Leafs @ Slugs: Cujo Victory Lap

It’s not a Buffalo post without some Moore hatred.

Man, I hate the slugs. Right up there with the Habs and Sens.

I hope someone (May?) wraps a golf club around Peters and reminds the slugs that they’ll be golfing this year as well.

I was at that Buffalo game in March 2007 when the Leafs blew a 4-1 3rd period lead, losing 5-4 and basically ending their playoff hopes (they ended up missing by 1 pt, thanks to Wade ‘Dare to Dream’ Dubliwiecz and his damn poke check). It was one of the most defeating sporting experiences of my entire life.

Taking the Friday off, plus the ‘road trip’ vibe, meant that we were 3rd period drunk mid-way through the 1st period. We were taunting the Buffalo fans around us as the Leafs dominated play and racked up goals, including two kids (13 years old, mabye 14) directly in front of us wearing Miller jerseys. "Miiiiilleerr. Miiiileerrr."

When the Leafs went up 4-1 early in the 3rd, we were on top of the world. Then Buffalo decided to score 4 goals in about 9 minutes to take the lead. When they scored their 5th goal, the Buffalo fans directly beside us were in our face, asking for high-fives (like we had been to them just 15 minutes earlier). It was horrible, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. With about a minute left in the game, and a feeling that the Leafs weren’t going to tie it up, I was so fricking angry I lit up a cigarette in the arena (we were in the very last row of the nosebleeds). Hilarious, but also pretty stupid in hindsight -a $2500 fine would have been a sweet end to the evening.

At the end of the game, the 2 kids in the Miller jerseys turned around to us and said "Tough game. Have a good night" in about as sincere a fashion as possible. I felt like a total turd for harassing them.

We went to the Anchor Bar afterwards for some wings. It was pretty empty, just a few tables with Leaf fans. You’ve never seen a more dejected bunch. The wings were good at least.

Here’s the yahoo recap and box scores. Painful.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/recap?gid=2007032302
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/boxscore;ylt=Ai3mRbW4k1NrsK9bkXkdlcmvLYF?gid=2007032302

In another life I was a minion manager in a full service restaurant chain in the mid 90’s. We organized a field trip for the employees to watch the Leafs in Buffalo. That school bus full of underaged minimum wage drinkers was in danger mode before we crossed the border. The fun started when someone spotted Jim Kelley at the game, and yelled out kim jelly in a drunken state. Within 10 minutes a full bore scrap was underway in the stands between about 20 people. I tried to stay and watch the end of the game, feigning non involvement. But the cops came and found us to say that if we didn’t take the drunks outside the arena back to Canada pronto, they’d go to jail. Imagining for a minute what it would be like to field the phone calls from their parents, I was forced to miss the third period.

Post your favorite away game stories in this thread, go!

from university told me about how a bunch of them went down to Buffalo for a Leafs – Sabres game back in… 2006? It was the year that the Sabres were flying high and on top of the standings, it was earlier in the season and the Sabres were on like a 15 game undefeated streak and the Leafs rolled into town and pulverized them like 5-1 or something (you guys will probably remember it).

Anyway he said that they couldn’t get tickets to the game and so decided to hit up a biker/seedier bar in downtown Buffalo and watch the game there… in a, in his words, “lapse of judgment” (I thought going to Buffalo in the first place would qualify as a lapse of judgment but I digress). He claimed they got so rowdy that the bar owner “politely” requested that they leave least the remainder of the patrons got violent, and even provided a couple of bouncers as escorts to make sure they got to their cars alive.

We’ve done the ottawa run a couple of times and Montreal once.

First ottawa game (7-0 whitewash) our friend had accidentally gotten us tickets in the family zone (no alcohol allowed). Good thing for us we brought mickeys of rum for our cokes (isn’t it suspicious to see 5 20 somethings buying large cokes on a Saturday night?). Needless to say we needed it.

Second Ottawa game Raycroft actually pulled out a shootout win. Then we crashed the lines for the buses heading back to ottawa where we drank the night away and almost had to beat up a couple of asshole Leaf fans for giving our host (a sens fan) a hard time.

Montreal trip – Sat in the Molson Ex zone, hit on the beer girls, heckled the Habs, watched McCabe break his hand, watched the Leafs lay an egg, and stole some jerk’s poutine.

Went to watch the Sens and Leafs the day after the Muller/Rhodes deal. Sens tied it 2-2 in the dying seconds and some Sens fans jumps up, swings his hands and drills me in the right eye. I learned then that you jump when the home team scores, whether you are happy or not.

It’s a safety thing.

I like the Soviet-style poll…. :)

Last game in Buffalo (the 2-1 Leaf win)
walking back to the car with two girls and some drunken 30 somthings start making cracks about their Sundin and Wellwood jerseys.
I turn and say “its a good thing we won, or imagine the insults you would bless us with”
to which they responded “Go back to Toronto”
and I used the now obligatory “and im taking the bills with me”
their masterful comback was “BILLS RULE!”

My favorite was the Leafs last tie in LA. I think it was 2003. The roster was -

Sundin
Kaberle
Roberts
Mogilny
Belfour

all kinds of awesome.

Leafs went into the 3rd period down 4-1. They tied it up and then both teams did the 5 minute “we don’t want to win” dance in OT.

Of course, my last trip to the Staples Center gave me the “Aunt Jemima” taunt…

I felt like I was voting in the presidential election in North Korea.

…should be a few more opinions to choose from; C’mon, creativity, like:

-Loser
-Greedy
-Whatever

an Aki Berg autographed rookie card that was a special insert. Anybody want it? I’m sure you could pay off your student loans with the proceeds after selling it on ebay.

Wendel’s first season for the Nordiques featured an early season game in Buffalo. On a whim, we filled two cars and sped off for Buffalo. Nothing beats a spur of the moment road trip, unfortunately I think everyone in the GTA/Golden Horseshoe had the same idea. We showed up to see a massive walk-up crowd and a suddenly sold out game. Sadly, we watched the game from a cheezy sports bar in Buffalo with a bunch of other late-arriving Leaf fans and some fine large-haired local ladies.

Only post-season game I’ve ever been to was Sabres-Flyers tilt back at the Aud. About half-way through the game, fans hung a giant sign from the rafters with the poignant message, “Hextall – your wife’s a dyke”

In the early 90s, I went to see a Leafs-Sabres game in Buffalo and the Gulf War had just started. There must have been something in the Beef on Weck that night as I’ve never seen so many fights in the stands, almost all of which involved U-S-A U-S-A chants. My pals and I were challenged to fight by a huge guy with a mullet in a “These Colors Don’t Run” American Flag shirt. We talked him down, but I honestly thought we weren’t going to get out of that rink without a fight.

Worst hockey game I ever saw was a 0-0 draw between the Sens and Sabres at a Canadian dollar at par night in Buffalo. A local garage sponsors a collision of the game promo where the show the best hit of the game on the scoreboard. That night the best they could do was a clip of a Sabre lightly bumping into a Sen. The whole rink booed the promo – it was easily the loudest crowd response of the night – and the poor guy reading the announcement actually apologized for the game being so bad.

Classic Leaf moment