Be Named Later. Though my allegiance still lies with Buffalo, I can't NOT watch the Cup, and if the Buffalo Cope has taught me anything over the years, it's that one must plow onward and pick another temporary team, lay down some money at an OTB of questionable morals, and fake it.