The Buffalo Sabres season starts
again today and I feel optimism not just about the team but about the Buffalo
sports scene as a whole. The Sabres and
Bills are both heading in new directions as a franchise and I think on a whole
these new directions are good. Terry
Pegula is the owner of the Sabres, and Russ Brandon is the President of the
Bills, excitement should be in the air.
The Sabres haven’t made as many
whole sale changes in this lockout truncated season, and Pegula has now been
owner for over a year, but still the franchise is still in a better place than
it was when he took over. They have an
owner who said “the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to win a
Stanley Cup." This is not penny
pinching Tom Golisano who ran the team like a business and demanded
profit. Look I know since he has taken over,
he has kept both Darcy Regier and Lindy Ruff but that doesn’t mean the
franchise is in the same situation. They
struck out with Ville Leino and overpaid Christian Ehrhoff, but almost every
team that gets a huge amount of money to spend will do so right away. The moves, while not well thought out or
long-term savvy still show a commitment to winning and a willingness to spend
money. I believe in this team this
season, it had a good offseason that saw the team get tougher and it landed
potential star Mikhail Grigorenko in the draft.
If these moves work out the decision to keep Darcy won’t seem as much as
continuity, but giving somebody a new opportunity.
The Bills have also made some
dramatic changes this offseason to and these ones I couldn’t be more excited
about. The team made Russ Brandon President,
removing Ralph Wilson from the position and placing Brandon in charge of the
team. To me at first this move seemed
like more of the same and that there weren’t any major changes happening with
the franchise, yes Chan Gailey was fired but Buddy Nix remained. However moves since then have transpired to
alter my thought process. The Bills are
starting an analytics department, a department that uses things like advanced
stats to aid the Bills decision making and help the team going forward. This is a forward thinking decision that is
moving the Bills into the cutting edge of something, not a place Bills’ fans
are used to seeing them. As someone who
sees a lot of value in these analytics I couldn’t be more excited about the
directions this could take the franchise.
Then the announcement that everyone has opinions on, naming Doug Marrone
as head coach of the team. A dramatic
change from the Dick Jauron and Chan Gailey era’s that we had come to
know. A young up and coming coach without
that much experience was going to coach the team. I loved the move for a few reasons, he
turned around a team in the past, Syracuse fans are disappointed to see him go,
and other teams wanted him. That actually
might be the most exciting point for Buffalo sports fans, other teams wanted
him to go their but he made the choice to go to Buffalo. Look nobody knows if he is going to be a
success or failure, in my view he seems to have the traits of a successful
coach and is a risk well worth taking for this franchise.
I know optimism and Buffalo
sports shouldn’t go together. All of us
have been burned countless times believing in teams that didn’t return our belief. However I do believe the future for both of
our franchises are bright because we have the most important characteristic,
good leadership from the top. Over the
long-term that is what wins and I think that is going to drive both these teams going forward, and isn’t it more fun to
think that anyway?
Stay Hungry
My Friends
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