Daniel Briere made $5mil his last season in Buffalo, I believe made about 2.5 or 3 the year before and is now making insanely huge money in Philadelphia (a front loaded contract starting at over $9mil)

So you’d think his Buffalo home would be slightly expensive…

Briere sold his house on Covent Garden Lane for $325,000 — roughly $14,000 less than what he paid for it five years ago. The deal closed on July 29, according to documents filed in the Erie County Clerk’s office.

I doubt the value really went down. I bet Briere though he was getting a steal not understanding how insanely affordable McMansions are up here and only truly learned the housing market here the hard way.

Let’s see how much Drury’s house ends up going for…

Meanwhile, another Sabre co-captain, who also left the team last summer — Chris Drury — has yet to sell his house in Clarence’s Spaulding Lake subdivision. Drury paid $550,000 for the house in 2005.

Whenever it fit in my tight college-student budget I would go to a Sabres game but after a semester everyone jumped on the bandwagon and my routine of buying $17 tickets and sitting in $117 ones was no longer doable. In fact, I haven’t been able to go to a game since December ‘05 until I got a free ticket from my uncle last night for the game against the Leafs-a match-up I’ve always wanted to experience in person.

I gotta say the arena experience has changed quite a bit since the Miroslav Satan era.

One, it was sold-out.

Two, the new scoreboard is beyond beautiful.

Three, however, the fan types have changed a bit.

The “I’m young and loud and I’m going to use this sporting event to drink a lot of Labatt and be obnoxious the whole game because it proves my manliness”-fan is apparently no longer exclusive to the Bills, but the lack of tailgating and being indoors should prevent that from ever reaching Bills game levels.

As the game got worse and worse, the cameramen would seem to show more and more crowd shots and somehow these ‘fans’ would muster up the happiness and energy late in the 3rd period to jump up and smile and dance for the camera as their ‘favorite team’ withered away their playoff hopes. Wtf?

People complain about all the Toronto fans but you notice them so much because they’re actual hockey fans unlike a lot of the people in the Buffalo area who all of a sudden liked the team two years ago. I know I’m not supposed to say that but oh well.

But hey, these people buy a lot more merchandise and tickets than I ever would so everyone serves their purpose I guess. I’ll just be the cliche angry old man watching it on tv.

Couple more notes:

*For the record, if Ruff didn’t quit on Thibault so quickly in the season, Miller wouldn’t be giving up all these soft goals down the stretch.

*Kudos to the probably 9,000 or so Leafs fans who crossed the border to spend 100’s of dollars for the experience. They do a lot better job patronizing downtown establishments before games than Buffalonians do btw.

So the Sabres are getting a new scoreboard afterall and will debut this Saturday against Pittsburgh. It looks great…Little improvements here and there keep the HSBC Arena feel brand new 10 years after the fact. The ribbon board three years ago, last year’s locker room renovation and now this scoreboard-its nice to see Golisano making sure his facility is always top notch.

Let’s hope this one doesn’t fall down.

Here’s some more Sabres stuff to buy! The team released “Better Days” a 2006-07 season-in-review with all sorts of extra features. $10. If you’re going to have one Sabres season-in-review, this is prrrrobably the one to have.

Speaking of Sabres. I saw Jason Pominville at Wegmans and sat at the table next to Max Afinogenov and Dmitri Kalinin at Wasabi all within half a week. Impressive.

Last summer, the Sabres new logo was all talk of the town-and not in a good way. The new jerseys have little to no resemblance of the originals that so many begged for. It caused quite the stir and although it seriously means nothing in the grand scheme of life, it was dissapointing to see no traces to the original crest.

But in Washington DC, a place that doesn’t particularly care for sports, and some might say even HATE hockey, their hockey team has unveiled new uniforms that reconnect the fans and the franchise to its past in 21st century style. For an area that doesn’t particularly care for the sport or the team, there was a lot more care and respect for the past than the Sabres put into their new jerseys.

A city so devoted to its past got a futuristic uniform for their beloved team while an apathetic city got a thoughtful modernization of a uniform for a team few care for. Funny how the world works.

Every channel, especially CH4 has given wayyyyy more attention than it should to the whole “No beer at the ‘Party in the Plaza’ at HSBC Arena….OH NOW THERE IS AGAIN!!!! Must find out more!” story.

Taking that whole “small town mentality” to a whole other level.

As the battle for the 8-seed went on, plenty of good story lines came up

If we played Carolina, it would be a rematch of the Eastern Conference Finals. A series win would be sweet revenge, especially after sweeping the season series.

Just saying Toronto means drama to the minds of any Sabres’ fan. Playing the Leafs in the 1st round would have an intensity level parallel to that of a typical conference final. Maybe Peca would have come back…making it more exciting for us to really hand it to them and the thousands who show up in town

Instead, we get the Isles. A great story in itself. Miroslav Satan coming back to Buffalo for a playoff series! We know he struggled to perform at his best in the postseason…it’d be interesting to see if anything has changed in his post-season effort since coming to Long Island.

Don’t forget Ted Nolan. His 1st season coaching in the NHL after a 10 year hiatus. His last year in the NHL he won the Sabres most recent Division Title until the 06-07 squad got one of their own. Now in his 1st year back he’ll go back to the same arena where he jumped up and down in excitement with the rest of the Sabre faithful after Derek Plante’s legendary game 7 overtime winner versus Ottawa.

The Isles are exhausted after an improbable stretch to clinch the final seed. Goalie Rick DiPietro is still out. If Buffalo has to go to six games in this series, it’d be a shock.

Can’t wait!

Always good times when you look at the local craigslist personals. Great one here…

Put out for playoff tix? Ohhhhhh Buffalo, you’ve got some special people.

After the Sabres game, MSG had some locker room interviews and for most of them you could hear some tunes from the Goo Goo Dolls latest album. Not necessarially the kind of music professional athletes listen to after a win…needless to say… “Only in Buffalo”.

As a former Washingtonian, I’m pretty excited to see we landed Dainius Zubrus from the Washington Capitals and a prospect for Novotny and a 1st round pick. Novotny is a good skater and can play hard but lacks much scoring talent. He really struggled adjusting to the AHL at first, improved his numbers, and then struggled in Buffalo. Zubrus is an extremely talented player who I have had the pleasure of meeting more times than I can count since I used to frequent Capitals practices in my younger days. He is going to be a great addition for the playoff push

His stats:
2006-2007 60games 20goals 32 assists 52 points
Carrer 670games 118goals 218assists 352 points

In case you don’t know by now, Marty Biron was part of a three-way deal that sent him to Philly and sent Columbus backup, Ty Conklin, on his way to Buffalo.
Ty had some opportunities to take the starting job with Edmonton last season but couldn’t play well enough to secure it. He did get a taste of some Stanley Cup action in game one last year but did not impress and has fallen off the face of the hockey world since.
Hopefully he can get back to the form he was in before his demise.

Here are his career stats:
This year he is 2-3 with a 3.30 GAA and .871 save percentage (ouch)
In his career he is 29-22-4 with a 2.60 GAA and .901 save percentage