The Commander

Greetings all!! I haven't blogged anything in a very long time, and for that I apologize. You see, when last we left me...I was happy, living in beautiful, warm California...enjoying life as much as I ever had. Funny thing that happens when you're with someone in the medical profession, they have to do internships and residencies for like 15 years after they pay six figures for the privilege of getting their degree. So you end up moving all over the country (and maybe even Canada!) while they're basically paid less than minimum wage and you never ever see them. This sort of vagabond lifestyle leads you to such exotic locales as my current home: Long Island. 

So here we are, cold, miserable, and I haven't left my house in like 6 days. What better time to fire up the old blogging URL and wax poetic about our favorite hockey team, the Sabres. 

First off, you need to go watch this or else the theme is going to be lost on you. If you haven't seen it, you can probably still follow along...but you should watch that video anyway because it's all sorts of brilliant and funny. 

And with that I present...

We recorded a podcast. Our intentions were good, but the first two takes were lost in my computer so by the time any recorded content was created, we were multiple drinks deep and had lost all sense of boundaries. Renn tries to keep it together, SBA tries to imagine being anywhere else other than Long Island, and Dubs tries to be as offensive as possible while pretending he knows stuff about sports.

The episode is available here or here, and can be streamed below. Subscription to all of our podcasts via RSS here or the iTunes button on the right sidebar under Sweet Sally Sunshine's beautiful face.  All of our podcasts are also available via the tab on our header. (including recent ones that I have neglected to cross-post here this summer) 

Sabres. Bills. West Wing. EJ Manuel is a fucking idiot. Content. Cheers.

Hey kids, it’s been a long time (unless you listen to the Podcast, and you probably should listen to the podcast). Everything about Buffalo sports sucks complete monkey dicks and when I think about it, I want to die. So sitting down and putting those thoughts into long form isn’t exactly something I look forward to doing. But let's give it a shot. As a bonus, there’s some mailbag-ish Twitter questions that I chose to answer below about cats and other neat stuff.

First off, before we get to the mailbag, I feel the need to throw some additional dirt on the corpse of Ralph Wilson. I’ll keep it brief because others have made the same point I’m about to more eloquently than I probably will, but it needs to be reiterated. Don’t ever forget while you’re sucking back Genny Cream Ales at the Ralph Wilson Memorial Tailgate Party that Ralph was a cheap old fuck who did absolutely nothing to secure the future of the Bills in Buffalo. When he died, my mind didn’t go straight to “Oh man, this sucks…we should celebrate everything that nice old man did for us!” and jump into the “My Favorite Bills Memory of the Time I saw Ralph at the Stadium and He Shook My Hand And It was Fucking Magical” circlejerk. My first thought was, “How soon do the Bills leave Buffalo?” It’s sad, I wish I could have been able to say goodbye to Ralph without sounding like a petulant little shitbag, but that’s his legacy to me. He left that door open and I ran right through the motherfucker. Not in a rude way, but not with the reverence that would have been deserved had that stubborn old codger actually given a fuck about us. Compared to The Outlander and The Barrister, I was downright polite.

Ok, lets take some Twitter questions, because hey I hate myself and so should you! There’s a definite Ted Nolan theme to all the questions that I was asked. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I have a mild dislike for Captain Compete Level, but we need to dive deeper. I’m totally going to ignore the Buffalo Blue Collar Compete Level Work Hard bullshit, because I’ve made it abundantly clear in this space that I fucking loathe it. Steve Ott, Blue Collar, Ted Nolan, Work Hard - all of it can go die in John Ramsey’s wine cellar for all I care.

I picked this question because of the way it was asked, I think the two things go hand-in-hand. Part of the issue I have with Nolan is that he’s just flat out the wrong guy for the development of young kids. If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that aside from noted superstars Matt D’Agostini, Mike Weber, and Jamie McBain, we have a lot of youngish kids and like 50 billion draft picks coming through here the next few years.

Now, I know that realistically not all of them will become NHL players, not to mention GREAT NHL players. But I think the odds of either just decreased with this Nolan extension. He’s never shown that he likes to play rookies in any meaningful way until this year with Zemgus Girgensons. s that a testament to how good Zemgus is? Or was it “hey, this guy is on my Olympic team, so I should probably keep him around me.”? It’s probably more of the former, but who the hell knows…the latter wouldn’t shock me one bit based on Nolan’s past or the fact that he plays D’Agostini 20 minutes a night because the guy coaches at his hockey school. Hopefully he’s on-board with developing these kids, and not giving John Scott their ice time because “THEY DIDN’T EARN IT,” but based on his magical Try Real Hard Fairy Dust crap, that is the only thing he understands or ever talks about. 

He's a singularly focused creature that can't be bothered with the nuances of good hockey, keeping his dick out of the vaginas of other dude's wives, or waiting a reasonable amount of time between meals. So, yes, Ted Nolan is a zombie. 

As far as Mikhail Grigorenko and Joel Armia?? I’m writing them off now. There’s no fucking way they amount to anything under Nolan. He’s not going to let them. So this move has already cost them 2 quality young players, both first round picks. How long will the final trail of Marek Zagarapan-ish dead be?

The other aspect of Ted Nolan, NHL Coach that’s been surfaced by many people is the fact that he readily admits to having no knowledge of X’s and O’s and that he’s not an X’s & O’s guy. Cool, that’s good news. I mean, it’s not like over the course of the next 3 years there will be – lets say 10 – guys who have never played NHL hockey coming to him for advice and knowledge that he doesn’t have. TRYING SUPER HARD AND STUFF is fantastic don’t get me wrong. I’m probably a shitty person to confirm that for you, because I do just enough to get by and it’s worked for 30+ years, I’m basically the Cody Hodgson of life. So if they don’t bring in assistants who have exceptional knowledge of NHL systems and what it takes to play in the NHL besides “try hard”, there could be some serious trouble ahead.

So when will the Sabres be good?? Before this extension I would have said 3 years to playoffs, 4 years to serious hockey team. Now?? At least 5 years to maybe hitting 8th place, and I’m basing that off of the fact that 2 first overall picks will have enough natural talent to overcome the bullshit they’re going to be subjected to the minute they pull on that sweater.

The other part of the Nolan thing I hate is that it’s not a hockey decision by any means. It’s bullshit pandering to all the fucking horrible assholes who (I hope) are a very vocal minority and drink the Berry Blue Collar Kool Aid that Nolan dispenses, like a modern day Jim Jones – wherein Cheektowaga is like Jonestown. One day I hope to come home and find a bunch of fat, dead Pollacks in PatrickKaleta jerseys laying on Union Road with blue lips. Whereas Ralph Wilson died and did some shitty things, at least he never let the fucking WGR Whiner Line influence his decisions as it relates to his team.

You know, Buffalo is a tremendous hockey town…people will go watch hockey, even if it’s real bad. If the Sabres had a marketing department that was worth a shit, you wouldn’t need to hire bad coaches because people like them to keep people coming to games. You seriously waited until last week to do “Fan Appreciation” events?? Fucking Christ, teams around the league do all sorts of cool shit to get people to go to games. Promotions for students, promotions for LGBT groups, bobblehead giveaways, trading card giveaways, t-shirt giveaways, Star Wars Night, Lord of the Rings night…whatever. The Sabres do so fucking little of this that I understand why that arena has become a silent, miserable place. It has a little to do with THEY BAD and a lot to do with “going to games isn’t fun”. You have a market that will eat the shit you put out for it, and you can’t even put out some ketchup or mustard to dull the taste a little for them. Give some incentive for people to not race to StubHub and get that $7 for a Florida Panthers game. Make losing a little bit more fun than it has to be, there’s always going to be people mad that you suck shit as a hockey team that you won’t be able to placate – but those people aren’t going anywhere – do fun shit to keep fringe people interested in whatever the fuck it is you’re doing over there.

Fuck, lets move onto some fun questions before I start hemorrhaging.

NOT HELPING!!! Yeah, as it turns out I have to leave California this summer and head back East to live on Long Island for a year. I’m not real thrilled about it, because I fucking LOVE California…but the fact that I can meet up with Dubs and the gang for beers and sports will help dull the pain of leaving paradise. After that, we will end up somewhere else…so don’t get too attached. I have no idea what to expect from Long Island, other than it apparently costs more to live there than where I do now and it’s full of Jews. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but fucking seriously, that's what everyone who hears I'm moving there makes sure to tell me. It's weird. Oh, and I heard they have a Bennigans.

As far as other teams go – the Penguins will always be my second team, and I’m partial to the Sharks as well.

Our cats are exceptionally lazy. Most cats are. One of them likes to curl up on my lap and sleep for hours on end. Which also shows how lazy I am, because I’m available to stop being a sentient being and instead just be a chair for hours on end. The only compete level in our cats revolves around food or occasionally staring at shit outside wishing they could go out there and get hit by cars.

Clawed. Which means we don’t have nice furniture and will never have nice furniture. Or children.

I never play anything without a cat napping on my lap helping me shoot brown people or robots. I even announce that I’m going to shoot people and usually one of them will hop up and join me.

I’m always down for some man shooting or hockey pucks on the video game systems, but I usually don’t play until you east coast shitbags are sleeping. I have both Xbox One and PS4 (and Xbox 360 too) – you can hit me up at essbeeay on Xbox Live or essbeeay on PSN. I might not always jump on the headset if I'm being sensitive about making a shitload of noise and risking my dick being removed by an angry Vet Student.

You can also follow me there on Twitter, @essbeeay which is how I usually sign off…so bye!!

Back with actual Buffalo sports talk in a Dear God Why Us? Sports podcast, The Barrister, The Outlander and The Commander form a critical mass of the Deeg and break down what happened with the Sabres over the last few days. Good God, it was messy and beautiful and let's do it again soon.

Musical interludes by way of The Jambrones, The Mooney Suzuki, Talib Kweli, Architecture in Helsinki and Basement Jaxx. Throw your hands up.


Download here or here. Stream below. Subscribe via iTunes below. Subscribe via RSS here. Do your thing the way you want it. 

Hey there kids!!  The Commander here. Hopefully everyone had a nice holiday and Santa brought you all sorts of cool shit. After the bombs that Dubs dropped the other day, it appears that we’re all well-rested and ready to get back to work here.

We’ve had some interesting times in Sabresland lately. There’s a new GM, Craig Patrick is here, there’s even new players like that Italian guy with the apostrophe in his name, YouTube guy, and rabbit guy!! I totally understand if you’re not excited about all this, but stay with me here. We’re still dug in for the long haul as far as losing goes as none of those guys address any gaping holes in the lineup.

And yet, I’m perfectly ok with this shitty, dark time in Sabres history for one reason:

Motherfucking Twitter.

I have had more fun this year making jokes and cracking on that festering pile of shit than I’ve had with any Sabres team since the Briere/Drury days. They’ve almost become lovable to me because the material just flows and flows. You know how many Grigorenko jokes I have in my stockpile? Trust me, it is a truly staggering amount and I’ll keep using them when he’s in the KHL playing for CSKA Moscow 3 years from now.

You need HOT JOHN SCOTT TAKES?? I’ve got those too, they’re layups. Ted Nolan scratching rookies or doing stupid Ted Nolan shit?? Yep, I’ve got enough of those that 2 years from now they’re going to have to sell the excess on Woot.

The Barrister et al.


Hey all. It's the day before Thanksgiving, we're all trying to concentrate on work while day dreaming about all the scotch we're going to drink tomorrow, and sports? Well, sports are sports which means they're terrible and awesome and disheartening and inspiring and all of it.

We did this last year - with some reasonable success, I guess? - and when I emailed the crew yesterday to gather the things for which our dreadful lot are thankful this year, well, I feared the thing I always fear when I ask for things from the rest of the guys... no response whatsoever. That these assholes responded at all is a pretty amazing thing, and I thank them for it. Thanks, given.

From The Scizz, our resident disproportionate responder:

This year I'm thankful for many things, but that doesn't seem very DGWU, so here is everything I hate. 

I hate James Dolan. I hate him so much it hurts. This arrogant cock had the nerve to say in an interview that it doesn't pay to be impatient in the NBA, meanwhile he has a constant revolving door of players, coaches, and front office staff because he cares more about his ego and his shitty blues band than he does actual success. Fuck him and his 70's porn bush beard.

I hate Darcy Regier. So in a way, I'm thankful he is gone I suppose. But mostly I want to focus on how much I hate his face and the fact that he made Ville Leino and Steve Ott a thing I have to deal with. Also, if you were against his firing I hate you too. And your family. I hate your family.

I hate anybody who still thinks Stevie Johnson is a #1 receiver in the NFL. He isn't and he won't be. He is a solid player who has the ability to put up big numbers, but lacks any kind of consistency. This is called a #2 receiver. Go Bob Woods.

I hate every single American who still watches American Idol, America's Got Talent, X-Factor, or The Voice. Bring back Perfect Strangers and Dinosaurs.

I hate Obese people on the subway. No, I will not scootch over for you to sit down. You obviously had seven Whoppers this morning for breakfast and deserve nothing but the inevitable heart attack headed your way.

I hate seriousness on Twitter. As much as I'd love to see 14 straight tweets about your thoughts on somehow still defending Obamacare or gun rights, I'd rather you go post on a yahoo message board with the rest of the lonely people who have nobody to talk to in real life.

Now that you probably all hate me, Happy Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for being shitfaced by 2pm and wolfing down a turkey sandwich with Wasabi mayo before passing out on the floor.


From The Outlander, who can basically fuck himself until the end of all creation for this:

For the second year in a row I'm the only one here who had a team win a championship. Now I would trade them back in a second for a championship we could all dance and shotgun beers over, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that so I'll have to enjoy it largely alone. I'm thankful for the 2013 Boston Red Sox.

Thanks to modern technology and the fact that my Center Ice package turned into two months of free extra innings, I was able to follow this team closer than I had followed them in previous seasons. There's no need to dissect what made the team successful, which signings were the most important, how big a difference a new manager can provide, that's the dry analysis that makes reading Jonah Keri feel like chewing on wet cardboard. What makes me so thankful for this Red Sox team is that they were able to wake me from the stupor of ambivalence and detached incredulity that watching my favorite two teams had become. Outside of a couple weeks in 2010 and 2011, that passion had disappeared; the moments where you watch with your chin buried in your hands, your fingers over your mouth, your heart pounding against your rib cage as if you just ran a 5k when in reality you haven't gotten up from your seat since you took a piss after the sixth inning. The moments where the unthinkable happens, where your heart leaps into your throat and you find yourself standing and screaming without remembering consciously leaving your seat. Think about when you last felt that way. Was it Drury's goal in 2007? Pominville's the year before? For all of us it has been too long, and in baseball, where the only percentages that define success are ones that always come with a majority of failure, those moments- when the ball flies off the bat toward Citgo sign, or the right field bullpen, or when the most feared hitter in baseball swings through a sinker with the tying run on third in the eighth inning- feel all that more unexpected. Add to the fact that no matter where our baseball, basketball, soccer and college teams call home, we will always find ourselves expecting the worst because we're from Buffalo and dammit that's just how it goes. 

Except when it doesn't.

This team was supposed to finish at the bottom of their division, not win it going away. It was predicted from August on that midnight was about to arrive, whether in a series at the Dodgers, a series at Yankee stadium, a series against the Tigers, and then later in the playoffs, certainly there. The prognosticators kept waiting, and even as a fan so did I, right up until they beat Scherzer, Verlander and Sanchez and found themselves returning to Fenway a game away from the World Series, that's when I finally new.

I was at a wedding North of Boston for that game, at some retreat in the woods outside Glochester. The type of retreat where the "couples" bedrooms had separate twin beds and three dozen flies on the inside of the windows. After drinking a remarkable amount of whiskey and ciders at the reception, followed by a considerable amount of craft beer at the afterparty bonfire, I found myself in that lovely area between half and fully in the bag. A bunch of us- some still clad in their suits, some hurriedly changed into hoodies and jeans- found ourselves in a small dining area watching the game on an old 16 inch screen. The Red Sox trailed 2-1 with two outs in the seventh, the bases loaded and one of the MANY guys underachieving in the series, Shane Victorino up. He had hit a huge grand slam in the 2008 NLCS for the Phillies; my friend who had just gotten married had the call as his ringtone our entire 3L year at Penn State. Now it was my time to watch the unthinkable.

I don't know why, maybe it was the location, being somewhere different, surrounded by friends, drunk as all hell, celebrating the feeling of something finally coming together, that YES, this WAS our year, but it reminded me of this.

Someday, my friends. We'll all suddenly remember what that feels like. And we'll dance, and all of us at the Deeg will be stuck being thankful for the same goddamn thing. I don't think we'll mind.



Awww, that's nice, buddy. But still, fuck you forever. Go Mets.


And now from The Wild Card, the new guy who is generally letting law school deny you all from his hot fire takes:

I'm thankful for an awful lot you guys. An AWFUL lot. An AWFUL LOT of Sabres players that miiiight just, fate permitting, be awful to get a #1 pick... but remember it's a fucking lottery now so even if we're the worst in history it's still pretty likely that the native Americans buried in the soil beneath the city of Buffalo who cursed our existence in exchange for a horrific genocide despite the initial warmth and caring they showed our forefathers in the fabled original Thanksgiving will prevent us from receiving that #1. 

Full circle guys. See how I did that?

Mmmm. Airport coffee. Mmmm. This girl next to me at the JetBlue hotspot. She seems really cute and nice. But her hair is covering most of her face from this angle. That must be why I think she's cute and nice. Either way, I'm thankful for her too, and the fact that she hasn't given me the stinkeye even though I took off my shoes to cool off my rancid feet. 100+ minutes on the train with a suitcase takes its toll folks. 

I'm thankful for the fact that I'm at JFK and not in any real danger of missing my flight. FACT: this is the first time that's happened since I moved to NYC.

I'm thankful for Geno Smith too. I don't care that he's looked good in a couple games. The NFL is about consistency. He hasn't shown it. Ton of talent/physical skills. Bad attitude. He's the perfect successor to Mark Sanchez. Though I doubt he'll ever buttfumble. Oh, I'm thankful for him and that too. Like, VERY thankful.

I'm thankful (I guess?) for this weather which convinced JetBlue to waive change fees for all flights today. Their generosity gave me about 3 hours extra sleep. 

I'm thankful for the ESPN Playoff Doo-Hickey (sp?) and for the word of the day: "permutation" because when you put them together you get: excitement; a headache; about 100 different ways for the Steelers to make the playoffs; and the Bills beating the Pats in week 17 cuz... ha, you know.

I'm thankful that my girlfriend got that job and has to stay home so I get to go to Buffalo myself and deal with my family's disappointment because they like her way better than me.

Oh, and naps. Naps on my grandmaw couch >> Turkey >> Cran sauce >> fresh Cran sauce >> my aunt making fun of my dad >> stuffing ... yeah it's way better than all that shit. No blankets grandma, please. What am I 4?


From the Apologist:

I'm thankful for Miley Cyrus and camels.

Welp. That got weird real fast. Thanks, Aps.

Let's all forget this happened... From The Commander:

Asking a Buffalo sports fan what they’re thankful for right now is a daunting task. Most of the stuff in my life that I’m thankful for has very little to do with sports right now, I have a decent job, a cool as fuck girlfriend, I don’t ever have to see snow or freezing temperatures, I can talk to my Xbox One and make it do shit, we have rad cats and dogs...my life is pretty fucking awesome! Which is why I can continue to tolerate Buffalo sports. If I didn’t have a bunch of other cool shit going on, I’d have slit my wrists or overdosed on pills for sure.

It’s been really fucking difficult as of late to be thankful about ANYTHING Sabres related. We were sold a promise of youth and watching kids learn at the NHL level, and now that’s pretty much up in smoke with most of the “blueprint” being sent back to the minor leagues. So let’s just scratch all Sabres shit from my list.

I’m pretty thankful for the Bills. I realize they don’t have a winning record and probably won’t make the playoffs again, but they’re selling me on the promise of their youth successfully. Plus the team itself is very likable. This is the first time I can remember being this invested in them as December rolls in. Usually by now my routine was to play hockey in the morning on Sundays, come home, shower, and pass out sleeping by the end of the first half. So let’s run the fucking table and get there already. I’m on board, I’m not going anywhere…let’s do this shit.  

That’s really it for me, I don’t do soccer, I’ve just started to get into the NBA (where my team, the Sacramento Kings, may as well be from Buffalo too), and baseball is for 75 year old white men.

However, I’m thankful that I have an outlet to express my fucking misery with a good group of assholes like myself here…as well as the other snarky motherfuckers on the Twitter. We’ll all get through this together. 

Enjoy your turkey or ham, enjoy spending time with your families and friends, enjoy massive amounts of booze, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!


From the long-silent Yachtsman!! ... 

I'm thankful for Matt Harvey electing to have Tommy John Surgery, Rye Whiskey, portable Marijuana vaporizers, Marcel Dareus' abuse of Geno Smith, and key bumps.


Par for the course, you handsome sonofabitch.

And finally, my thanks:

I am thankful for Kiko Alonso being amazing and always looking high. For the renewed chance that Jairus might stay in Buffalo after all.  For Patty Lafontaine investing himself in our city again. For Ralph Wilson being one more year closer to dying. For EJ Manuel for looking like the goods. For Doug Marrone for being a boost to this team, for being honest about his work, and for bringing in a defensive coordinator who has his squad playing like fucking beasts.  For the hope that persists in my heart as I watch my squads keep failing to get their shit together.  For the hope that sustains me and keeps this fun.

And, yeah, I am thankful for this place at this URL and the people who have made it great and written things here that have been simply amazing.  Holy shit, this website is a hilarious piece of my life. I started here two and a half years ago, have largely taken the reigns of keeping at least some trickle of content going while the OGs deal with the big shit going on in their lives, and have seen the Dear God Why Us? #becauseitsbuffalo theme get traction with all you dear readers who inexplicably come here to debrief the fun and misery of watching our teams.  We won a kind of nice award from a website we kind of hate, we've seen our traffic steadily increase since rebooting in 20011 and we've been lucky enough to have some of you say kind things and some really mean things about what we do here.

It is really goddamned great.

And now I've moved to the suburbs and I have a kid and I don't see the other guys listed as contributors very much anymore. But this is the thing I do to try and keep myself close to them; to pretend for a few moments when I can that we're sitting at a bar, talking our asses off about the teams we love and hate.  Let's get drunk and bro hug soon.

Happy Fucking Thanksgiving.

The Deeg


News happened yesterday. We blew the conch, gathered, and produced this. Enjoy.


Music by, well, I won't ruin the surprise. You're welcome.

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