KFS II, Attempting to Right What Once Went Wrong: Jochen Hecht

Alright, this is going to be a controversial one.

Last year I was all over the map with Jochen in the KFS competition.  First I eliminated him with nary a thought or care, then I reinstated him thinking that he might be The One, and then I eliminated him again when I realized he was (at the time) unsigned beyond the season.  After a full year of watching Yo-Yo, I feel I am finally in a postition to make an informed and fair ruling on his status as Kate’s Potential Favorite Sabre.  As you read this, please know that I respect and admire Jochen Hecht very much.  I wish only the very best for him and his family, and I would never treat an actual human being the way I am about to suggest is the proper way to treat Jochen Hecht.

Let’s begin….

Jochen Hecht is obviously a valuable member of the Sabres.  He’s hardworking, reliable, very handsome, and downright captainly.  He’s also signed as a Sabre for a goodly amount of time (”goodly” being some unit of years that I am too lazy to look up right now).  There is literally nothing not to like about Jochen Hecht.  He should be a front runner in Kate’s Favorite Sabre Competition….but sadly, he is not.

It is my theory that Jochen Hecht was born to be taken for granted.  I don’t have any overwhelming feelings of affection for Yo-Yo, and yet, if he were suddenly gone, I would be devastated.  He falls firmly into that “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” category, but the thing is, he’s not gone and he won’t be gone for quite some time, so it’s my feeling that we should just go right ahead and take him for granted.

Jochen Hecht is the guy you call when your asshole boyfriend did something lame.  Jochen will come over, he’ll bring take-out, and he’ll patiently sit on the couch listening to you whine and cry over another guy.  He’s the guy you call to get up on a ladder and get the dead bird out of your rain gutter because the task is too gross and scary to do yourself.  He’s the guy you ask to feed your cat while you’re weekending in Niagara On The Lake with Paul Gaustad.  Jochen Hecht is the guy you don’t want to date yourself, but who you don’t want dating anyone else either.

He never complains, he always does what you ask, and you love him for it….but he is not your Favorite Sabre.  We take Yo-Yo for granted because that is all he requires.  Someday, Jochen is going to have a gorgeous, smart, hilarious woman to call his biggest fan, and when that day comes our hearts will break because we will suddenly realize we loved him all along, but it will be too late.  We’ll pout and carry-on like complete assholes, but in the end we’ll begrudgingly admit that he’s way too good for us and he always was.

But for now, we frequently, knowingly, and happily take him for granted.  That is how it must be.

KFS II, Attempting to Right What Once Went Wrong: Drew Stafford

Poor Angry Eyebrows!  He never really had a chance.  Last year at this time we were expecting him to be the new CHRIS DRURY for goodness sake.  Everyone was freaking out about how Drew Stafford was clearly our future captain and savior.  We expected too much, and the poor dude cracked under the pressure.

Obviously things didn’t work out very well for old Staffy last season.  When he wasn’t injured he was skating around listlessly, invisible except for when Lindy was singling him out for his suckiness.  I believe my main complaint about him at this time last year was that he seemed “cocky”.  I was terribly wrong about that.  Drew Stafford really does not seem cocky at all.  In fact, he seems quite the opposite.  I’m worried about his mental health and his emotional well being.  Staffy is making me feel all maternal and protective.

This season I pledge to be as patient and supportive of Drew Stafford as possible.  With tender love and firm guidance we can rehabilitate him.  All is not lost in Staffy’s case.  If we can stop the cycle of low self-esteem leading to lackluster performance, there is still time to turn him into an effective NHL player.  He’s far (far) from my favorite, but I still believe in him.

You can do it big guy!  *two big thumbs up and a wide (possibly fake) smile*

KFS II, Attempting to Right What Once Went Wrong: Max Afinogenov

I have a confession to make: Last year, even when I chose him as KFS, I knew full well that Max was not my real Favorite Sabre.  I basically chose him because while my affection for him is real, I knew he could be easily discarded once my true Favorite Sabre revealed himself.  Keep in mind that at this time last year I could barely tell the Sabres apart much less aptly choose my favorite.  I knew full well that he wasn’t the one, but I chose him anyway.  For this I owe him an apology.  Max, I used you and then I discarded you like a cheap piece of meat.  My bad.

In the interest in fairness, it’s time to put Max in the proper place on the scale of Kate’s Favorite Sabre.

The thing I find most interesting about my affections for Max is that they run so extremely hot and cold.  I mean, when he’s sucking (which let’s face it was nearly every second of last season) I’m likely to blame him for E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.  I blame him for every loss, I assume every offside he creates prevented a goal, I squawk at the television that he should be sent to Siberia to work in the salt mines during the day and at night he should be forced to write letters of apology to all the innocent Buffalonians whose lives have been ruined by lurchy skating and his haphazard stick handling.  When I hate Max, I hate him passionately, with the burning passion of ten million white hot passionate suns and all the passion that a passionate person can passionately feel.

But

When I like Max, he makes me laugh, which is really the highest compliment I can pay to a person I don’t know personally. Usually great hockey playing is exciting or astounding, and I suppose Max at his best is both of those things, but mostly I think he’s entertaining in a very gleeful way.  He’s funny to me, not in a laughing at him kind of way (there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING funny about Max at his worst) but more in a laughing-at-the-glorious-existence-of-such-an-absurd-skater kind of way.  I can’t think of any other player in the entire league whose best playing inspires me to giggle happily.  I really like this about Max and I pray to Lindy Ruff that this season he’ll give me less reason to throw my borscht at the television in sputtering rage and more reason to chuckle with appreciation.

Max is kind of a hard guy to rank on the scale of Sabres because I either love him or hate him- there is no in between.  I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that this year he’ll balance out the Infuriating Max with a little more Funny Max, and put him right in the middle of the pack, in the Hank Tallinder/Drew Stafford range.  He also gets many style points for having a cool girlfriend and for somehow maintaining an air of mystery and intrigue (possibly a Russian spy).

Oh, and he looks like Faye Dunaway.  Thumbs up there.

Hey Wait.

Should we be panicking about Jason Pominville yet?

Teppo’s Back, and He’s Better Than Ever.

Have you ever had a SUPER refreshing glass of water when you didn’t even realize you were all that thirsty? You take that sip, and it leads to a guzzle, and you can feel the water entering your system and it’s just the most delicious, satisfying thing ever? That’s how I felt when I heard Teppo got signed. I miss hockey. I am absolutely parched. Considering it’s August 8th, I’m not sure I could have received a more refreshing bit of hockey news today.

He’s a tall drink of water, alright.

Last year was my first full year as a Sabres fan, so except for the ‘07 playoffs I haven’t really seen Teppo in action, but here’s the third post I ever wrote for The Willful Caboose. I’m a Teppo fan. The Sabres often seemed too young and too skittish last year, and say what you want about him, but Teppo is neither of those things.

Hooray!

2 Tidbits

I am ca-RAZY busy over the next week, so things might get a little tumbleweedy around here.  I’ll do my best to post a little something every day, but I can make no promises.

I have two tidbits for you this afternoon:

1. Ryan Miller and the Sabres Gang had the cuddliest press conference in NHL history this morning.  It was all, “I love you, Ryan Miller,”  “No, I love you Darcy Regier”  “We just want to be the best professional hockey team we can be.”  I know that as soon as the Sabres take the ice I will stop being this sentimental old Crunchy-lovin’ fool, but dang it, it practically brings a tear to my eye to listen to him speak right now.  I am so excited about next season that I’m having a difficult time reconciling that it is mid-July.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE mid-July, but I am so psyched about hockey that if it snowed this evening it would fit my mindset perfectly.

2.  I still feel kind of scared of tomatoes even though I know they have been declared cootie-free.  Remember a few years ago when spinach had e coli cooties?  Well, that happened during a particularly oblivious time in my life when I wasn’t watching much tv or paying much attention to things occurring beyond the ten feet surrounding me.  As a result, I ate a lot of the EXACT spinach that had e coli.  So, while the rest of the country was burning their spinach at the stake and freaking out in general, I was happily munching on a daily e coli salad.  When I finally clued in, I did a little research and learned that whatever happens to you when you eat e coli has a seven day incubation period.  So, I had to sit around for a week, waiting to find out if I was about to experience a terribly gruesome fate.  I didn’t. I must have lucked out and eaten only cootie-free spinach, but that week I spent fretting was no fun.  Food cooties are lame.  Shop locally, people!

Thank You, Crunchy.

My Sabres fandom sprouted up during a time when I was struggling to settle into Buffalo. Sure, I had been living in Buffalo for almost six years at the time, but I hadn’t settled down here. Not really. Falling in love with the Sabres helped me take a closer look at Buffalo and all of the wonderful people who live here, and in a very literal way, the Sabres turned Buffalo into my home. At this point, my love for Buffalo encompasses far more than just hockey, but I will always view the Sabres through this sociological lens.

When the entirety of the North American hockey media, including our own local paper, was constantly beating the “no one wants to play in Buffalo” drum all season, well, it effected me on more levels than just hockey analysis. It’s almost difficult to admit how much that…hurt my feelings. I can’t separate my love for the Sabres from my love for Buffalo, and as a result, that type of broad criticism of the team feels almost personal. I know that thinking this way is totally irrational, I do, but at the risk of being way off the mark, I don’t think I’m the only person in town who feels this way. I think the prevailing notion that no player would WANT to live and play here has been hard on us. I know it’s been hard on me.

I feel so much better about that now.

It’s not fair to expect our athletes to embrace or embody Buffalo, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it when Ryan Miller does it willingly. Don’t get me wrong, I know this is a nice payday for Crunchy, but I don’t think there is any way around the fact that his new contract is a strong statement that all along he wanted to stay here and be a Sabre.

It means so much to me to hear Ryan Miller saying good things about Buffalo. The fact that he likes it here, and that he appreciates how the community embraces the team, well, that means a lot to me. Ryan MIller believes in the current direction of the Buffalo Sabres. That means a lot to me. For the first time in over a year, I feel some real distance from the co-captains debacle. That means a lot to me. I trust Ryan Miller to represent the Sabres well, both on the ice and in the community, and that means a lot to me.

There will be plenty of opportunity to weigh and judge this signing. Soon we will get to analyze, and carry on, and dissect every aspect of the new season, but for today, on July 18th, I’m going to go ahead and simply enjoy Crunchy’s new contract. I don’t give a rip about his cap hit. I really don’t. I’m just glad he’s ours. He’s one of us.

WOOOOOOOOoooOOOooOOOOOO!!!!!

Ryan Miller, our beloved Crunchy, will be a Sabre for the next FIVE YEARS.

I have many thoughts and feelings about this (not the least of which is PLEASE GOD LET THIS BE THE FAMOUS 5/25 DEAL!), but for now we will simply celebrate.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Our fearless leader. Yay!

Yippee Paille!

Excellent. Dan Paille is all tied up for awhile.  That’s just how I like my promising young forwards- contractually obligated to love me remain a Sabre for the foreseeable future.  We’ve also got Clarke MacArther and Mark “Yellow 19″ Mancari signed to their qualifying offers.

Come on, Crunchy.  Everybody’s doing it.

Peacenik Credentials: REVOKED

Jon Swenson has a photo contest up on The Battle of California of some of his wonderful pictures. Our new defenseman, Craig Rivet, plays a prominent role in the photo contest. Check this out:

Look at his fist! Run for you life! …or, REWIND and watch it again!

I’ve written before about the unease I feel about the fighting in hockey. I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I hate almost all the enforcer fighting, but on the other hand, Adam Mair? By all means, swing away, my friend. It’s kind of hard for me to admit that I like some of this stuff, but the truth is, I do like some of the fighting in hockey.

Hopefully Craig Rivet will fill a gaping hole on our defense. Hopefully he’ll be a genuine asset as a hockey player, but if he happens to get in some fisticuffs in the heat of battle, I suspect I will approve.