A simple question for the people who owned tickets for all those empty seats visible during the electrifying conclusion to Friday night’s hockey game at HSBC Arena:
What could you possibly have been thinking?
The idea of leaving anything you’ve paid good money to see before it ends has always been rather mind-boggling to me, unless you or someone you love requires immediate medical attention.
But to head for the door with the home team trailing the New York Rangers by one single swipe of a stick, particularly given the Buffalo Sabres’ season-long propensity for late rallies?
As word of Chris Drury’s shutout-ruining, game-tying goal with 7.7 seconds remaining in regulation spread through the bowels of the arena, hundreds of such fair-weather fans climbed over each other to get back to those abandoned seats.
There’s something tremendously satisfying about the thought that more than a few of the early departed didn’t make it back in time to see Maxim Afinogenov net the winner at 4:39 of the first overtime. The goal by the guy who got benched for Game 4 gave Buffalo a 2-1 win. It also yanked the Sabres back from the brink of what would have been one of the biggest upsets ever suffered by a local sports franchise and put them in position to close out the Rangers on Sunday.
If you did miss one or both scores, or just want to watch them again and again and again and again, they’re here for your perusal, courtesy of your friends at NHL.com.
Or if you just want to hear Rick Jeanneret scream himself silent, you can do that here, courtesy of Brendan Loy, one of the faithful who posted 267 responses during Game 5 on bfloblog.com’s open thread, many of which demonstrate rather creative, if repetitive, use of obscenity.
Sunday’s Game 6, Buffalo’s first shot at moving on to the Eastern Conference Final, will be shown on Channel 2 (NBC for those outside the Western New York market) and TSN in Canada.
(Photo from earlier playoff game, sans abandoned seats, by Joe Cascio.)