Wow. Just, wow.

I'm not going to say "I told you so," but, wait, yes I am--I told you so. I just knew that the Sabres would waltz back into HSBC Arena and not take the Sens seriously enough. Okay, maybe they did take them seriously, and yes, I realize their travel schedule was nuts (I figured it out that they probably didn't get in to Buffalo until 6am-ish Monday morning. No thank you.), but excuses are excuses. And I don't want to hear them.

And yes, I know we had to lose in regulation sometime, BUT DID IT HAVE TO BE YESTERDAY, LIKE THAT, TO OTTAWA??!!?? You killing me, Sabres. Plain killing me.

I'm not even going to comment on anything about the game except this:

MAX GOT HOSED. What the hell was that? Sure, maybe his shot was a bit late, but in his defense, the initial whistle sounded a he began to wind-up for the slap shot, and it was short and faint. As he connected with the puck, the second, more obvious whistle went. Even if he had taken a late shot, that doesn't warrant THREE Senators jumping him. FROM BEHIND. Kudos to Mair, Kotalik, and Weber for jumping in there immediately. Mair's reaction reminded me of those nature shows were the lions are feeding on carcasses. Obvs Adam was the lion and the Senator smothering Max was the carcass.

I don't even know if I can come up with three Sabres stars... Let's see...

First Star : Maxim Afinogenov

He had two assists on the night, and he actually was all over the ice trying to make things happen, so, Max, I'm throwing you a bone for Kim's sake.

Second Star : Clarke MacArthur

Breaking the goose egg is huge in my book. I never like to see my boys go scoreless.

Third Star : Teppo Numminen

I was toying with giving you the second star, Tepps, but you stole Derek's goal, so I can't bring myself to do it. But you did get a goal, so there ya go.

And Kim and I were discussing who would get the pigeon last night... I voted for Miller. He didn't do anything right because he didn't play, but, by default, he didn't do anything wrong, either. See where I'm going with this??? Do you understand my logic? Ahhhh it works sometimes!

That being said, do you realize how many of our players were negative last night??? Yuck. (And I just realized that I'm rambling on about the game even though I said I wasn't going to. Oh well.) Not one guy in blue and gold was in the black, and only six broke even (Kotalik, Numminen, Ellis, Paetsch, Afinogenov, Peters). Nine players were -1, and three were -2. (Derek, I'm extremely disappointed in you.)

And despite how terrible and excruciating that game was to watch, I'm not sure if I've ever laughed more at a game. Kim ended up coming over to my house, and we ordered food from Mike's Subs, and I had already stocked up on Dr. Pepper for myself, Sunkist for her, and chips and Bison French Onion dip. I'm telling you, unless I'm watching by myself, I get the good stuff. But anyways, combine the caffeine and sugar from Sunkist with Kim's pent-up energy (she has pretty much been a hermit as of late, due to an obscenely large microbiology test looming over her Wednesday)... And I can't even tell you what was said or done, but I could not stop laughing. At one point, and I believe this was after Pominville missed the wide-open net, she did something, and I was doubled-over in tears. It was fantastic.

The only thing that makes last night salvageable is a picture I found. The other day, in my search for Nathan Paetsch pictures, I actually found quite the variety of guys (that's how I found that ridiculous picture of Reggie). I was showing her this picture I found of Paul, and a picture of hockey players lined up in their jocks popped up. So that prompted us to recall this post of MJ's, in which we're treated to a shirtless Antoine Vermette. I then decided it would be fab-u-lous to see the Sabres like that. Any of them. I'd even see Teppo or Pigeon like that.

But then we recalled our days of Rochester Americans-stalking... Ever since the first game we went to down the 90, we've been sitting right behind their bench. I mean, it's $25, why the hell not? Back to the story... Something happened while we were standing there for the anthem, and Kim and I were laughing about something, so I turned around to say something to her and caught Stefan Meyer staring at me. I was done for when he got that frightened "Omigosh she just saw me" look on his face and do the not-so-subtle-quick-look-away move. Anyways, we had gone to some go kart race thing that the Amerks had last year. We noticed that Stefan had some ink on his arm, and that made me wonder about the Sabres. Do they have ink? But back to Stefan... I was aimlessly looking through the most prominent of Sabres albums on Webshots (dmb2218's albums) and found this beautiful picture:

He's mine. My Florida Panthers prospect.

Wait. What?? Did I just say that? Did I just admit that I'm in love with a... with a Panther? Even after my ginormous rant yesterday? Well, friends, yes I did. But in my defense he was an Amerk. He played with Sparky, and with Mark, and with the rest of them... But at the end of the day, he also has played with Gregory Campbell. Alas, Stefan is my guilty pleasure of the AHL. But come on... Just look at him!! Oh, and Kim would enjoy this one:

Drew Larman is a bad-ass mofo.

Drew is Kim's AHL guilty pleasure, as he too is a Panthers prospect. He, however, has a redeeming factor because he's from Buffalo. Or at least that's where he was born... I don't know.

But see what happens to me when the Sabres are off?? I go on tangents and I stray away. Now I have to go stick my head in the oven or something because I feel guilty. I told you. I have reverse commitment issues. In my relationship with the Sabres, my stance is that they can do whatever, even whoever, they want, as long as they come back to me at the end of the day. And by that I mean as long as they're Sabres, I'll love them unconditionally. That is, unless they're really ridiculous. I used to dislike Petey, but he's won me back. But I can't be unfaithful to the Sabres, which is why I feel tremendously guilty. Does that make sense? I doubt it. Whatever though. I'm still going to like him, I just could never be with him because he's not a Sabre. I'm cheating on the Sabres. And it is oh-so-thrilling, just because they lost last night. =]

And as far as the World Juniors go, I'm a little bit disappointed in the ticket prices. They're high to begin with, and you know that it'll sell out immediately, and as soon as they're up on eBay and StubHub, they'll be jacked up like crazy. Kim and I decided that we'd just go to the bars downtown and see all the cute youngins, but then I remembered that it's an under-20 tournament, and they can't get in the bars... Well, there is a TGIFriday's on Chippewa.... They serve alcohol...

Oh, and I'm sure you've already heard, but some genius (literally, a genius) who I believe is Chris Butler, put a little kid's pair of hockey skates in the little one's locker stall up in Portland.

And I'm sorry that you read this. I'm not even sure what I just wrote because I'm freezing, half asleep, there's something in my eye, and I'm watching Kathy Lee and Hoda talk to three attractive men and another who looks like a bum about sex. I have no attention span this morning...