Rich Man Wanna Be King

Break up the undefeated Buffalo Sabres! Wooo!

Sure, the goal scorers haven't produced, but who cares? Miroslav Satan will come around! Look at the bright side: No losses! Alright!

Martin Biron, Mika Noronen and Ryan Miller have been sensational between the pipes! They are so light on their feet, you wouldn't even know they were there! Zero goals allowed! Ask if I'm serious. Go ahead...

I'm serious! Stanley Cup bound baby!

Don't forget the remarkable defensive play we've had! Opposing superstars haven't even stepped onto our ice! James Patrick, Jay McKee and company haven't even allowed a single shot on goal! Get Cup Crazy!

Shame on you, Pittsburgh and Columbus! This is what a small market team can do! And shame on you, Colorado and New York! We're doing this without superstars!

Undefeated, baby! Wooo! I'm higher than a five year-old on 75 gallons of Hi-C. Maybe 80! Who knows? I don't know if I have the bladder for this!

I doubted you Tom Golisano, you and your Rochester rubles taking over my team! Back to Knox-era ownership? More like Fort Knox! We're sitting on a gold mine!

And I was nervous about trading Curtis Brown!

Remember last June? Tampa Bay had just beat Calgary for the Cup! Two small market teams whooping on big boys! Remember? You were all so very nervous about the impending collective bargaining agreement and the possible owner's lock-out!

Oh, you were worried about the Levitt report? Worried that former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Arthur Levitt would do research that would conclude that the National Hockey League's losses of $273 million were not going to get any better?

Worried that a professional sports league could make $1.996 billion dollars and still lose over $273 million?

You shouldn't have been worried, stupid! After receiving the report, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said, "We're going to have to have a discussion with the Union about what amount is a fair profit for the League as a whole; what's a fair return on investment on a business that grosses $2 billion and has multiples of that in investment in it."

The players wouldn't risk ruining a game America doesn't even care about and Canada is losing its fervor for! The players play for love of the game, not for their $2 million salaries! These guys love hockey! I love hockey! I love skating! Exclamation point! Three more!!!

Besides, the players care about the fans! The owners want a salary cap so that TV contracts can rise and fans can go to games for a cheaper price! The players don't care about making even more money! They love the game! Right?

Right?

Wrong. But the Sabres are undefeated. They are winless and tieless, too. Hockey, the game I was raised on and have played for almost 20 years, is gone for a long, long time. It might not come back. Years from now, we could view the Sabres as a more storied Buffalo Bandits or Blizzard, and I'm not okay with that.

Over my lifetime, hockey has been my refuge from a lot of things - it was where I went to relax. It's such a communal sport, like my beloved soccer, but on a much more relatable, Buffalo level. Allow me another mention of the Boss, but if Springsteen is the Buffalo of rock and roll, hockey is the Buffalo of sports.

When I was five, I remember filling in for my mom when she fell ill in the Golds of the Memorial Auditorium with my dad for Sabres versus the now defunct Winnipeg Jets. I remember after the game, we accidentally put meat tenderizer on our oatmeal because it was in the same color container as the brown sugar.

I remember at age six, how close I was with my uncle and how, when he became engaged to my aunt, she took me to see the Sabres play Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers. I found out she was all right as we yelled at Esa Tikkanen together.

My parents always remind my fourteen year old brother of how I would wake him up during the Sabres Cup run of 1999 whenever the games went into overtime. How when tension was at its worst between my parents and me, I would skate it off, drill some kids far bigger than me and revel in the locker room banter I needed at the time.

I know it sounds sappy, because that's what it is. For the last 10 years, I've watched one of the purest games on Earth erode into a bastardization of its ancestors' legacy. From Dale Hunter to Michael Peca to Todd Bertuzzi, it simply isn't the same.

And I'm just na??ve enough to think it can be fixed.