Emotional Night

Ever since I found about flight 3407 crashing in Clarence I've been feeling a whirlwind of emotions. It goes without saying how devastated not only our community is, but everyone around the nation is of the events that unfolded. At the risk of sounding a little too sappy, I want to touch on the situation and what it feels like to be a Buffalonian during a time like this. Bear with me, this entry will probably be pretty lengthy. I was up until about 2 am last night watching the coverage and it was extremely surreal and saddening at the same time. Buffalo is such a tight-knit community and I'm sure we all know someone who is connected to this tragedy in some way. I already know that two of my good friends were friends with a young woman onboard the flight. I just want to say that my thoughts and prayers are with everyone who's been touched by this event, and I hope everyone finds the strength they need to get through this. I just have to say that I was real proud of Lindy Ruff tonight during his post-game press conference. He passed along his thoughts about the tragedy, and he touched a little bit on the game, but his press conference was very brief and he made it clear that tonight was only a hockey game and everyone's mind is elsewhere. It was very classy of him.

Now onto where I might come off as real sappy, but I was at the game tonight and it was heartwarming for me. Not the game itself, but as I was sitting waiting for the game to start, I was just absorbed into my fellow Sabres fans sitting around me and how kind everyone is. We all hear about how friendly everyone is here and how we all watch out for one another, and I was just noticing the little things tonight that was making me real proud. There was a little boy sitting next to me and we were sitting near the player's hallway but he wanted to get down a row so he would be able to reach his hand out and touch the player's hands. So he went down but then the people who were sitting in the seats got there but they let him sit there so he could touch the player's hands. We all know how annoying it is to have to stand up and let people get past you to get to their seats, and a guy and his kid did that only to realize they were in the wrong row. So they had to get the people next to them to stand up again just right after they sat down and I don't know the people were just really kind to him when a lot of times people just sigh and roll their eyes. I'm probably just looking into it too much but it really just makes me proud to see the overall kindness that most Buffalonians possess.

So for me and most people, sports is a nice outlet for us and it's a nice form of escapism. Whatever problems we may be having at home, at our jobs, or anything in general, going to a sporting event or watching a game is a real nice way to forget about your problems for a bit and get absorbed into something else. The game tonight was certainly no exception. I didn't know how crazy it was going to be! I started getting a good feeling during the pre-game warmups. Against Me!, The Raconteurs, and the Smashing Pumpkins all in a row...seems like Mr. Miller has taken control of what music is played during the warmups. So I was grooving on the great music selections and I had a nice feeling after seeing the kindness in the stands from the fans.

I certainly was not expecting the team to go up 3-0 on the Sharks, but I knew that it was a very early lead and no lead is safe in this league...especially against one of the best teams. So although I wasn't surprised that the Sharks battled back, I still was ticked. The crowd was very into the game the entire night, maybe it was because everyone's emotions were high due to the events, but I haven't heard the arena that loud in a long time when we scored the tying goal with 3 seconds left. Oh and apparently I was on TV right after they scored! I kept getting texts from my friends haha. I guess I was also shown when they had the moment of silence right before the game. It was real nice to see Pominville come up big tonight because he's been getting a lot of criticism. And of course, our captain...what can I say? He was there as our captain and he also showed up big against his former team. Great.

By the time the Sabres tied it up the emotions were so high. Everyone was on the edge of their seats during overtime and everyone was on their feet during the shootout. I hate shootouts just because they are so nerve-wracking. But it was great to see Miller come up huge especially after his last shootout performance in Ottawa coupled with the fact that he let in a few questionable goals during tonight's game (although the defense was just standing around doing nothing during a few of them). Leaving the arena was awesome. Everyone was so excited and cheering. For just a few hours our minds were off the terrible events, and we all came together to root for our boys. Going into tonight's game I said to myself that it didn't matter if we won or lost, because right now it just doesn't matter...but it was real great for everyone to leave the arena on such a positive note...even if it was just a minor distraction for a few hours. It still felt great.

Oh and everyone's favorite fedora wearing goalie updated his blog. How cute is he? He's so thoughtful when he's talking about how he analyzed getting some dogs. Poor Ryan. I own 3 dogs and I would love to dogsit for Ryan. At the fashion show he was loving that puppy and it was pretty adorable. I've got some real cute videos of him interacting with the little guy on my YouTube page. He also has me very intrigued in taking a tour of the Town Ballroom...the basement sounds awesome and creepy. I love creepy stuff like that. I also loved how he so nonchalantly said that he doesn't have a girlfriend. Let's see if I can come off as casual as Ryan did... Hey Ryan, I don't have a boyfriend. I'm ~single~ so I think we should ~mingle~. Come and get me before someone else scoops me up. Did it work? Did I come off as casual about my relationship status as Ryan did?

Alright, enough of those shenanigans. So even though in retrospect, tonight's game was just a hockey game...there are much more important things on hand to think about...but I'm glad that our boys gave us something to be happy about even if it was just for a few hours. Everyone in that arena was on such a high and it came at the right time. Of course it was the only game I went to this year where I didn't bring my camera...but I still had to capture the moment. So I did with my crappy cell phone camera. Here are the boys celebrating the win through the lens of my 1.3 megapixel camera phone: