13.2.09

"A Fairytale Ending"


The Sabres mustered two very important points this evening with a 6-5 win over the San Jose Sharks via a shootout, but Lindy Ruff said it best in his postgame conference when he mentioned that this was 'a fairytale ending'.

In my previous post, I talked about the plane crash that occurred late last night in Clarence Center. 49 people had lost their lives, including a person in the house that was hit. His wife and daughter miraculously survived the crash. Along with this, many Sabres actually live around the area, and if the plane has landed diagonally on the houses instead of take a nosedive, they may have been harmed as well. There was an article in the Buffalo News today about how most of the players were shaken up, and how much they felt for the community. Western New York is a tight knit area. These players know what everyone means to one another. Craig Rivet said in his post practice interview this morning that if the boys came out with their best effort and got a win for the people of Buffalo, then they would be happy because they helped take our minds off of this tragedy for just a little while.

So they did.

They held a moment of silence for the victims of the crash before the game began, and watching it on television was an eerie scene. They panned the camera over the Sabres bench to see the players with their heads down on their sticks, and then they had an overview of some of the crowd. At the bottom of the screen it read 'Up next: Sabres vs. Sharks', and the quiet scene went into a commercial break. It gave me chills up my spine, and even thinking about it now is giving me chills once again.

I won't talk about the actual game until tomorrow morning because I'm dead tired, but the emotion of the fans when Jason Pominville tied up the game was something I haven't watched or felt since the 2007 playoffs. I've missed that energy coming from the fans. A come from behind win from argubly the best team in the league, even though the Sabres led 3-0 at one point, was huge. This is going to go a long way for the team. They got two points, and were able to give Buffalo a little something to cheer about during these sure to be hard times coming up over the next couple of days.

To you boys I say - Thank you, Sabres.

6 comments:

Katie said...

I'm still getting chills thinking about the emotion of the crowd tonight. There couldn't have been a more perfect ending...it was like a movie.

Shelby said...

My stepdad and stepbrother had the privilege of going tonight because my parents won tickets from work, so they got to be a part of the crowd. I'm quite jealous...though I got chills just watching from my living room chair with my mother.

The win feels like a blur to me. I can't believe it's real because it seems so perfect.

Ray-Chill said...

Good Lord I got chills just reading your post. The whole beginning to the game and the whole ending were seriously something out of a book. I don't want to make this into more than what it was, but it was so much more than a game. I had some similar thoughts in my post. Thanks for writing this, it was great...

And I think that only people from around here can really understand what this meant.

Shelby said...

Thanks for writing this, it was great...

And thank you very much for commenting. I'll be sure to check out your post next, for sure.

This was something straight out of a book. Like I said to Katie, this seems too perfect to be true.

And I think that only people from around here can really understand what this meant.

I completely agree. I don't think anyone outside of this area will know how much this meant to us as a community...to all of Western New York.

Caroline said...

It was by far the best game I've been to this year considering the comeback and what the win meant for the fans...and Lindy was so classy in his post-game press conference.

Shelby said...

I truly loved Lindy's postgame interview. Everything he said was so true. When Kevin Sylvester mentioned 'And you wonder why the city loves this man?', I told my mom that I never want to see anyone else as the Sabres head coach. Lindy is too awesome.