If they finish 30th, they have a 100% chance of picking in the top two for this year only. Next year, worst team could drop to 3rd. But this year last place gets first or second. So, they don't actually have a 100% chance of picking second, only 80% and 20% of picking first. Many Buffalo people are defeatest, sometimes known as realist, and feel we would never win the lottery for the first pick.Originally Posted by Topas
We're picking second if we finish last, so some other team can be saved. Our arena is filled almost every game and regardless of any local TV contracts that matters to most NHL owners.
They will get NEITHER....UND THEY VILL LUFF IT!
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1970 and 1987 would tend to disagree with you.
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1987 wasn't a lottery system.
Well I hope they are stupid enuff to do that..lol
It makes no sense that the draft is done behind closed doors other than it's rigged.
Skooby (03-26-2015)
You would think they'd want Buffalo to become a premier team of the league, remember the playoffs and the crowds outside of the Arena ?? It was fandemonium !!
Happens everywhere....
yup. in fact, the NHL allegedly attempted to buy the "hockeytown" trademark from the illitch's (detroit) to award to buffalo. its calmed down since then, but TV ratings for NHL and hockey in general are always top 3 in buffalo. including games that dont involve the sabres. buffalo fans just love their hockey.
i think USA today it was that named buffalo the "hub" of the NHL.
i dont buy conspiracies, but this could be one. The NHL obviously benefit from having a good BUFFALO team. its entirely possible that IF the draft is rigged, IF, that the sabres lost last years lottery, and the NHL will have the sabres win this years. maybe they think it would look bad to have the sabres win two in a row?
just some food for thought, i dont buy the draft is rigged stuff.
Last edited by JATMtheJATM; 03-26-2015 at 01:32 PM.
I'm not clever about links, so I just copy pasted the following. It's from a NY Times article from June 8, 2014.
The hockey fans of Buffalo are proving that their passion for the sport does not wane, even when the Sabres have a miserable points percentage — the worst in their history.
The enthusiasm of Buffalonians is local, national and yearlong.
Buffalo was the highest-rated market in the regular season for NBC and NBCSN’s national games and, with Sabres games, generated the second-highest local cable rating in the N.H.L. (Pittsburgh had the highest.)
“Hockey’s in the area’s blood, like chicken wings,” said Alan Pergament, a television critic for The Buffalo News.
Ken Martin, the N.H.L.’s vice president for community relations and a Buffalo native, has observed the city’s vibrant hockey culture.
“Buffalo is the closest you can come, in a U.S. city, to having natural Canadian roots,” Martin said. “To every kid in Buffalo, hockey is their sport of choice. It’s the one sport that takes place 365 days a year, with kids training on and off ice.”
Buffalo’s interest in hockey has spurred USA Hockey to hold numerous tournaments there and prompted the Sabres’ owner, Terry Pegula, to build the soon-to-open HarborCenter, with two rinks and a teaching academy.
“If you gave a hockey I.Q. test to the Buffalo market, you’d have the highest percentage of Mensas,” said Ted Black, the president of the Sabres. “Hockey touches everyone here in some way.”
Hockey fans in Buffalo also retain affection for players who were born in, or grew up in, the area — like Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks and Brooks Orpik of the Pittsburgh Penguins — and for former Sabres, like Dominic Moore of the Rangers and Robyn Regehr of the Los Angeles Kings. Since 2005, the Sabres have staged a high school all-star tournament named after Scotty Bowman, who coached the team and four others and lives in nearby Amherst.
“My son is 5,” said Rob Ray, a former Sabre who is the team’s television analyst on MSG Network. “He can name every player, every team, everything about them. These kids are so into hockey.”
The Sabres, with 52 points in the regular season, were nowhere near making the playoffs. But in Rounds 2 and 3 and Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals on NBC and NBCSN, Buffalo had a 3.1 local rating, which ranked sixth, ahead of markets with playoff teams like New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Denver, Detroit and Los Angeles.
For Game 1 of the finals, Buffalo’s 8.5 rating ranked second; for Game 2, Buffalo ranked third, with an 8.1 rating. (That game generated a 10.5 rating in the New York market, the highest in history for an N.H.L. game on NBC or NBCSN.) And for Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, between the Kings and the Blackhawks, Buffalo had a 7.3 rating, second to Chicago’s.
Buffalo is the 52nd-largest market in the United States, which means that a substantial rating does not mean a lot of people are watching. For Game 1 of the finals, for instance, Buffalo’s 8.5 rating equaled about 54,000 households; the game’s 10.1 rating in New York was the equivalent of 746,000 households.
Still, the narrow gap between the ratings figures — one for a market whose team is still playing and one whose team is not — underscores Buffalo’s love of hockey.
Ray, the television analyst, said the fans watching the finals from Buffalo were not passionately cheering for the Kings or the Rangers, even if Manhattan is a lot closer than Los Angeles.
“They love the sport, and they’re watching because it’s entertainment,” he said. “They love having a villain, so if it was the Bruins playing, they’d be rooting for whoever’s against them. And they’d love to see Toronto lose. But this is a lifestyle.”
Email: sandor@nytimes.com
This doesn't happen just everywhere.
I haven't lived in Buffalo since I was ten years old.
I am now fifty, live in Georgia, and I am still a passionate Sabres fan and love hockey.
Hot dam......Way to go boys!!!
The Sabres have scored 1.77 goals per game, the fourth-lowest average since the NHL legalized the forward pass in 1929. They scored 10 goals through their first 10 games, the lowest such output since 1936.
You know what this means, Buffalonians like to sit home and watch TV...
A friend of mine just got to see his neighbor after several months, so what else is there to do.
That's what I'm saying, There is nothing else, It's like bragging that Floridians go to the beach more than New Yorkers..
I don't buy the draft is rigged stuff either...or conspiracy theories in general. However, sometimes they do turn out true. I tend to be a positive team oriented thinker. There just is no reason the NHL would maintain any illusion about the draft other than they want some form of control over it.
There is only one ping pong ball picked. How would you build up the suspense for TV if everyone saw the ball come out and knew right away who was first pick? You know there has to be a countdown to 1. TSN will have an hour special on that. How can you do it with knowing who is first right away?
Last edited by mightysimi; 03-27-2015 at 10:37 AM.
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