Congratulations to Buffalo Sabres players Ryan Miller and Tyler Myers for winning the Vezina (best goalie) and Calder (best rookie) trophies, respectively.
Miller gave credit to Buffalo fans during his acceptance speech, saying: “Their passion for hockey makes every game a lot of fun.”
Some relatively good news about health care, at least in Dreamtown USA:
A delegation from Buffalo, including leaders of its two major hospital systems, two leading insurers and others, was among of 15 groups invited last week to a Washington, D.C., seminar on local innovations for improving health care while controlling costs.
Days earlier, the head of a local group of Catholic physicians was invited to Washington to co-chair a similar event.
And it’s all because Buffalo insurers and health care providers initiated reform on their own years ago, long before Congress got around to it.
Seems Dreamtown’s Medicare costs (per patient and increases) are well below the national average. And people are taking notice.
“What we’re seeing in Buffalo is that we’re finding ways to work together,” Cropp said after his presentation. “A lot of communities are just sitting back and waiting.”
Sounds about right for the City of Good Neighbors.
While every spring in Dreamtown is memorable (it’s Dreamtown, after all), this one was memorabler than most.
• Last month was the warmest April in 89 years and the second-warmest in 140 years of record keeping.
• The snowfall season this winter … was the shortest ever.
• The 84-degree high on April 3 was not only a record for that particular date but the warmest ever so early in the year.
• The past two months combined for the warmest March and April in 65 years and the fourth-warmest March and April ever recorded.
And it is, of course, another beautiful sunny day today.
What area comes to mind at the mention of Buffalo’s waterfront?
Is it the marina?
Or maybe the “canal side” project?
Time to start thinking about the NFTA Boat Harbor, too. Break out the bikes!
Congratulations to the Buffalo Sabres for winning the Northeast Division of the NHL. May your playoffs be free of “no-goal“s and non-goals and illegal goals (good riddance, Kerry Fraser), and staph infections.
For the third consecutive day, it’s much warmer in Dreamtown than New York City. As I type this, it’s 61 here in Manhattan and 81 at the Buffalo airport (according to weather underground).
There was also another deluge here on the coast a few days ago. None of that was in Dreamtown.
I mention these things only because so many people still think the weather is bad in Buffalo, because the only time you hear about the weather in Buffalo is when it’s not real nice (but rarely as bad as they report). And I hope the JetBlue crews are pointing out how much nicer it is in Buffalo, a.k.a. Dreamtown USA!
Last weekend wrapped up another successful collaboration of Dreamtown USA and NCAA hoops. Fans enjoyed some great games, great food, great weather, and wonderful people. Always a pleasure to share our bounty.
Sure it’s too early to declare winter over, but this has been a heckuva March here in Dreamtown. Loads of sun, and today we enjoyed 61 degrees of sunny goodness.
Where’s The Weather Channel now?
Last weekend saw the first annual Powder Keg Festival in downtown Dreamtown USA. Featuring the World’s Largest Ice Maze, the event drew twice the expected crowds.
On the same weekend was the very successful Labatt’s Pond Hockey Tournament. (Or “Lake Hockey” in this case.) While the warm-ish weather resulted in the cancellation of Sunday’s games, Saturday was a big day as the tournament continues to grow.
Meanwhile, I’m sure this year will put an end to all those comments about Dreamtown being so snowy. After all, places like New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Pittsburgh all had three times as much snow in February as we did. Now it won’t be long until the lake-effect sun machine kicks in giving us more summer sun than any major city in the northeast US. Dream-tastic!
As winter continues to dump on the east coast, Dreamtown has dropped down the list of snowiest cities for the season. The linked list (obscure reference for all you programmers) is updated daily, but as of 11 February, it looks like this:
We’ll no doubt move up the list, barring more wacky storms on the coast. But for us, this has been a pretty ho-hum winter. No huge storms, not a whole lot of snow on the ground even now. It’s been pretty cold, though, but that can be a good thing. The snow they’re getting on the coast is wet and heavy which is really annoying. And they have ice problems as the temperature keeps flirting with freezing.
Yes, we get snow in the winter. Not as much as you’d think from the national news network, but more than most places. And when we get it, we push it out of the way and go about our business. Just what you’d expect from Dreamtown USA.
One final note: I guess it’s good that the TV news is consistent in portraying the snowiness of an area by setting their reporters up next to plowed piles of snow just like they do whenever they visit here in the winter. But do they know that’s a dictionary definition of lying? Keep it real, people!