Written on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 3:50pm by Kevin | No Comments

What I Missed

My use of the interwebs and blogosphere have been pretty limited this past week. The honest reason? I’ve been playing a lot of golf. That means I missed commenting on most of the major headlines, so I’ll try to catch up with brief, pithy, throw-away comments. ‘Kay?

- Ducks walk away from Penner offer sheet. Can’t say as I blame them. I think Burke’s moves have significantly altered the NHL landscape in terms of how teams look at their young players who are approaching the end of their contracts. No more waiting around on players whose rights you control and forcing a last-minute contract. GM’s will forever have to be proactive in order to prevent contract terms being dictated to them.

- Bob DiCesare pens an article about runaway salaries and the like. It’s the usual bout of some things right, some wrong, bad analogies, and gross inaccuracies as to the intent of the CBA. But this line really got me:

The New York Rangers are spending almost $30 million less on payroll in the new NHL, the Buffalo Sabres almost $10 million more. This is good for the game?

Fucking-A yes, it is! It means the big market teams have limits, and a small market team has the revenue to compete. I realize not every small market team can spend the way Buffalo is, but watching Pittsburgh’s success, as well as Buffalo’s, has to give small markets hope. An oversimplification, I know, but it sure is better than where we were in terms of competing with large markets three years ago.

- It’s articles like this one about Buffalo Rising that make me glad I can hide behind sports and not get involved. I’m torn as to if I should offer an opinion, but I will say this. I think Newell Nussbaumer (my apologies if that’s spelled wrong) is a good person, and has done a lot to help the City of Buffalo. He got people energized and started a buzz about taking pride in living within city borders. Sure, they wrote a lot about things I could care less about, but almost every blog you read has topics you don’t care for (based on your e-mails, soccer on BfloBlog may fall into that domain). You know, despite much of the negativity that goes on in comment sections on websites and blogs, the blogosphere is still an amazingly collegial place. Bloggers link to each other, recognize the work of others, link between blogs, and generally the big guys try to help the little guys out. I think most of us still feel that way, and some folks are already lamenting a loss of it. BRO stopped that when they switched to their new web design, and while that’s kind of small potatoes, it told me they lost touch with what made them successful. (I sense I am getting dangerously off-topic here). Anyway, I wish BRO had not done what they did, I wish Geek didn’t feel he had to write that piece, and I wish the Buffalo blogosphere still had that new car smell to it.

- Thurman Thomas makes Dick Vermeil look badass. Not that it won’t get a little dusty in the room when I watch Thurman’s speech, but I swear the guy breaks down just ordering breakfast.

- There’s a new gizmo called SpamKarma attached to my site thanks, I assume, to the WNYM web gurus. So, if your comments are getting blocked, drop me a line at Kevin at WNYMedia dot net. I think twoeightnine has already been banned thanks to his pimping his sweet, sweet Money shirts.

- It appears FOXSports is going to subject us to articles by Jay Mohr. His first was just Gawd-Awful (edgy guy, mocking soccer, the WNBA and hockey). Fortunately, FJM is already on it.

- And to think, I hate the X-Games. Stupid, stupid Kevin.

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No Comments

  1. DaveD says:
    August 3, 2007 at 6:21 pm

    Please keep the soccer.

    I’m not a great fan, but I am learning what the sport means outside of the US – something pretty cool for me, a 49 year old.

    Besides, where’s the harm in a weekly update by somebody who knows his shit? At least it ain’t hidden nor negative.

    Keep the soccer.

    One question for “rjknapp19″: Please, explain the Premiership. I watched some this last spring and couldn’t understand how a league(?) champion wins because somebody lost a game they didn’t play in?

    Yeah, that’s how much a newbie I am. I’m trying, but FSC actually expects you to know about these things. Something us Americans could certainly take a clue from.

  2. Fabio Escobar says:
    August 3, 2007 at 9:18 pm

    Buffalo Rising is a goddamn joke. Anyone who sets out to spin the positive is destined to end up a phony. Tell the truth and this “hope” crap will settle itself.

    …eagerly awaiting the next futbol posting — viva chile!…

  3. Kevin says:
    August 3, 2007 at 10:25 pm

    The soccer isn’t going anywhere unless Ryan wants his own gig on WNYM. I like it like DaveD does – because I don’t know shit about it.

  4. Ben says:
    August 4, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    On a related note, FINALLY Jerry feels comfortable stepping “…outside the boundaries of objectivity…”.

    Thank god Sully. Your relentless dispassionate fact-based reporting was getting old.

    http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/story/133909.html

  5. Matt S says:
    August 6, 2007 at 11:30 am

    I don’t read the soccer posts, because frankly, I could care less, but it has its place here. Especially if it’s WNY-related.

    And with things being a little slow until the regular seasons start? Just another reason to keep soccer on here.

    There’s always going to be that anti-soccer backlash, but thank you for not listening to them, Kevin.

  6. LetsGoBuffalo says:
    August 6, 2007 at 5:20 pm

    Hey…

    Thanks for the support for the soccer part I do around these parts. I know that some don’t like it, but for those who really want to get into the game, but don’t know how to do so, you can use what I write as a introduction to whats going on. Those that don’t like it can simply scroll to the next post by Kevin, it’s just that simple.

    @ Dave D

    I don’t know what you mean by lost a game they didn’t play in. Man United won last year by simply having more points than Chelsea.
    But the Premiership works on a Single Table system. There are NO playoffs, and every game counts. So at the end of the season, whoever has the most points, wins. There are tie-breakers of course, but I don’t remember the order they go in.

  7. LetsGoBuffalo says:
    August 6, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    Also, for Dave D and those guys who want to know more about soccer,

    I just set up a new website called Center Holds It . It’s a collaboration of a bunch of Soccer writers I got together to blog about all the leagues around. It has a good preview of the Premiership done by Breton, if you want to get a background of whats gonna be happening this year.

  8. Buffalo Amy says:
    August 6, 2007 at 7:17 pm

    My brother and I grew up playing soccer as kids in Lockport (at the Kenan Center for anyone who knows Niagara County). I have always been a fan of soccer and enjoyed watching it…live in person is better than on t.v., of course.

    In college, I had the opportunity to watch World Cup action at a bar with friends…they were Argentinian, so of course we were routing for Argentina. There’s a spirit amongst soccer fans that is very contagious.

    Ryan – keep up the posts…

  9. Dave says:
    August 6, 2007 at 10:06 pm

    “I realize not every small market team can spend the way Buffalo is, but watching Pittsburgh’s success, as well as Buffalo’s, has to give small markets hope”

    I agree with you that things are better than they were a few years ago, but Pittsburgh’s “success” shouldn’t give hope to small market teams (unless those teams plan to lock-down 5 straight top-five picks)

    Pitt’s resurgance owes far more (nay, everything?) to its draft placement than it does to the new CBA.