Growing up in Buffalo, NY, becoming a fan of the local sports teams wasn't really a choice for me. I grew up around them, and the city takes sports to heart as a matter of civic identity. And while I always loved our football team, the Bills, my favorite sport to play growing up was hockey, so I was even more drawn to our NHL team, the Sabres. Back when I still lived in Buffalo, I was also fortunate enough to get to go to a lot of games at Marine Midland Arena as it was called at the time. My old man used to get tickets through work, or my Uncle would take me and my brother to a few games here and there.
Thats the building I used to love going to. The late '90s, the time when I was getting old enough to pay closer attention to sports, were a good time to be a Sabres fan too. The reason? One man, Dominik Hasek. "The Dominator" was widely regarded as the best Goalie in the world at the time, and I can't count the number of times the Sabres beat a team that was better than them just because of Dom.
That said, when it came to following the Sabres, the playoffs were the time of year. When Buffalo qualified for the postseason, you could feel the energy build before the postseason would begin. A full house for every home playoff game was and still is a given, and there’s just a palpable buzz. Come April, the city goes as its team does- you can tell if the Sabres won or not the next day from people’s moods.
Luckily, the team made the playoffs just about every year around the time when I was growing up, and although they didn't have a ton of success most seasons, 1999 was different. That was the year when I really found out what it means to love a team. The Sabres were only the 7th seed in the East, but they advanced through the Stanley Cup Playoffs all the way to the Finals. Making the run even sweeter was the fact that we wiped the floor with the perennial choke artists, the Ottawa Senators (one of my least favorite teams in all of sports and a division rival) and two other teams Buffalo isn't very fond of, the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Buffalo fought a tough battle in the Finals against Dallas that year before falling short in game 6, and even though the loss was painful, I was hooked. The experience of a deep playoff run is a sweet one as a fan, as the wins pile up and the dream keeps getting bigger. Even though it ended in heartbreak, it had been a hell of a ride.
Unfortunately, in the year or two after ’99, the team went downhill and wouldn’t give us another run to remember until 2005. That year, the first after the NHL returned from shutting down for a season, the Sabres were a surprise playoff team that scored a lot of goals and had a dangerous goalie again in Ryan Miller, who had been groomed to replace Hasek. That year’s playoff run was an exciting one, as the Sabres came out smoking. In the first game of the first round against Philadelphia, Brian Campbell delivered what might be the best open-ice hit Ive ever watched in a game and the Sabres won in OT.
The momentum carried over as the Sabres won that first round series in six and then faced one of my old favorite teams to hate- Ottawa. The ensuing series was one of the most fun times I’ve been through as a fan. Buffalo crushed Ottawa, winning the first two games on the road in the series en route to finishing them off in Overtime of game 5 in Ottawa. Jason Pominville scored a shorthanded goal and the celebration was on- Buffalo was one series away from a return trip to the Finals.
As is a common theme in my life as a Sabres fan, that run ended with heartbreak too. Buffalo suffered a brutal progression of key departures from their lineup as injuries took a toll, but still found themselves on the road in Carolina in game 7 of the eastern conference finals, with a trip to the Stanley Cup finals on the line. Playoff runs stick with you because of the images that linger in your head long afterwards. I still remember the horrible feeling of seeing the puck careen between Rory bleepin’ Fitzpatrick’s feet and realizing Fitzpatrick didn’t know where it was. Then realizing that Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour did know where it was, and watching him collect it and score what would be the decisive goal.
Neither one of those deep runs ended up producing a championship for our city. Actually, both of them ended in such deflating ways that they broke the city’s heart. But the thing about a great playoff run isn’t how it ends, it’s about enjoying the ride. For two months, you wake up on gamedays and immediately get excited. I remember the high fives, screams, celebrations, and in the case of 1999, the tears at the end too. The playoffs are even more special in some ways now that I don’t live in Buffalo anymore because it’s one time of the year when I can feel that energy and excitement I used to have when I was a kid. And as the Sabres get ready to start another playoff run this year, I still feel it. Hopefully this year will produce some more moments that will linger on.
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