dreamtownusa.com

The World Junior Hockey Championships are coming to Dreamtown in 2011! (They actually start in December 2010.)

It’s a “10-nation tournament features the world’s best players under 20 years of age and is a 31-game event that takes place over the course of 10 days.”

“Buffalo is a wonderful city and we could not be more pleased to be bringing the World Juniors to western New York,” said Ron DeGregorio, president of USA Hockey. “The Sabres are a first-class organization and the participants and fans from around the world will have the chance to experience that first hand.”

Why yes, they will. And it’s a good incentive to get as much as possible of the waterfront development done in the next two years. Sweet!

Not exactly a resounding recommendation, but it’s not coming from the Dreamtown locals who know how dreamy it is, but from “the rest of the nation“:

For once, the rest of the nation thinks the Buffalo Niagara region is a pretty good place to live. While the country has been engulfed in growing economic turmoil, Western New York hasn’t felt the pain. At least not quite as much.

The article goes on to list some of the reasons: rising housing market, growing jobs, strong local banks. Back in 2001, I moved back to Dreamtown from San Francisco to ride out the bursting dot-com bubble (with my lovely bride-to-be). We stayed, and so are sitting pretty to ride out the bursting housing bubble. Sweet.

In slightly less wonderful news, the Sabres are no longer undefeated, although they did rally from a 2-0 deficit to earn a point, losing in the shootout. I listened to the game on the radio, and when the Sabres scored you would have thought by the crowd noise they were playing at home. As any Sabres fan can tell you, that’s not unusual. I experienced that first-hand some years ago in Washington. You can take the fan out of Dreamtown…

OK, it may not be setting the world on fire, but Dreamtown is outperforming the national average:

Still, the local job growth stands in contrast to the nationwide job market, which has lost jobs for nine straight months. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Niagara region has added jobs each month this year.

We’ll take it.

And, ho hum, the Sabres won again last night to remain undefeated at 4-0. Winning is good. You may quote me.

And there’s one fewer undefeated team in the NHL as the Sabres beat the previously undefeated New York Rangers to move to 3-0.

Will they make it to 4-0 like the Bills? Or maybe 10-0 like their record-tying start two years ago? We shall see.

Go Sabres!

Yes, the Sabres are undefeated in the regular season! Sure, they haven’t played yet, but that means they haven’t lost! Opening day is the 10th. Sure hope they do better than the preseason.

The Bills? Did they play? Whatever.

Oh, and a followup to my “Undefeatable?” post. While McFadden’s is indeed a Bills bar, today I realized that Calico Jack’s (warning! annoying website!) next door is as well. And apparently the bar next to Jack’s, too. There were people spilling out onto the sidewalk today. Not sure why, of course. Really, did the Bills play?

Go Sabres!