Almost overnight, I have become a complete freak about hockey. Incredibly, my interest in hockey has steadily increased since the end of the hockey season. I have spent the summer wringing my hands over free agency, mourning the loss of our captains, and devouring hockey news. Not only have I been reading Sabres blogs, I’ve been reading Devils blogs, Oilers blogs, and Ducks blogs. I have been watching old hockey games on Google Video. Games that were played months ago. Games that don’t include the Sabres. Even though the tickets will be very hard to come by, and don’t officially go on sale for several weeks, I have already made arrangements to go to seven Sabres games next season. I am obsessed.
Here are the things you should know:
1. I don’t know shit about hockey. Really.
2. Connecting to Buffalo sports has finally allowed me to connect to Buffalo. I have been living here for six years, but until this Spring, I wasn’t a Buffalonian. Well, I am now. I have the Sabres to thank/blame for my new status as “Western New Yorker”. Shockingly, my interest in the Sabres has lead to a wary interest in the Bills.
3. In the absence of actual knowledge, you can expect me to produce post after post of whimsical goofiness. Along with my interest in the game of hockey, has come a girlish interest in hockey players. I will not be shying away from this element of my fandom. No, it’s not mature, or sophisticated, but it’s funny…to me at least.
4. I have noticed from reading sports blogs and listening to sports radio that the vast majority of sports conversation is had by men who seem to really enjoy hearing themselves talk. I am a Minnesotan, and a woman, and as such, I historically don’t enjoy exchanges where both parties are loudly exclaiming their rightness….and then I became a sports fan. Suddenly, I’m in the mood for obnoxious banter! This has been a revelation for me. I intend to use The Willful Caboose as a tool in the distribution of my totally uninformed (and passionately held) beliefs. Just be thankful I didn’t decide to start a political blog.
In short, everything about this endeavor is nonsense. Welcome!
The Willful Caboose 
Woo-hoo, first comment on TWC belongs to me! In your face, everyone else!
Katebits, congratulations on the new blog! I know it’s going to be great!
I call dibs on first comment on TWC! Woo-hoo!
Congratulations on the new blog, Katebits; it looks fantastic. I might even go so far as to say, “resplendent!”
Shockingly, my interest in the Sabres has lead to a wary interest in the Bills.
My take on the Bills is that it’s best to enjoy it when they win and refuse to care at all when they lose. Because they lose with such frequency that casual fandom is key to any enjoyment of them whatsoever.
It wasn’t enough for Pookie to have the first comment, she needed the first two. ;)
It really does look good, Kate.
Thanks guys!
Sorry I didn’t have my comments set up yet, Pookie. I set you up to give me two nice comments instead of one!
Sorry I didn’t have my comments set up yet, Pookie. I set you up to give me two nice comments instead of one!
That’s cook. I could send a bunch more, if you want. Like the way it did take me two comments before I realized comments weren’t set up yet? Me so smrt!
OMG you own a hockey puck.
ok this is for real.
:)
Such a great layout, Kate! I love your Observations list, and I’d like to say about that last item,”Thank you!”
I get so sick of that justification for not watching hockey.
Such a great layout, Kate! I love your Observations list, and I’d like to say about that last item,”Thank you!”
I get so sick of that justification for not watching hockey.
This drives me bonkers! I remember Brendan Shanahan was once asked about it and he said, “What? That little black thing? No, it’s not hard to see.” What gets me is, why doesn’t anyone think about the fact that if you watch where the players are, you’ll find out where the puck is? It’s not that hard!!!
*Sniff* This blog seems ill-informed and not at all statbitty. I mean, tell me when you could see that puck on the ice. TELL ME WHEN! Yeah, I didn’t think so.
i cannot believe how incredible this is! i can’t stand hockey! but love this blog! and will attend Rangers game with you. this is all too hilarious for words….
I think that even though he is a Ranger, I really like Brendan Shanahan. I hope his team goes down in an expensive blaze of glory, but he seems cool.
I’ll admit I can’t always see the puck, but I’m not watching the puck, I’m watching the players scooting around slamming into each other. Just because you can’t always see the puck, doesn’t mean it’s not perfectly clear what’s going on. It’s totally not hard, guys.
Shanahan’s always bugged me for some reason but it’s totally in that unexplainable, not based in actual fact way.
The place looks good! When do you we get your projected lines and pairings for the upcoming season…?
No? Okay, how about a ranking of the Sabres from best-looking to worst-looking? (And I’m only kind of joking as I was nearly tempted to do this the other day.)
Heather and Katebits, a Hotness Primer is a totally respectable post to put up on your blog! (We actually waffled something terrible about whether we wanted to do one, and felt a tiny bit of shame when we posted it finally, but for a very, very long time it was our most-read post. I think it’s still our most steadily-read one. So I say, go for it!)
Eeew,
It’s so, so girly in here…
Heather, I don’t have an actually hotness ranking post planned, but you can expect to see a series of posts auditioning each fella for the role of “Kate’s Favorite Player”. Since there is no hockey occurring right now, and I know very little to begin with, I am going to be forced to rely on, um, intangibles, in my assessments. :)
I LOVE the Devils Hotness Primer. I refer to it frequently.
Kevin, brace yourself.
“I’ll admit I can’t always see the puck, but I’m not watching the puck, I’m watching the players scooting around slamming into each other. Just because you can’t always see the puck, doesn’t mean it’s not perfectly clear what’s going on. It’s totally not hard, guys.”
If by “puck” you also mean “conductor”, I am right with you, and happy to see that this hockey stuff isn’t so esoteric after all.
One question…is willful caboose some sort of hockey reference? I don’t know it. Do tell.
Scratch that. I just read “about TWC” and I get it now. Clever, as always, however, you do realize that TWC also stands for the weather channel.
Hmpf. I did not know that TWC also meant The Weather Channel. Stupid, weather.
as an official WNY gal, you are now obligated to gain 20 pounds, smoke newports and drive like you have a spoon over one eye.
ha ha just joshin, ladies!
Bk…done, done, aaand done.
I love the girliness here! This is HOCKEY in all its glory, focused on hot sweaty men on ice. Like you, I’m a transplant (10 years and running), but unlike you, I’m from Hockeytown. I’m old enough to have actually watched Gordie Howe play in a Red Wings uniform, albeit in black & white on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. I tried living in Austin, Tx. once, but there wasn’t enough hockey … or snow, or freighters – heck, there wasn’t even a Great Lake.
After I moved back Up North, Dallas stole the Stars from your land of birth. It has saddened me ever since to think that Dallas-for-gosh-sakes had a hockey team when Minnesota didn’t. It’s beyond fathoming. It was due to that sad state of affairs that you were forced to grow up in hockeyless poverty – I am so sorry for you! At least now you have the Sabres to heal your Inner Child and erase that blight. I rejoice in your salvation!
Thanks for stopping in, Kimchi! I may be a bit older than my writing indicates (I’m 32), so I can’t fully claim the North Stars defection to the south as a valid excuse for my hockey oblivion growing up. I don’t know what my problem was, all I know is that whatever I missed growning up, I am trying to make up for it now. I am hard core about this hockey business.
At any rate, I’m glad you approve of my girly approach to your beloved game. :D