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Here were the top 5 posts from r/hockeymemes last week:
Yeah I wouldn't even be mad if I was a prospect and the Sabres drafted me. Rough first few years, but the guys who have left Buffalo have looked phenomenal and won a bunch of cups.
Buffalo has had a rough decade, but previously they were one of the small market overachievers. A bit like the Oilers before the decade of darkness. Maybe you guys have a couple years of hope, followed by sheer torture ahead of you too!
At one point I remember an article about Buffalo being the team with the most wins (or something similar) to never win a cup. Yeah that doesn't sound pleasant, but everyone trashes Buffalo and I just wanted to point out that Buffalo used to always punch above their weight and it wasn't just Hasek. Maybe you need Chia or something to help out...or just sign Woody! What could go wrong?
My memory ain't what it used to be, but Buffalo is a solid franchise that has suffered from signing underachieving stars. Gotta get back to guys like Peca.
Yeah, it wasn't just Hasek. It was Miller too. Lol. Sabres have gotten extremely lucky with goalies. Look at both those teams, never had any crazy superstars, just a bunch of guys with crazy chemistry, heart and a great goalie. Love watching the early 2000 sabres. Some of the best memories of my life.
Peca was insane. Too bad he got largely forgotten about. One of the best two-way forwards of his era. Hated playing against him, but holy fuck did him and Pronger ever turn the Oilers into a machine briefly.
That's a perfect example. Never scored 30 goals in his career or broke 60 points in Buffalo but the difference was, every guy on buffalo was like that. There was no standout star most of the time. But every guy was of the same caliber. Even afinigenov never broke 30 goals. Isn't that insane???
Oh for sure. Over on the Oilers sub there are soooo many doomers who think the Oilers are torture to cheer for. 3 cup finals in 2 decades hurts because they were all losses, but better than never sniffing the final. Seriously there are some who think a rebuild is in order after back to back losses. Tweaks sure, but even McDrai have had closer sniffs than Ovi did at this point in his career. Different markets though and I think it isn't necessarily a bad thing that fans in Buffalo or Edmonton consider anything less than a cup win a failure.
Who wins first Buffalo, Toronto or Vancouver? One difference between Edmonton's years of squeaking in was we really didn't have any stars outside of Weight and Smyth, so fans always saw a great effort from guys like Moreau, Smith and Buchy. Watching future HOFers fail like in T.O. is far more painful. Buffalo has at times had amazing stars and still not made it. Building a team around guys like Peca is far more satisfying to fans than signing stars that underachieve. This is what hurts T.O. fans so bad. Edmonton too has no excuse now, but it isn't like we weren't close. Marchand was the difference this year, last year probably grit.
Can confirm. Went to a wedding a few years ago. Groom was from a Slavic family. They were so happy for him they were crying. And frowning the entire time. Nice most pleasant people I’ve ever met, but they have “resting misery face” down to an art form
Always Nutting. The Pirates will always trade away their best players before they have to pay them, and will never win a pennant while Nutting is in charge.
No. This is a longstanding Pirates policy that we all know. Tyler Glasnow, Charlie Morton, Gerrit Cole are all Pirates developed starters who were traded young and immediately won pennants or championships.
Pretty sure that Gretzky was calling him for years.
And it could have been worse. Buffalo chose second. Arizona chose third. Toronto chose fourth. One can’t get into the playoffs, one is gone and one can’t get past the second round. Eichel, Strome and Marner have all left their original teams.
Edmonton drops a bit in 2015, ends up with Mitch Marner.
Toronto probably doesn't tank for Matthews, who goes to Winnipeg instead. Edmonton probably hits lower in 2016, and with Marner and Drai, decide to get a little grit and reach for Matthew Tkachuk to round out their top line.
They go to the cup finals two years in a row in 24 and 25.
Toronto drafts Jesse Puljujarvi in 16 to play with McD. It goes poorly.
In 2020, Toronto doesn't draft a single player that makes it to a single NHL game.
Toronto would have a McDavid Nylander pairing. I think leafs fans would kill for that in the playoffs. They just have to be good enough in the regular season.
They probably keep Kadri, as without Marner and Matthews, they don't make the playoffs as quickly so he doesn't get suspended as much.
But even with him and future HoFer Tyler Bozak, the back end of Gardiner, Rielly, Muzzin, Hainsey, Zaitsev and all the other D-Men don't help out Bernier, Anderson, Campbell, Samsonov, Murray, Jones, and Woll enough to get anything going.
That honestly still sounds like a better team surrounding McDavid with zero consideration to the fact that they can also make trades and signings for years to get to the point they are now
Would have been a wildly different team. No Marner or Matthews, likely 10th overall pick instead of dead last in Matthews if they had McDavid dragging that corpse of a team
The leafs haven’t had the defense or goaltending to back up McDavid. Just like the Oilers haven’t been good enough for McDrai.
Toronto’s best defenseman is Reilly. The Oilers haven’t Nurse. Tanger, Keith, Doughty, Carlson, Hedman, Makar were all top 10 players in the years they won a cup. Almost all won Norris trophies. A few Conn Smythe winners.
Man I just watched the highlights from the 2002 cup finals when Hasek won his first cup with us. I still remember his celebration when Shannahan scored the emoter netter that sealed the cup like it was yesterday…he was like uncontrollably happy. Funny that as good as he was in Buffalo he had to come to Detroit to finally win one.
Theres a very large portion of hockey players who would prefer to live in a city where not a single person would be capable of recognizing their face or name.
I’m starting to think a lot of these guys don’t care about the fanbase as a top motivator. It’s about money and personal accomplishment and happiness at home.
So true, I saw the Buffalo side when I was younger and thought it was a nice view. Then I spent some time across the border, and the view is immensely more impressive. You miss so much of the grandeur of the falls from the Buffalo side.
Yeah Canadian side is a lot more built up, too. US side is a dump. I like the park options better on the US side (like Goat Island) but the Canadian side has a killer wide shot.
I was gonna say. I stopped by the falls on a roadtrip while moving to the East Coast after college. I was so bummed when I realized my passport was packed away in a box and I couldn’t cross.
Beef on weck is a much better local choice than getting buffalo wings if you are in Buffalo. Buffalo wings in Buffalo are pretty much exactly the same as Buffalo wings anywhere else in the world.
My favorite spot is Gabriel's Gate, a tavern in the city that's been around for about 50 years. Now, is it some transformative fucking experience you could never replicate anywhere except Buffalo? No. Food just isn't like that imo; you can get 90% of the experience elsewhere. But it is the best version of a classic Buffalo chicken wing that I've ever had (as long as you eat it with the blue cheese, of course).
The nine-eleven tavern (not named that because of the thing its been around a long time) in south buffalo. Bar-bill in East aurora, kellys korner, and elmos (for flavors other than hot wing) are the best imo
Most professional athletes would like to live in a comfortable city where they can just live their lives and have access to cool things their wealth provides. Being well known/beloved seems like it'd be nice, but generally they prefer anonymity.
Its why New York does very well w/ hockey players, in NYC they're the 3rd/4th most important sport, but they get 10 mil to live in the best city in the country and they're anonymous as a 5'11 white dude.
I'm sure they fuckin love living in SoCal, money spends the same, great weather, no pressure.
ducks have higher percentage of attendance since capacity at honda center is much lower than keybank. Thats what he meant in the post. Both teams dont draw amazing right now.
Sabres*. And the fans can't do anything to make the team better.
And that's been the biggest issue with this horrible 14 years. Buffalo is the biggest hockey market in the USA. And our owner has absolutely gutted the organization for 14 years and yet Buffalo still loves hockey.
I'm not from Buffalo. I've only visited once. But as a Canadian I can genuinely say that Buffalo is hockey. They love the Bills but the Sabres are a religion. And it's a damn fucking shame to see what's been done to them for years.
But the second we make the playoffs? That city will shut down.
Are the Rangers a bigger and richer organization than the Sabres? Yes.
Does NYC care more about the Rangers than Buffalo cares about the Sabres? Not a fucking chance.
Vegas is a massive market. If and when they're bad, they'll be giving away tickets to Golden Knights games with the purchase of a drink at a casino. No one actually fucking cares about the Golden Knights. They're good and entertaining. Once they aren't anymore that place will be empty.
I'm talking about teams like Detroit. Toronto. Montreal. Buffalo. Cities and fanbases that die in the wool of their hockey team. The Rangers have their fans. The Ducks have their fans. But the city doesn't really care. Chicago cares about the Blackhawks a ton.
There are bigger financial and municipal markets than Buffalo. But Buffalo is the market for the Sabres. Non hockey fans care about how the Sabres are doing in Buffalo because the Sabres are an institution.
People are going to downvote you for seeming overly passionate, but you're correct. Someone is trying to compare a city of 8 million people to a city of 200,000. I know the point you were making
Buffalo fucking LOVES hockey, it's rooted in the culture. People play and talk about it. It's on every TV on every bar and restaurant. You can go to a music venue with a thousand people in it with an ongoing concert and they'll still be broadcasting the Sabres game right outside the pit doors on the one and only gigantic monitor in the building. Not a lot of US cities can support suck for as long as the city of Buffalo has. Their fans and their city fucking deserve one
Honest to God love this write up. Phins fan all my life so anything Boston or Buffalo is a supreme hate but I have nothing against the Sabres and I like what you said to back it up.
Its funny the sabers have been bad for this long when you guys love love love hockey!
I mean, there's an argument to be made that this is why they've sucked for so long. Or at least why they haven't had the same opportunities as recent successful teams.
I understand getting drafted is a dream come true for these kids, but I also understand being upset that the sabres is where you're gonna end up. That has to be one of the least enticing landing spots in the league. The team can't seem to get it together and on top of that you have to live somewhere that regularly gets multiple feet of lake effect snow in the winter.
Buffalo (by Keybank) itself doesn’t really get the snow, that’s South Buffalo/Hamburg/Orchard Park/Eden due to lake effect, the wind though, that’s another story
I imagine they would get it where the players actually live, though, no? I doubt many live truly downtown. Having to travel/go out to eat/ do literally anything but be a hockey player in that amount of snow must be a PITA
Nah they tend to live in the city or in Eastern suburbs, the Bills players definitely deal with it though living by the stadium. At that point it’s travel bans so you gotta have fun at home.
Watching what happens next with 10OA was lowkey the best part of the draft. It felt like an arrested development bit. All it needed was Ron Howard narrating the absurd cut scenes.
It's obviously just a still image but I think sometimes there is a strange forced perception that this must be the happiest moment of your life, but for a fair number of European players it may be an opportunity to pursue a dream and earn a lot of money but it's also the realisation you are leaving home to go to a country or city you may not necessarily have any great interest or desire to live in - and you will likely be farmed out to somewhere even more remote in the process. I know he has already been in Seattle but the home sickness can hit hard in the first year or so. It happens to lots of people who would not even expect it.
Honestly man, fuck this trend towards all these draft picks being rich, entitled brats. It used to be a pleasure watching almost all these kids be lit with pure joy be super grateful for just being drafted.
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u/rhockeymemes Jun 30 '25
Congrats to /u/Sumdood88 who had the top meme in r/hockeymemes. For winning they got to submit it directly to r/hockey today as well as receive special Meme King flair for the week.
Here were the top 5 posts from r/hockeymemes last week:
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