The beat of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" fairly leaps out the doors of Buffalo's HSBC Arena. Inside, a capacity crowd chants "Let's go, Sabres" as the home team skates onto the ice, while more than 100 people stand in line to buy the newest team uniforms and the two generations of hockey fashion that preceded them.
All this, and on the last Saturday morning of summer.
The unveiling of the new uniforms and subsequent intra-squad scrimmage were free to the public, making an exact head count at Saturday's event impossible. But there were at least 10,000 in the building by 10:30 a.m. to greet the team that came within one period of reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in June with a roar last heard in the building right about that time.
"It's like the playoffs in here," said a man wearing a hat emblazoned with the new logo, which had been the subject of much consternation from some fans. "It's awesome."
A few years back, after Dominik Hasek left town and the Rigas family lawyered up, but before an owners' lockout wiped out the 2004-05 season and changed the way the game looks and feels, the Sabres would have been thrilled with generating so much noise for a regular season game.
Through most of the franchise's history, few but the most rabid fans even paid much attention to the local entry in the National Hockey League until its National Football League peers finished with their schedule.
Buffalo's run through the regular season and all the way to Game 7 against the eventual Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes and the wildly entertaining fashion in which it occurred changed all that, at least for the time being. Despite a six-season playoff drought, the Bills still do quite nicely at the box office. For the first time in recent memory, though, the Sabres have actually contemplated cutting off season ticket sales if 14,500 are purchased, in order to ensure that some single-game seats remain available.
Winning, of course, has always been Buffalo's best sales strategy. But this edition's fast-paced, team-oriented style has created a connection with fans that never quite clicked even with the best of the Hasek-and-the-rest squads of the late 1990s.
The new game that emerged after the lockout helped, too. If a few dinosaurs still grumble about the extinction of "old-time hockey," which apparently means enough clutching, diving and cheap shot-taking to render the sport unwatchable and ensure an endless series of 3-1 games, they don't seem to roam in Western New York.
As much pleasure as the new NHL provided, it also administered a little pain. General manager Darcy Regier allowed a big chunk of Buffalo's veteran leadership, in the persons of forward Mike Grier and defenseman Jay McKee, to walk in order to remain beneath the salary cap.
Those departures left an already young team even more youthful. Of 45 players on Buffalo's training camp roster, 32 were born in 1980 or later, 16 of them in 1985 or after. Only four -- center Chris Drury and defensemen Teppo Numminen, free-agent pickup Jaroslav Spacek and Michele Strazzabosco, who spent last year playing in Italy with the HC Milano Vipers, have passed their 30th birthday.
Despite the losses and lingering doubt over the future of center Tim Connolly, who is expected to miss training camp and at least the early weeks of the regular season with the effects of a concussion suffered during the playoffs, most of the nucleus of the Eastern Conference finalists remains intact.
The Sabres start playing exhibition games this week and open the real season Oct. 4 on the road against the suddenly hated, or at least strongly disliked, Hurricanes. And for the first time in a very long time, there's good reason to pay attention.
Joe Mesi's backroads comeback continued Friday night at the Little River Casino in Manistee, Mich., where he won all four rounds from Jason Weiss, a veteran kick-boxer who was making just his fifth professional appearance as a boxer.
"He was a survivor-type guy, which makes for a difficult fight," Jack Mesi, Joe's father and manager, told the Niagara Falls Reporter.
The disparity in experience -- the win raised Mesi's record to 33-0 with 26 knockouts -- didn't prevent a tribal boxing commission from sanctioning the bout, nor did the brain bleeds Mesi suffered during his 2004 bout against Vassiliy Jirov, which led to his two-year suspension by the Nevada State Athletic Commission and have prevented him from regaining his license there, in New York and in other states.
"We're not looking at Joe Mesi as a 32-0 contender fighting a 3-1 opponent," Shane Cramptons, a tribal commissioner, told the Grand Rapids Press before the fight. "We look at him as being 3-0 since the injury, and fighting a 3-1 opponent in a four-round fight."
According to ringside accounts, Mesi dominated the early action, then chased a retreating Weiss until late in the fourth round, when he hurt his 6-foot, 5-inch, 236-pound foe.
Mesi, who sustained an abrasion under his right eye that didn't swell or interfere with his vision, according to his father, weighed in at 231, the lightest of his four comeback bouts.
Jack Mesi said Joe's next bout would involve a significant upgrade in both duration and quality of opposition.
"We're looking at a 10-rounder in November," he said. "We've got a couple different deals in the works. I'm not sure which is going to pop.
"It's going to be a legitimate 10-round guy," he added. "Joe's ready, he's been showing us in the gym and this last fight. If he had a bad outing in this one, if we weren't impressed with his movement and power, we'd probably keep him down to a six or an eight."
The Little River Casino is operated, appropriately enough, by the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians.
No word on whether "Reminiscing" or "Lonesome Loser" was played during the evening.
Meanwhile, Monte Barrett, who Mesi beat via 10-round decision in December 2003, is scheduled to challenge Nicolay Valuev, the largest heavyweight beltholder ever, on Oct. 7 in Rosemont, Ill.
Barrett has fought only three times in nearly three years since losing to Mesi via unanimous decision, despite administering the Tonawanda heavyweight's first professional knockdown. After upsetting previously unbeaten Dominick Guinn and stopping Owen Beck, he lost a one-sided decision to Hasim Rahman in August 2005.
That lackluster performance apparently earned him a shot at the 7-foot, 324-pound Valuev, who stopped Beck in three rounds in June to defend his World Boxing Association crown for the first time since winning it from John Ruiz.
Lionell Thompson of Buffalo, the fourth-ranked amateur light heavyweight in the United States, is scheduled to meet seventh-ranked John Moreli of Cleveland in the main event of Saturday Night Fights on Sept. 23 at McKinley High School in Buffalo.
Several Niagara County fighters will also be on the card, including John Harless and Johnny Davis, who are set to square off in a heavyweight bout, and Joshua Susice, who is scheduled to face Rupert Lipkin of Buffalo. Buffalo heavyweight Excell Holmes, ranked No. 2 in New York state, is also scheduled to fight, along with top amateurs from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Canada.
The bouts begin at 7 p.m. Saturday. General admission tickets are $10 in advance and $15 the day of the event, with ringside going for $25. Tickets can be purchased at Northwest Buffalo Community Center or by calling Don Patterson at 400-9697.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | September 19 2006 |