Last week’s announcement by the Buffalo Bisons that Torey Lovullo would be returning in 2008 for his third season as the Herd’s Manager made be very happy, but also came the realization that his time in Buffalo might soon be coming to an end.

Make no mistake, Torey is a great guy, and covering the team in the media becomes so much easier because this man always welcomes you into his office as on old friend, readily makes himself available for interviews and comments, and his love for the game and his role in it rubs off on anyone who gets the chance to get close to him. If there is one annoying thing about him, it is that he too joyous and positive. He never rebukes or calls out one of his players publicly after a subpar performance. He will always put a positive spin on the worst scenarios. I can only guess that he’s got be the world’s greatest dad, greatest husband and someone’s greatest best friend.

NBC Sports today announced that Bob Costas will host NBC’s broadcast coverage of the NHL Winter Classic between the Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins, the first U.S. outdoor game in NHL history. The game will be held New Year’s Day beginning at 1 p.m. ET from Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, N.Y.

Costas has a history broadcasting hockey, serving as the play-by-play commentator for the Syracuse Blazers of the old Eastern Hockey League in 1973-74 and also occasionally filling in for the late, great Dan Kelly on KMOX’s St. Louis Blues radiocasts in the last 70s and early 80s.

The NHL Winter Classic features several of the game’s greatest young stars, including Penguins center Sidney Crosby and Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller. Attendance at the contest is expected to surpass the NHL single-game record, set Nov. 22, 2003 when the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers drew 57,167 to The Heritage Classic at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, the only outdoor game in NHL history. Ralph Wilson Stadium capacity exceeds 73,000 and tickets to the game sold out within several hours of going on sale.

The Buffalo Bills lost their most important game of the year today to Cleveland by the ridiculous score of 8 - 0. The game was entertaining in a train-wreck sort of way, but overall I was extremely disappointed in much of the Bills’ performance.

-If I was running the Buffalo Bills, I would have told Steve Fairchild to call Colorado for a ride back to Buffalo after that fiasco. The Bills were extraordinarily predictable on offense, and completely ineffective. I don’t have all of the good stats available at my fingertips, but I think Marshawn Lynch or Fred Jackson ran the same play on about 12 consecutive first downs - for an average of about an inch per run. Besides that, there were a ton of very questionable calls and strategies.

The Sabres were better in a 3-1 win over the Blackhawks.

In recent years a visit to Buffalo by the Blackhawks would be an event that would draw little interest and plenty of empty seats. Yet thanks to the presence of Patrick Kane rolling into town tonight was going to be a bit different.

From the time the PA system pumped out the strands of Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park” to the nice applause to hearing Kane’s name in the starting lineups to the wonderful pregame ceremony involving Kane, Brian Campbell and their respective fathers to the great ovation they received. It was quite obvious that the fans of Buffalo, Sabres and bandwagon Blackhawk alike gave Kane a warm welcome home to Buffalo.

“OK kid, now just disappear into the background for the night, will ya.” I thought to myself as the puck dropped.

Except Kane wasn’t finished on center stage just yet, because just two and a half minutes in he took in a nice feed from Patrick Sharp and fired it past Ryan Miller from the slot for a 1-0 lead. About five minutes later in the period he would get on the stats sheet again with a penalty for hooking.

Welcome back to The Tailgate, where every week during Bills season we discuss the upcoming match up, plus I get to tell you interesting things like what I’ll be eating and how many beers I may consume. Thrilling, is it not? I am also pleased to note that this is BfloBlog’s third season of blogging about the Bills, and if I have learned anything, it’s that I am not good at predicting the outcome of Buffalo Bills games.

Prep Time: Does anyone have a time machine so we can go back to week one, so we can head to Vegas and bet the mortgage on the odds of the Bills and Browns having a game with playoff implications in December? Here’s the thing that bugs me the most, though. Why does it have to be Bills/Browns? I don’t know about you guys, but I feel a kinship with Clevelanders. Similar type of cities, similar type of frustrated fan bases, and I generally root for Cleveland teams to do well. I hate 30 other NFL franchises (well, maybe not the Texans - they still have a team, right?) So why does a game to decide what is likely to be the final wild card spot have to be between these two teams? The NFL, like life, can be a cruel mistress.

Load the Cooler: Golly Bob Howdy, them Browns have a nice offense. They have taken a bunch of comeback kids - guys who have suffered injuries, or been given up for dead - and turned them into the league’s ninth-best offense. Braylon Edwards, Kellen Winslow, Jamal Lewis, and the QB, Derek Anderson, have all had to battle through some adversity. And setting aside that Kellen Winslow usually manages to come off like a giant douche, it’s a pretty darn likable team they have there. I think the matchup of Winslow on Bills safety Donte Whitner will be huge. If Whitner can limit Winslow, the Bills will be in better shape, but they will then leave themselves exposed to the Browns running game. Actually, what the Bills should pray for is a big blast of snow to cut down the Browns passing attack, leaving each team to battle it out on the ground. With the forecast looking like that may happen, I am really looking forward to this game.