OT: Sabre Fans, How Do You Keep Your Love of Hockey Alive?

[Chainshot]

So here we are again, once again with the big club struggling to be relevant in yet another season, the farm club stumbling along and not a lot of positive glow about the prospect pool. Things around Sabreland are bleak. Taking a cue from others, what if anything are you doing to keep hockey fun for yourself?

I know that I have been taking in collegiate games, the occasional SHL or Liiga tilt and some intermittent CHL action. I've also taken to again watching a lot more western teams - Vancouver and Edmonton lately - and for a time was enjoying the Jackets run (I stopped looking in and they stopped winning), the Wild and the Hurricanes. What are you doing to not lose interest in the game with the hometown team floundering?

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[Jim Bob]

https://www.theiahl.com/stats#/player/440772

Watching my son play & playing beer league hockey are what keep me in love with the game.

 

[Myllz]

I follow a couple west coast teams, though sadly it isn't helping this year considering on of them is San Jose.

 

[jBuds]

This is the first time in my life where the shitty Sabres product has drained my interest of, and deterred me from, watching other professional hockey games. I plow through our games because it’s routine, but my desire to scarf everything else NHL is just not what it was in every other season I can recall.

staying on the ice myself definitely helps the fire burn...and we’ve all agreed to some extent, that the fire that is our fanship, won’t go out entirely....but yeah, things are tough right now

 

[BananaSquad]

Living in the Toronto market keeps hockey high regardless. TSN and SportsNet , all they talk about is hockey hockey hockey 24/7 haha.

 

[Baccus]

I thought sports were always about shared suffering. ARE YOU TELLING ME THERE'S ANOTHER OPTION?!?!

Kidding aside, I usually just watch the Sabres at this point in the season for the organizational schadenfreude, check some good teams/games out for actual hockey and wait for the playoffs to start up and see some real hockey again.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Unfortunately, it's all but faded away. Normally I'd be playing hockey to keep the passion going, but with a 5 month old son and having to wake up extremely early for work- it's become difficult to find time to play. I'm way more into football now-a-days.

I dont follow the Sabres much anymore. My bitterness towards Botterill was at an unhealthy level. I had to distance myself...

 

[5 Minute Major]

Honestly, the Sabres have caused me to be a lot less interested in hockey. Used to watch any game that was on. Every night. Now, it's just the Sabres and it feels like I'm doing it out of some disturbing sense of loyalty.

 

[Fezzy126]

So here we are again, once again with the big club struggling to be relevant in yet another season, the farm club stumbling along and not a lot of positive glow about the prospect pool. Things around Sabreland are bleak. Taking a cue from others, what if anything are you doing to keep hockey fun for yourself?

I know that I have been taking in collegiate games, the occasional SHL or Liiga tilt and some intermittent CHL action. I've also taken to again watching a lot more western teams - Vancouver and Edmonton lately - and for a time was enjoying the Jackets run (I stopped looking in and they stopped winning), the Wild and the Hurricanes. What are you doing to not lose interest in the game with the hometown team floundering?

My experience at PSU during the Sandusky scandal and the subsequent sanctions have probably helped prepare me for tough times as a sports fan, or as a fan of a franchises/larger institutions in general. Having nearly everything taken and larger than life personas crumble before your eyes, it makes you appreciate the ability to cheer for the sport, not just the results. (although I will say when success returns the more rigid-thinking fan also returns, the one that believes anything less than ultimate success is a disappointment to the universe)

In general, becoming a fan of sports at a major college institution reshapes your way of thinking to a certain extent. To borrow a cliche, you always cheer for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back. Regardless of whether the athletes are good or not, they're family and there's an unwritten camaraderie there. Students, student athletes, faculty, the towny locals; they have all chosen this place to become an adult or ultimately, settle down and live their life.

I know the pros ain't amateur sports, I get it. But I don't tend to worry about salaries, or guys that play like bums, or guys we absolutely need to get rid of. I think about how much of a community we have Buffalo, how much of a family atmosphere we have, and how many former players love the area and eventually settle down and make a life here. Then I think about how much I really want to see Jack, Sam, Rasmus, and the other young kids have a taste of success here. This place is unlike any other, there is such a buzz here when there's success, it's euphoric. The Bills and Bills mafia are proof of that.

Alright, I'm off my soapbox... OK, yeah, to answer your question; what @Jim Bob said, watching my kids play and beer league gets me through...

 

[OkimLom]

I love hockey more than being a Sabres fan. When hockey is on, I'll watch it, otherwise, I spend time with my dog.

 

[Ness]

By watching Hasek highlights on YouTube with a box of donuts and crying

 

[Der Jaeger]

I watch my son and daughter train and play hockey. I play as well. And coach.

 

[brian_griffin]

I watch a few periods from occasional non-Sabre regular season games, (but never Boston) and NHL network highlights a couple times a week. I'll probably follow Carolina again if they make the playoffs.

I also hung this pic on my dartboard. I replace it once the nostril area is the size of a quarter coin. I'm on my third copy.

 

[DatGuy]

I play 3 nights a week. I enjoy playing way more than watching.

 

[MightyMuffins]

Having baseball and football during hockey season. I mean Bills will offset most of the early part of the season of suck....and then the playoffs till the Superbowl. The dogdays are between the end of the Superbowl and start of baseball. So essentially...the Sabres will slowly creep out of the picture. It's not so much keeping the love of the Sabres as much as the benefit we as a collective fanbase feel the same level of annoying pain and frustration with this team.

 

[Royisgone]

I have lost interest in regular season NHL hockey for a long time now. How do I deal with it? By counting the days to when the playoffs begin, as I do every year, and then things go back to how they used to be.

Teams playing with passion, hitting, fights, tempers flaring, hatreds developing, and some great, meaningful hockey being played along the way.

The average regular season NHL game has the intensity level of a pre-season or "All Star" type game, in any sport.

 

[Tatanka]

I teach kids with special needs how to skate and play. Skiing and steelhead fishing take the edge off right about now.

 

[slip]

You’ll find me in a basement room, with a needle and a spoon, and an Alberta based franchise to take my pain away....

 

[HaNotsri]

I thought sports were always about shared suffering. ARE YOU TELLING ME THERE'S ANOTHER OPTION?!?!

Kidding aside, I usually just watch the Sabres at this point in the season for the organizational schadenfreude, check some good teams/games out for actual hockey and wait for the playoffs to start up and see some real hockey again.

It essentially is shared suffering, think there's been some research that points to the shared experience being the most important thing.
I picked my gf based on her being a season ticket holder the season after her team was relegated.

 

[KeyserSoze81]

I have always and will continue to love hockey as a sport. Playing beer league and watching World Juniors truly keep my love alive. My interest in the NHL has always been directly proportional to my interest in the Sabres, so I have not been following the league for quite some time (other than the tank year and watching Coyotes games).

I love roster building when it comes to professional sports (drafting, developing, finding diamonds in the rough, working through constraints). My passion for the Sabres organization goes straight through the GMs position - if we can get someone who is not embarrassingly terrible at the job, I may start caring again. Draft better, make value-neutral or value positive trades, and have a purpose in your moves; only then we can start having some hope for the team. Until then, I watch the games out of obligation and a sick schadenfreude-laden contempt that I previously only held for the Bills.

 

[Buffaloed]

I don't care about the team. It doesn't matter if they win or lose. It's the process that keeps me coming back. I'm addicted to it.

 

[sabremike]

 

[Baccus]

I forgot to mention in my previous post that alcohol is also important.

 

[DatGuy]

View attachment 330411

There is nothing like a Giraffe in the wild.

 

[explore]

The only solution I’ve come up with is to not watch the Sabres anymore. The last game I watched was the third loss in a row and it was demoralizing to watch those guys play like they knew they were going to lose in the second period. I know I have no impact on the Sabres and they shouldn’t have an impact on me, but watching a team that continually talks about how they’re going to right the ship only to repeatedly steer into an iceberg week after week takes a toll.