Everybody’s Good At Something

I took the loss last night pretty hard.  I consider this blog a labor of love, and sometimes (when I am feeling FAR from loving towards the Sabres) I go to a dark place, and I resent the time and effort I put into this blog and following this stinky team.  But in my heart of hearts, I know that’s on me.  If I’m going to become a cranky beeyotch because of following hockey, I probably shouldn’t follow hockey anymore.  I can’t really blame the Sabres for ruining my day, because I’m an adult human who has great family, friends and a tupperware full of homemade marshmallows.  Life really doesn’t need to be this angst-y, ya know?

So, today I said to myself, “Self, you need to stop letting the Sabres get you down,” and I set about trying to find a funny angle to this generally unfunny scene.  Fortunately for me, that’s when my phone rang.  It was my friend Dinesh, and before we moved on to the official reason for his call, we had a brief chat about the Devils game.

Dinesh: So, you were at the game last night?
Kate: Sadly, yes.
Dinesh: That bad?
Kate: The Sabres are just not good at playing hockey.
Dinesh: Well, everybody’s good at something.  Maybe hockey just isn’t the Sabres thing.

This made me laugh.  Pretty hard, actually.  I think Dinesh has a good point.  Lord knows the Sabres are not good at hockey, but they must be good at something. Everybody IS good at something. This got me thinking, “What are these guys good at?  If not hockey, what?”

In an effort to figure out what they’re good at, I faxed out one of those “career aptitude” tests to the Sabres this morning (you know, the test we all took in high school to determine what line of work we are most suited for. Bonus bit of Katebits trivia:  My high school career aptitude test told me that I should be a parking lot attendant. I shit you not).   The results have been trickling in, so here is your first installment of “Every Sabre’s Good at Something”. I may or may not return to this series, depending on how bad the Sabres get this season.   I’ve found that I am most reliant on this type of blogging whimsy in the darkest of hockey watching hours.

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In no way do I mean to suggest that these particular Sabres are any worse at hockey than any of the other Sabres.  These are just the guys who have already turned in their career aptitude tests.

Jaroslav Spacek is best suited to being a guide at a natural history museum.  His stern disposition and dry sense of humor make him an ideal candidate for keeping large groups of school children under control while they are on a field trip.  The kids would start the tour terrified of him, and would end the tour laughing hysterically at his taxidermy-centric sense of humor.  His experience skating backwards would serve him well when called upon to walk backwards through a museum while saying, “Right this way.  Please follow me.  On your right you’ll see the prehistoric pigeon, which scientists believe was used as trophy symbolizing triumph amongst the Homo Sapien Neanderthalensis.  Of course, in modern times, the pigeon is a flying rat.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Now if you’ll come right this way we’ll continue our tour….”  Fallback career: Flight attendant

Paul Gaustad is well suited to a variety of careers based in civil service, but we here at Katebit’s Talent Assessment feel Goose is best suited to being a stay-at-home dad. Can’t you just see Goose handing some little kid a baggy full of carrot sticks while bouncing another kid in the Baby Bjorn?  Who better than Paul Gaustad to destroy the hearts, minds and marriages of the moms at nursery school?  Plus, he’d solve the playground bully situation once and for all- by beating the little assholes up.  Fallback Career: singing/dancing chimney sweep

Tim Connolly is best suited to being a viola player parking lot attendant.  Fallback Career: Drug dealer

Let’s Blow This Baby Up

I’m kind of a drama queen when it comes to the Sabres (although oddly, I’m not a drama queen in any other area of my life), so I felt a little bit of vindication when I made my morning blog rounds today.  It seems I’m not the only person who thought that that was THE WORST HOCKEY GAME IN THE HISTORY OF TIME AND SPACE.  I mean, I’ve seen the Sabres suck plenty of times before, but that game last night was an abomination.  I’m not sure that either team successfully completed a pass all night.  I will forever remember that game as ten guys standing in the middle of the rink kicking the puck around randomly with their skates.  For all I know, they didn’t even USE hockey sticks last night.

But the details about last night are neither here nor there.  The main point is that the Sabres are not a good hockey team.  I’ll admit, I’ve lost ALL patience for waiting around for this particular group of guys to pull it together.  It’s not going to happen.  Drastic steps must be taken.

I’m not ordinarily the type of blogger to play the role of GM.  I don’t feel very confident with my hockey analysis, but this situation has inspired me to go out on a limb and write a serious post about what I would do if I were the GM of the Sabres.  In my opinion, this team needs a major shake-up.

Here are the moves I would make:

Tim Connolly should be retired and sent to a farm to live out his remaining years grazing peacefully.  It’s the most humane solution at this point.

Drew Stafford should be traded for Evgeni Malkin.

Derek Roy‘s talent should be surgically extracted and implanted into Paul Gaustad.  This is a dangerous scheme because there’s a risk that Goose could be infected with some of Roy-Z’s personality as well as his talent (that, of course, would be disastrous/tragic), but I’m sure we can all agree that a Goose/Roy-Z hybrid would be a useful player to have around.  I think it’s worth the risk.  After the talent transferring procedure, the now talentless Derek Roy can become Goose’s personal assistant.  Everyone wins….except Goose, who now has a talentless Derek Roy following him around all the time.

Ryan Miller needs his glass eye removed and replaced with a real eye.  He’s done pretty well with one glass eye, considering, but it’s clear that he needs two good eyes to compete in the NHL.  He might as well get his wonky eyebrow re-cocked while he’s at it.

Jason Pominville needs to be taken off the point on the power play.

Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman need to be sent out into the deep forest and each be given a match, a single bottle of water, and a penknife.  They have 48 hours to hunt and kill the other.  Whoever comes out alive gets to keep his job.

Thomas Vanek should be paid $7.1 million dollars per year for the next six years.

Clarke MacArthur should be traded to the Blackhawks for Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane.

Max Afinogenov and Ales Kotalik should be melted down and then recast as Christmas tree ornaments which the Sabres wives and girlfriends can then sell in the concourse to benefit charity.

Andrew Peters should be waived and Adam Mair should start actively practicing punching people and being punched in return.

Patrick Kaleta should be sent to Portland, and Danny Paille should start actively practicing being really, really annoying.

Nathan Paetsch should be traded for Nicklas Lidstrom.

Craig Rivet should be returned to the San Jose Sharks.  This is a mercy trade made of behalf of Rivet who is probably looking at his old team with extreme longing right about now.  This poor dude was living a perfectly happy life in California a few months ago, and now, through no fault of his own, he’s the CAPTAIN of this train wreck.  Poor dude.  I want to set him free.

Mark Mancari, Nathan Gerbe, and Tim Kennedy should all be given trial jobs with the Sabres, but they should be FORBIDDEN from socializing with any of their elder teammates.  Everyday after practice they should be chauffeured to their grim apartments at the Extended Stay America off the 290, and supervised for the remainer of the day.  If any of them even glances wistfully at Chippewa St, they should be automatically fired/executed.

Teppo Numminen should be compelled to retire so that he may begin some sort of job which involves him standing behind the bench with James Patrick looking foxy in a well tailored suit.

Jaroslav Spacek should call a press conference and then bite the head off the pigeon so that we never have to hear about that dumb thing again.  (This isn’t so much of a personnel move as it is a personal request from me to Jaro.)

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So that’s what I would do if I were GM.

Spacek is Eating Sandwiches While The Innocent Sabres Fans SUFFER

My friend Robin saw Jaroslav Spacek at Panera today. She said his supposedly injured chest looked JUST FINE. I say if he’s healthy enough to eat a panini, he’s healthy enough to play professional hockey. Man up, Jaro! These are desperate times. Lindy is talking about putting POMMERDOODLE on defense tomorrow night. (Which is actually a situation so hilarious sounding that I might secretly want it to happen. Since it looks like the Sabres are going to go down, they might as well go down slapstick-style. If they can’t win, I want to see the Three Stooges out there.)

Captain January

Hooray! Jaro Spacek is the captain for January. I loooove Spacho. So sweetly growly! So brutish! So unintentionally hilarious! So not Soupy!

Jah. My turn for C.

Not only was Spacho tapped for the C just in time for the Ice Bowl, but he has a new son, born yesterday. It’s been a good week for Jaro. I think Spacek’s return to prominence on the ice is a really nice story. By the end of the playoffs last spring, he was hardly allowed on the ice at all, and now, he’s the captain of the team. His will be a nice leadership perspective for a young and inconsistent team, and I’m happy for him.

I’m totally poomerdoodling over Pommerdoodle’s A, too. Good boy, Pommers. I hope that Goose gets a letter sooner or later, so that I can honk in celebration (and also because he deserves it). HOOONK!

 

Jaro, Al, and T-Bone

(This post is a part of a series entitled “Kate’s Favorite Sabre Competition” in which I am choosing my 2007/08 favorite Sabre by process of elimination. Each and every Sabre is a hero, but in the end, there can be only one favorite.)

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There has been an incredible response to my request for Favorite Sabre candidates. Buffalo is a city full of rabid hockey fans, and I’ll admit, I was somewhat concerned that the boys would not feel the need to clamor for my affection. Luckily, my loyal scribe, Tim Laudner (Original Favorite Player) wrote the Sabres an especially poignant letter, and his impassioned plea seems to have struck a chord with the young team. I have in fact, received applications from all of the Sabres except for two: Ryan Miller and Dmitri Kalinin. I suspect Ryan is playing hard to get, and Dimitri, well….the poor dear is dreadfully shy. Hopefully, with gentle coaxing from his life coaches, he can overcome his crippling fear, and eventually apply for the job.

Tim and I have been hard at work sifting through the Sabres resumes and headshots. We are at a severe disadvantage because between us, we still know very little about hockey. Tim is a former Minnesota Twins baseball player, and I am a very new hockey fan. With so little experience to draw from, we have found ourselves somewhat befuddled by the daunting task of choosing a new Favorite Sabre.

In order to lubricate this process, I have decided that the best approach is to start with the easiest players to eliminate. While I appreciate each Sabre’s contribution on the ice, not every man can be my favorite, and there are several players who can be immediately removed from further consideration. I present three such men now.

Jaroslav Spacek #6

I may not be the most seasoned fan, but I do have eyes and ears. My ears have told me that everyone in Buffalo loves to hate Jaroslav Spacek. My eyes have told me…well, let’s just say he is not doing himself any favors with that anvil-shaped head. It seems Jaro has failed expectations on nearly every level as a Sabre. He played very well as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, so I have not given up on him entirely, but his current role as “fan punching bag” makes him an unlikely candidate for “Kate’s Favorite Sabre”. It’s entirely possible that someday I will opt to champion an unlikely favorite, but in my very first year as a fan, I can’t go out on a limb for a guy like Jaroslav Spacek. I wish him nothing but the best this coming season, and as always, my heart remains open to each and every Sabre.

Ales Kotalik #12

Pookie once suggested that Ales Kotalik looks like he should be wearing a large red sash, and a formal jacket adorned with military medals. I have to say, I agree. Al may be a great guy, but until I need a date to an 18th century Viennese ball, he and I will have to remain “just friends”. I do appreciate his funny little beard and the jaunty gleam in his eye, so while he is not my Favorite Sabre, I will think of Ales with great affection.

Jocelyn Thibault #TBA

Okay, Jocelyn Thibault turned out to be a real shocker. I put him on this list without thinking twice because I figured that his newness, combined with the name “Jocelyn”, combined with his role as a back-up goaltender would all add up to certain disqualification from the competition. Imagine my surprise when I went to the Sabres website and found this guy! He’s delightful! So cute! Not only is he cute, but he’s 32, and I appreciate having a new, age-appropriate crush on our fresh-faced Sabres team. Plus, his name (which I initially foresaw as a problem) lends itself extremely well to the nickname “T-Bone”. (I think his last name is pronounced TEE-Bogh.) T-Bone is a stellar nickname. All-in-all, Jocelyn is off to a great start with me. While I still feel it’s unwise to choose a back-up goaltender for the important role of Favorite Sabre, Jocelyn Thibault may very well end up with the title of “Favorite Sabre To Watch Joshing Around On the Bench.” We’ll see.

So there you have it; the first round of cuts is complete. The role of Kate’s Favorite Sabre is still up for grabs, and you can assume that Tim and I will be hard at work in the coming weeks, weighing and re-weighing each young man’s qualifications. As always, I appreciate any and all contributions from my readers, so please feel free to chime in in support of your favorite Sabre.