The Spirit Catches You, And You Fall Down

[Editor's note: Below, Sip breaks down some of Y2K's 2006 highlights. Enjoy.]

Sorry about the late/short update. I probably should have seen it coming, but Christmas night turned into a bit of drinking orgy at Coles, the local watering hole up here in Buffalo.

I hesitate to even bring this up, but ... you should know -- not for peace of mind, but for whatever the opposite of that feeling is -- what the booze prices here are. They're a little bit ridiculous.

Pitchers of Labatts Blue (the beer of champions) run you a cool $8. Shots are, generally speaking, $3. Car bombs, the staple of 1 a.m. bad-decision-makers, cost only $5.

Did somebody say Canadian beer sucks? This one? Grab that asshole. Oh, you're going to ...

...

Sorry. Flashback there for a second. Whoosh.

That's what happens to you after spending six months in the high-priced heaven that is the isle of Manhattan. These nights in Buffalo start out cheap, but even when the marginal utility of each drink is down around your ankles, the compulsion to take advantage of the prices is quite strong. The end result? Come morning, my wallet is still too light to fathom.

So, that's clearly all to the better.

But amidst the haze of alcohol, cold mist and drunken girls, another picture emerges up here. And that is the scene of a town wild for its team.

Sabres Time, baby. It's taking over.

We all know that feeling. We all remember this fall, not too long ago, when Los Mets took over the city during their magical late-season/playoff fun. We remember the emotions that bubbled up to the surface.

When your team is on a roll, everything seems a little bit brighter to the naked eye. Your life improves in about a million little ways, each almost imperceptible in and of themself but devastating as a collective.

Food tastes better. Beer tastes MUCH better. The newspaper seems to scream "Read Me!" off the rack, daring you to read the latest story about your beloved club.

Well, believe me when I say my hometown is in the middle of a season-long high about our hockey club. To such an extent, mind you, that even the completely awful loss the Bills suffered Sunday at the hands of Vince Young and the Titans couldn't really kill the buzz.

There was booing in the stadium at the coaching idiocy of that affair, which I won't recap here. But on the walk back to the car through the parking lot? "LET'S GO SABRES! (clap clap clap clap clap). The whole way through. I was bummed out of my mind, but the town couldn't help but try to pick me up.

People are excited. Merchandise is flying off the racks. Your Buffalo Sabres are the most exciting thing to hit the ice since a young Scott Hamilton, straight embarassing cats on the nightly. It's a team with no superstars, but plenty of winners.

I think I've already gone on a rant about my boys, but I'm inspired to recap for those of you just joining us from the old site.

To start, there's Ryan Miller, the shaggy young American goalie who takes down high school chicks and rolls with the confidence of the top jersey seller in the National Hockey League. I'm actually not engaging in any Y2K-patented exaggeration when I say that Miller and Cheddar Sam, the official brother of Cheddar Ben, are basically competing for the same 18-year-olds up here. They don't like each other very much.

What this says about Miller, I'm not sure.

There's Maxim Afinigenov, a mulleted rocket and the tricksiest Russian this side of Gorky Park. Every time this guy gets the puck, the arena literally goes silent. He cuts on a dime, weaves in and out of defenders, and is basically unstoppable. This is the guy the new rules were made for.

We can't forget about Little League hero Chris Drury, or wild red-headed terror Brian Campbell (think Chris Chelios meets Byrnesy), or bad-ass winger Jason Pominville, who has his own section of fans up in the 300 level at the HSBC Arena. (They carpet the area with signs that say "Welcome to Pominville.")

I don't expect that Y2K readers should know these guys, or really even need to get into them. Sure, it might be a nice respite from the boring-ass superstars in the Garden, or the burnouts out on the Island, or the slow-rolling train wreck that is New Jersey Devil fandom. But that's clearly your call.

It's just that the spirit is here, and it's infectious. Every game is an event, to the point that I can't get tickets for tonight's game against the Caps and the Sabres' own personal Ivan Drago, Alexander Ovechkin. The bars will be packed. The buzz will be inescapable.

This is fun, and I'm going to miss it when I come back to New York on Friday. But hey, it's the off-season here at Y2K, and there's plenty of room for updates from the other end of the state. We're the big tent party. And there's room for all to play.