The Emotional Thrill of Game 7 Hockey in Buffalo
.When it comes to writing my weekly diatribe, I normally start the writing process on Friday. My feelings on the Sabres’ 6-3 loss on Thursday put me in a bad mood, which made it a lot easier for me to write what was meant to be their funeral. No way they could beat Montreal Saturday night. The post, which is still in my drafts, was about how Lindy Ruff and Sean McDermott are very similar. Well, that will hopefully not see the light of day because Game 7 is tonight.
There are certain things in sports that feel bigger than sports. A Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Buffalo is one of them.
They say it’s the two best words in sports: Game 7.
Not just because it’s win or go home. Not just because the season is literally hanging by a thread every shift. But because for Sabres fans, playoff hockey has always felt personal. And now it’s against the Montreal Canadiens in Buffalo? That’s the type of night where the city feels different from the second you wake up. I’ve gone from “who cares how many Habs fans are at the arena?” to “close the border and build Trump’s stupid wall on Lake Erie.”
You can already picture it. People leaving work early pretending they have “family obligations” when the obligation is really standing outside a bar at 4:30 p.m. arguing about line combinations while wearing a goathead jersey. I was walking down Ditmars Avenue in Queens Sunday morning when I saw a girl in a Sabres hat — which I’ve seen quite a few of recently — and we were glowing about how the lads looked Saturday night. Every group text becomes unhinged. The guy at Wegmans wearing a Dahlin jersey suddenly becomes your best friend because he mutters “big one tonight” while reaching for chicken wing dip.
That’s what Game 7 does here. It takes over the entire city.
And for Buffalo fans, there’s history attached to these moments. Legendary history, like Derek Plante beating Ron Tugnutt during a magical season that no one saw coming in 1997. Sound familiar?
Then there’s the painful history. The type of history that has emotionally damaged multiple generations of people who should probably be much happier than they are. Being a Sabres fan also means the bad memories sit right next to the good ones. That’s the deal you make.
You think about 2006 against Carolina when half the defense corps was being held together by duct tape and prayers. One win from the Stanley Cup Final and it all collapsed. I remember I had gotten a new job — which turned out to be awful — and was guilted into a drinks gathering that was supposed to be good for networking, and I missed the first two periods of Game 7 and rushed home to watch them blow their 2-1 lead. I let the team down, and it was my fault they lost because I turned it on at the wrong time and should have just kept it off. Yes, stupid superstitions at it again. Forget “13 seconds” as the “what could have been?” because we all think if they were healthy, they were beating those hicks and taking out Edmonton.
Fuck Darius Kasparaitis and his Joe Dirt meets Kid Rock ass. I still think about that 2001 Sabres team and how they were better than the Pens and just they couldn’t close it out in game 6 and 7. Kasparatis ended the Hasek Teams era as the following season Dom was gone and the Rigas Family got busted. I think about what would have happened if he didn’t let in that soft goal against that asshole.
So when a Game 7 comes back to Buffalo against Montreal, it doesn’t just feel like another playoff game. It feels like the entire emotional history of the franchise walking into the arena with you.
And Montreal adds something extra because Canadiens fans travel unbelievably well. There are going to be Habs fans in the building. Loud ones, too. Every Sabres fan over 35 still remembers playoff games where chunks of the arena looked like a road game because Montreal fans invaded Buffalo like hockey tourists from hell during the shitty years.
That’s part of what makes this atmosphere great.
A playoff game should feel tense. It should feel hostile. You should feel irrational anger every time you hear the “Olé” song. You should immediately believe every referee is from Quebec the second a penalty gets called against Buffalo. That’s playoff hockey.
And there’s also something uniquely Buffalo about Game 7 nerves because this fanbase never walks into these moments relaxed. Ever. Other fanbases talk themselves into confidence. Buffalo fans prepare emotionally like they’re boarding the Titanic.
Every fan suddenly becomes superstitious. Nobody wants to sit in the wrong seat. I am not washing my faded Sabres 2012 shirt that I wore Saturday night that I found under my bed in a stash of shirts I can’t find room for in the dresser. Andy went to sleep wearing a goathead T-shirt because we HAD to bring out the heavy guns for Game 6. That shirt will be worn Monday night once again with every stain.
That’s Buffalo playoff hockey culture.
Because these games stay with you forever.
You remember where you watched. Who you hugged after goals. What bar lost its collective mind after a big save. What random stranger high-fived you hard enough to separate your shoulder. What wall or bar top you punched.
If the Sabres win, downtown Buffalo might legitimately not sleep. It becomes another chapter in franchise history that people tell stories about for decades.
And if they lose? Well… welcome to being a Sabres fan. The suffering is part of the inheritance.
The Many Species of Bills Schedule Fans
Late April and early May might be the most psychotic stretch of the Bills offseason internet calendar. You’ve got draft reaction guy screaming because the Bills took an edge rusher over their favorite fat guy, rookie minicamp hype where a 5th-round WR catches two slants against air, the never-ending thirst trap thigh photos of Dalton Kincaid, and then my personal favorite: Schedule Release Twitter.
Schedule release day is one of those events where, in the words of Christopher Moltisanti, I don’t know whether to shit or go blind. I get why people care. Fans want to travel, book flights, lock down hotels, figure out what weekends they’re getting divorced over, all of that. And honestly, most of the team-produced schedule videos are pretty funny now.
But what kills me is the fake outrage over kickoff times, networks, or what streaming service is holding the game hostage.
The other weird thing is the “reporting.” Half the Bills beat suddenly turns into TMZ for leaked kickoff times. Some anonymous account named posts “Hearing Bills at Dolphins Week 3 SNF,” and every media person quote tweets it with, “Can’t independently confirm this…” before immediately farming engagement off it anyway.
I was honestly stunned by how many people were angry the home opener is on Thursday night on Amazon Prime. Maybe I’m old, but I vividly remember Bills fans spending 20 years bitching that the team never got primetime games. Now the Bills are opening a new stadium and are literally the only thing on television that night, and people are acting like Roger Goodell personally kicked Del Reid into Lake Erie.
Now, to be fair, Thursday night football absolutely sucks for player health. It’s a garbage turnaround and the quality of play usually looks like shit. But if the Bills are going to get one, I’d rather it happen earlier in the season before everybody’s bodies turn into Rocky vs Drago in the 11th round. And yes, I understand the Bezos complaints too. Nobody enjoys needing 11 subscriptions just to watch football. Pretty soon Bills/Jets will exclusively air on Tik Tok or an Apple Watch.
Still, schedule reactions always expose what type of Bills fan someone is. Everybody has their preferred kickoff window based entirely on where they are in life.
The 20-something degenerate
This person LOVES primetime games because it gives them permission to tailgate for 11 straight hours like they’re storming Mickey Rats on the Lake. Honestly, if I was still 24 years old, this would absolutely be me. The idea of getting to the stadium at 8 a.m. for an 8:20 kickoff sounds incredible when your body still functions properly. You can day drink, recover, drink again, scream at a folding table, and still somehow make it to work Monday morning surviving entirely on still being drunk, bacon egg sandwiches and self-hatred towards the team losing or pure adrenline and joy for them winning.
The content bro
Pat Moran only truly loves four things: wings, podcasting, the Bills beat and his family. In that order. Content bro HATES primetime games because now your postgame show starts at midnight and suddenly you’re debating linebacker play while hallucinating from exhaustion. Guys like Pat want those clean 1 p.m. games where you wrap up by dinner, clip your reactions for social media, and still have enough energy left to watch the late games and complain about Chris Collinsworth.
The family guy
Sadly — I mean GLADLY, if my wife is reading this — this is me now. Once you have a toddler, your life basically becomes hostage negotiations around nap schedules. That’s why 1 p.m. games are elite. Kid goes down, you maybe get an uninterrupted quarter and a half, and life feels beautiful for 90 minutes.
The 4 p.m. window is chaos. Your kid is overtired, refusing to eat and needs a diaper change, trying to draw on the wall while getting dirty looks from your wife as you are staring at TV, and your brain is melting while Josh Allen is facing 3rd-and-8. Night games sound great in theory because the kid should be asleep, but by halftime you’re fighting for your life on the couch trying not to pass out with pretzel crumbs on your chest.
Now, if I get a rare “hall pass” stadium game without responsibilities? Oh buddy. Sign me up for the 4 p.m. kickoff. Give me an 8 a.m. tailgate, a couple of beers, terrible decisions, and the chance to briefly convince myself I’m still in Old School and can streak before my dad bod reminds me that I can’t.
The fake outrage schedule guy
This guy absolutely stinks. He’s the person obsessively counting primetime appearances like it’s Electoral College math. “WHY DO THE GIANTS GET FOUR NIGHT GAMES?! WHY ARENT WE ON SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL MORE THAN THE COWBOYS!?”
This is also the announcer conspiracy guy. If Collinsworth compliments Patrick Mahomes one time, suddenly NBC has an anti-Bills agenda. If the broadcast crew doesn’t mention Duff’s wings or the city of Buffalo every seven minutes, they’re “disrespecting the fanbase.” These people consume football like divorced dads reading QAnon message boards and replying to A.I. mafia babes in swimsuits on Twitter. They are angry at the Chargers because they made fun of Keon Coleman. They are just annoying and should be muted.
The Boomer
The Boomer doesn’t care about kickoff times. The Boomer cares whether the game requires “the internet.” This man is currently calling Channel 2 demanding to know why the game isn’t on regular television. He definitely owns a Facebook account where every post somehow ends with “THIS COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL.”
He’ll spend six hours trying to log into Peacock, accidentally purchase seven movies, call his kids in a panic because “the buffering wheel is spinning again,” and then eventually mute the TV entirely so he can listen to the game on AM radio because they want to call into the radio station and tell Brownie they did an excellent job calling the game yesterday.
The horny fan
For legal and marital purposes, this is NOT me. This is YOU.
These are the fans who romanticize October football because hoodie weather apparently makes them horny. It is well-documented Bills fans like to fuck or give blow jobs for Kiko Alonso jerseys. They want the late-afternoon kickoffs because it gives them time to roam the parking lot like it’s a nature documentary looking for potential bad decisions. Nobody wants romance during a December night game when your hands feel like frozen chicken fingers and you have 700 layers of clothes on which makes it harder to take them off in the backseat of a car. Plus, your significant other will scream at you because you snuck your hands down their butt crack and touched their bare ass with those cold hands
“Oh, honey…I’m just trying to warm you up. “
“The fuck you will!”
Bills Beat bro
“RELEASE THE SCHEDULE SO WE CAN BOOK TRAVEL!”
That’s it. That’s the whole personality.
Bills Beat Bro is basically Expedia with a credential badge on this day. They want 1 p.m. games so they can hit deadlines, upload 400 photos of tailgating fans wearing Zubaz pants, and still get home in time to watch SNF. Primetime road games are their Vietnam. They have to pretend that this is the only fan base that travels and uploads countless photos of tailgates, Bills expat bars, and the after-party. Honestly, I’d just repost the same photos from those cities over the years and just go to the bar instead. Nothing crushes a beat writer’s spirit more than landing in Buffalo at 10 a.m. after a Sunday night game in Kansas City knowing they have to write another Dalton Kincaid injury update in four hours based on Joe Brady’s day after post-mortem.
The road warrior
This is probably the group that genuinely should care most about the schedule. These psychos are planning their entire year around road trips. They’re researching Bills Backers bars six months in advance for the night before party and figuring out whether their hotel is by Bills backers HQ of that city. This is honestly my dream for retirement if I can somehow afford an RV, live in it, and then travel to different cities for Bills games.
The night before a Bills road game is basically adult summer camp. Everybody’s hammered, everybody’s screaming “GO BILLS” at strangers, and somehow a random neighborhood temporarily turns into a weird extension of Chippewa circa 1998. Oh, and then we get the Russ Salvatore presents the Greaseball BALL at whatever that cheesy club he owns in Miami. The perfect road warrior kickoff is 4 p.m. because it gives you enough recovery time from the night before without feeling like death at security check-in Monday morning.
The expat
This was absolutely me before having a family. I ONLY cared about what games were nationally televised because living outside Buffalo during the drought years was basically football poverty. You got maybe three games a year: the Jets game, a random Thursday night disaster, and the annual Patriots massacre where Jim Nantz and Tony Romo spent three hours treating Tom Brady like he cured AIDS while the Bills lost by 24.
Now the Bills are good enough where half the schedule ends up in primetime, and honestly, younger fans probably don’t even understand how insane that still feels to longtime expats.
StatHead of the Week:
45 is the number of games the Bills have played against teams that had a .500 or better record in the regular season from 2020-2025 which ranks 2nd fewest in the league over that time. They have a 26-19 record against those teams which is the 4th most wins.
Dad shots
—The good: The power play has finally awakened, it feels like. I would volunteer for the Swedish Army to show my love for Rasmus Dahlin. He’s the best defenseman in hockey, and don’t at me, Chris Ostrander, to correct me. FIVE points in an elimination game was an incredible effort. Credit to Lindy Ruff for the line changes he’s made. He really decided to rearrange everything for Game 6. Benson has four game misconducts in the playoffs. Is that called a Benson hat trick if he scores and has an assist? Tage Thompon has 8 points in his last playoff 4 games.
—The bad: Can we please get good goaltending in Game 7? Also, Alex Tuch, I am close to revoking your upstate card. Lindy Ruff should have made changes earlier in the series. The Sabres went from having three goalies in January to zero. Tage Thompson has the worst 8 points span ever I think.
— Tim Graham had originally reported that the Bills were going to end up on Cumulus Radio (97 Rock) last week, and the Bills confirmed it. The team’s press release indicated that everything will now be handled in-house, including the pregame and postgame shows. So get ready for lies, lies, and more propaganda.
What will be interesting is seeing who the Bills tab for those shows. Previously, it was all the 97 Rock/103.3 The Edge personalities, but if it’s fully in-house now, do we get Maddie Glab? Do Chris Brown and Eric Wood host pregame and postgame before calling the actual game? Do the Bills decide to bring back The Bull, who got banished during the Marcel Louis-Jacques racial escapade? I always heard the Bills were fans of his.
—My prediction — and this isn’t based on inside knowledge — is that eventually both the Bills and Sabres will broadcast games directly through their apps. That feels like the future to me. It would be a smart way to get fans onto the app and, more importantly, into the team store buying merchandise. I still think 97 Rock broadcasts remain on the actual radio dial, but the app becomes the real hub down the road.
—Now for some actual inside knowledge: I’ve heard from a media source that the ad revenue during Bills games goes directly to the Bills. It does NOT go to 97 Rock. That’s reportedly a huge reason why the Bills moved on from WGR. They wanted everything under one roof so they could exclusively control that revenue stream, and Audacy basically said, “No thanks.”
In this media climate, the real value for a radio station having Bills rights is the branding. You get to call yourself “The Radio Home of the Buffalo Bills” or “Buffalo Sabres.” That helps sell ads across the rest of your programming and gives you credibility with sponsors during shows like Shredd & Ragan. It also likely helps secure access to guests like Brandon Beane or Joe Brady. And, of course, you get usage rights to Bills logos and branding, which the NFL guards like nuclear launch codes.
—I’m not a radio expert, but this still feels like a questionable move for 97 Rock if they truly aren’t getting ad revenue from the broadcasts themselves. On the flip side, I think it says a lot that WGR apparently didn’t feel like they needed the Bills badly enough to cave. You can hate their hosts all you want, but WGR is branded as Buffalo sports and remains the only sports station in town.
97 Rock is ultimately still a music station competing against multiple other rock stations in a dying format because honestly… who the fuck still listens to music radio regularly anymore? Meanwhile, Audacy is either broke, restructuring assets, or both considering they literally went through bankruptcy. Also, something important that many people don’t realize: the Bills broadcast team, engineers, and sales staff were AUDACY/WGR employees… not Bills employees. That now changes with the Bills handling operations internally.
Because of zero money intake for games, I could see a future where 97 Rock starts asking the Bills to make them the exclusive destination for interviews with Beane, Brady, and other major figures. This used to happen years ago when 97 Rock had the Bills rights and WGR had to pay for guest access like the Lee Evans show.
—For the record, I do NOT think the Bills and Sabres left WGR because they secretly hate the hosts. I think this is overwhelmingly about money and media control, not old grudges over the WR train or Sean McDermott talking “culture” off-air with Mike Schopp. If anything, the reaction online felt like shoehorning in confirmation bias. If you hated WGR hosts, you couldn’t wait to smash that tweet about how the Bills hated them and that’s why they left or you couldn’t wait to say that the bills are wimps and couldn’t handle the hosts pressure.
—The biggest social media buzz from all this centered around Sal Capaccio being replaced. Most people seemed genuinely sad for him, while others predictably turned it into a joke.
If you’ve listened to Sal on any of his podcasts, you know how much he loved that job. He constantly talked about how he’d stand on the sideline during the anthem, close his eyes, and think to himself, “I can’t believe I work in the NFL.” He genuinely appreciated the experience, which is something I feel endears him to listeners but can also come across as being a little too self-absorbing. He also loved reminding everyone he traveled on the team charter, which always made me feel bad for Matt Bove because he was probably sitting in a Red Roof Inn eating Buckingham Pub nachos from across the street while recording their postgame podcast. But I’m just messing.
Sal did tweet that he’ll still travel to every Bills game, but I do wonder if that changes eventually considering the current economic uncertainty around media companies. WGR already scaled back Paul Hamilton’s travel after he lost access to the team charter, and I heard he literally took a ten-hour train ride to Montreal during the playoffs.
Frankly — and this is just my opinion — I think extensive road travel for media has become less essential than ever, no matter how many times Mike Harrington tweets they are the exclusive outlet at some random Sabres game in Alberta. Being on-site simply doesn’t carry the same prestige or value it once did. If Audacy is hemorrhaging money, maybe that money is better spent improving the app, creating more niche podcasts, booking/paying for stronger national guests, or paying producers more.
As for Sal’s actual content, I don’t think this necessarily hurts him long term. Yes, losing the sideline role is probably an ego punch, but there are ways it could actually help him evolve as a content creator. For starters, he can openly tweet during games now. His postgame recaps can be longer and less rushed since he won’t be sprinting to the team bus after juggling sideline duties and locker room interviews. Maybe he even starts doing “Sal in 60 Seconds” from the press box at halftime. He can probably network his way into a travel sponsor with going on road games.
I’ve always thought the sideline reporter role was somewhat abstract in terms of adding value to the listener or viewer experience anyway. I’m sure Sal would disagree — and that’s his right — because he’s referenced having unique views of plays from field level during his podcasts and appearances. If anything, he should reevaluate his shows outside of “Studio Capaccio,” specifically the technical parts. Golfing while doing an Emergency Pod about Bradley Chubb signing probably should have died on the cutting room floor. Then again, I have a cat running behind me on Pat’s podcast.
This is not the end of the world for him. The guy has like five podcasts, appears on Channel 4, speaks at events, hosts cruises, and has more on his plate than a casino buffet. He’s not going homeless. If anything, losing one responsibility might actually benefit him long term.
—I thought the Atlanta Falcons, Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts, Kansas City Chiefs, and Los Angeles Chargers schedule release videos were great. Maybe these videos are played out at this point, but I still enjoy the humor behind them. I thought the Bills’ one was lame. You can’t keep going back to the “let’s make fun of other teams for trying too hard while we purposely do something lame and shoehorn Josh Allen into it” formula.
The cocoon thing was also grosser to look at than those close-ups of Dawson Knox eating wings during the 2022 schedule release. I’ve also heard through the grapevine that the Bills don’t exactly have a massive budget for these compared to other teams. If I am the Bills, I’m pulling a Colts and go collaborate with a TV show for that promotion synergy. Go promote a Marvel or DC show with Josh Allen dressed like Batman or Captain America.
The worst one, though, was the Pittsburgh Steelers. They had some weird fake security guard bit going on, and it was painfully unfunny. The Vikings one was kind of weird and I had no clue how they got Chris Jericho.
—I’m so over hearing Republicans complain about late-night comics taking swipes at them and doing the “stick to comedy” routine. People, did you know that Jay Leno used about 200,000 Bill Clinton horny jokes and George W. Bush “is an airhead” jokes for like two decades? I don’t care what you think, but Donald Trump’s cabinet is pretty fucking hilarious if you take away, you know, them running the country into the ground. It is comedy gold. They are dumb people. Every quote they use is money for a comedian.
—As for late night, none of this is shocking with Colbert going away. Yes, a large portion of it has to do with mergers, politics, and late night being a money loser. But the genre is dead because of the influx of podcasts. There are too many of them with guests or comedy routines, and those cost way less money to make than a studio show in Times Square.
Here I thought the Dalton Kincaid/Dawson Knox handjob callers and Gabe Davis making Josh Allen horny we’re radio gold. And yes…I plan to do a bracket at the end of the year for the BEST WGR calls so please tag me if you hear anything like this material.
—Andy has been sitting on the toilet butt naked but he won’t take a dump. Yes, this TMI but I feel this is progress that he doesn’t hate the toilet. I will ask..how long should we allow him to sit on the toilet?
—I think LeBron James stays in LA. Knicks vs Spurs is definitely still alive!
—Business news…You know the drill by now. Buy a Homage shirt. If you purchase some shirts following this link, your boy gets a kick back. I am a big Ted Lasso fan and if you like him and USA soccer, this shirt might be a goal for you. Your Bills shirt of the week is this sleek one.
—If you made it this far, I thank you! Like always, I was on Pat Moran’s podcast and you can definitely give a listen if you need more of me. We went almost 2 hours which is ridiculous and sad.
Lastly, I decided to include a link to my Venmo in case anyone wants to add a tip to my beer jar for this awesome non-truncated rigmarole I call a blog .
A dollar for a dream is good enough for me. Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous week!
The Sabres could definitely win it all if they get past Game 7 tonight. A young team who came out of nowhere this year needs a prove it type game like a Game 7 presents. Winning at home would be big too. They have the talent overall but the goalies are mediocre so anything can happen in a Game 7 if one of them gets hot. So if they win tonight they might start believing this is their year.