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Steve Bernier came to the Sabres in exchange for all-star defenseman Brian Campbell. He played his first game last night for the Sabres, scoring two goals and assisting on another while also contributing as a physical presence (he’s big).

A nice start. And what did he think of the Dreamtown fans?

“It was awesome,” he said of the crowd. “You hear, ‘One, two, three . . . ’ the number of goals. It’s awesome. They follow the game here. They know what hockey means, and that’s what I like about it.”

Yes indeed.

It’s a shame Dreamtown can’t have a first-class newspaper. (Oh for the days of the Courier Express!) There’s a reason “The News” is often referred to as “The Snooze”. Maybe it’s because of articles with headlines like this:

Six Sigma is a martial art

Just because Six Sigma’s promoters think it’s clever to use belt rankings does not make the people who pay to learn it martial artists.

That’s just silly. Grow up, Buffalo Snooze.

What’s with all the “winter storm warnings”? Come on. Some snow is not a storm, and we don’t need a warning. Just let us know, and we’ll take even that with a grain of salt since the forecasting here is so poor.

And this is good:

According to the weather service, a higher late-February sun angle during the day provided enough warmth to prevent snow from accumulating on most roadways

So did the late-February sun angle surprise them? Only weather forecasters and political pundits can be wrong so often without repercussions.

And maybe economists.

This is funny.

A winter storm blanketed much of the Northeast on Friday, delaying flights at the region’s major airports and causing havoc during the morning commute.
…
Half a foot of snow fell in New York City. Up to a foot was forecast in suburban counties, 10 inches in Connecticut.

We might have had two inches here in Dreamtown. And if it had been six or ten? No big deal.

That’s funny.

This is disappointing. A John Cusack movie set in Buffalo is being filmed in Montreal, and it’s all about the money. Canada offers much better tax breaks than New York State. Other northeast states do as well.

It’s tough being a Dreamtown in a Hellstate.

It’s been quite cold for a while now, but we still have very little snow. Maybe three inches here in the city. (Note: by cold I mean lows in the single digits, but the last couple days have had highs around 30.)

I’d like to go to Winnipeg in the winter some time. It’s a big city, yet they sometimes have temperatures of -30F. I’d like to experience that. Probably not everyone’s idea of a great winter vacation, but hey…

This is cool:

When organizers of the Great Race 2008 celebrate the centennial of the start of the first Great Race today in New York City, they will also be announcing a route change for this year’s event.

The race commemorating the 1908 Great Race will come through Buffalo after all.

Turns out they were going to bypass Buffalo and go through Toronto, which wasn’t the original route (which excluded Canada altogether). What’s the matter with these people?

This was an auto race around the world, sort of. New York to Paris. (Obviously they get transport across the Pacific.) The original race not only went through Dreamtown, the winning car was made here and the winning driver was from here.

So watch for action on May 31st. Should be fun.

In case you missed it, Richard Zednik of the Florida Panthers had his neck cut by a skate in a game against the Sabres Friday night. It cut his carotid artery but quick action prevented the worst and Zednik should be fine.

As soon as I heard about it, I thought about the same thing happening to Clint Malarchuk back in 1989. I saw that one happen live on TV, but they never showed replays of it (which was good). As I remembered it, he immediately skated off the ice where the trainer saved his life.

But now they show replays (and of course it’s on youtube) and he was actually on the ice bleeding to death while guys scrummed in the corner. Crazy. He says he finally left the ice because he didn’t want his mother to see him die.

Instead, he was back at practice in four days. Amazing.

Anyway, as I said they now show Malarchuk’s injury on TV but digitally block out the blood. And they keep showing Zednik’s injury over and over, albeit only to the point where the skate cuts him and prior to the bleeding. But why keep showing it over and over and over, multiple times in the same broadcast? This is just like the Kevin Everett injury. They show it over and over and over. What’s the matter with these people?

As for Malarchuk and Zednik, does anyone know if a similar injury has happened in any other city in the NHL? I guess it’s only fitting that these injuries (and Everett’s) happen in Dreamtown and have happy endings.

On Wednesday it was crazy windy. Gusts up around 70 mph. Some trees went down, some power was lost. Most impressive was the wind blew the Lake Erie water from the west till it piled up in the east and gave us our second-highest water level ever. There was actually flooding in the First Ward, not from lots of precipitation but from the high water levels. And the ice boom (PDF) broke. Crazy stuff.

Yesterday was nice.

Today, we had freezing rain, but not too much. Supposed to get rain, and then more freezing rain, and then some snow. Crazy.

Say what you want about the weather … it’s not boring!