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 Let's root for Sabres, whoever they are
Posted: Thursday June 03, 1999 12:01 PM
Put me down as a Buffalo Sabres man for the Stanley Cup Finals. Pour me a Genesee cream ale and make me a weck on rye sandwich -- whatever that is -- and meet me in Cheektowaga or Tonawanda and we'll drive on down to Marine Midlands Arena on our Ski-doos and cheer for these Sabres. Whoever they are. What a team, huh? Dominik Hasek and 20 guys named Peca. They finished seventh in the regular season, squeaking into the playoffs, and three rounds later, here they are. They are a band made up entirely of bass players and drummers, not a soloist in the lot. They're dock workers and drill press operators, grinders in the sweatshop of life, hammering and slamming until something good happens. Every win is product, not work of art. A toaster. A radial tire. A kitchen table. Never a statue of the young Venus de Milo. With the wondrous Hasek in goal -- a two-time NHL most valuable player -- the nightly game plan is a mixture of survival and happenstance. Keep the other team off the scoreboard for as long as possible and wait for a puck to go off a skate, under an elbow, through a jumble of confusion. Sit on the lead and guard it as if it were a giant ostrich egg. Work. Work. Work. They're not pretty, these Sabres. They insure a TV ratings battle in the final with, oh, the Home Shopping Network and the Weather Channel. They're a nice underdog story, though, a testament to pluck and perseverance. Who can root against pluck and perseverance? Put me down for the Sabres. Whoever they are. Sports Illustrated senior writer Leigh Montville appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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