The worst day

It's been hyped as the biggest game of the regular season for the Syracuse Orange, the Saturday tip off against #20 Marquette was scheduled for Noon and a win would pull the Orange closer to an at large bid in the Big Dance. So of course I'm pumped up in an unhealthy way for this huge game, which is the way I usually get for big games, and ready to explode. Just one problem. After watching College Gameday I went down stairs to get some food and came back to see a horrifying sight: Princeton vs. Virginia in some good, old fashioned, college Lacrosse. College Lacrosse? Now I think Lacrosse is a fine sport and all, but I wanted to see some Golden Eagle beat down, not learn how the prestigious Tigers offense works. I switched to every possible channel, even checking CNN [ can you say desperate] , but none of them had my Orange.

After checking ESPN I found that the game had been switched to four o'clock. Why still baffles me but at the time I thought at least I was going to be able to see the game. Then the cable blew. Your first thought when the cable blows out is, why? Why did it blow? Well Ithaca had been hit by its usual storm in March that I call the "What the…?" storm. You have no idea what is coming down other then it is: 1. Wet, 2. Cold, and 3. It comes at the WORST TIME! There is your meteorology lesson for the day. So we had branch that had too much ice on it and fell right on our cable line. Ok I thought, I have 3 hours [this was at One in case that wasn't clear] the cable will be back in time, right? Two o'clock passes, then three, and its almost four and I am ready to explode again but In the worst way. So I try to wait it out, but it's after 4:30 and I still got nothing. The clock finally hits 5 and then after a couple of minutes I do my two minute check of the cable and this time, there is picture! Sound! Color! The 'Cuse! And even better? Syracuse is up 36-31. This is looking good. Then it happens, with about 15 minutes left in the game all Hell broke loose and Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and our whole house lost power. They could prop ably hear my scream from the hill. This had to be a joke right? No cable, ok I could always check the game online, but no power? Now I know how colonial people lived and trust me, when I came out of the womb I did not sign up for that. No where in my contract did it say "must live like we are in the 18^th century" no, never said that. So that was bad enough that I was living in an Amish paradise, but now I had to miss the game? What was worse is for a minute the power kept coming on and off every 10 seconds or so for the first minute. It was as though God was enjoying the sight of me squirming around every time the power came back on just to see me crumble every time it went off.

Then it got really interesting. After some family stories, our power flickered on at about 8. This time it was for more then 10 seconds it was about two minutes, however, my father was in the middle of a interesting story about one of our cousins so I didn't think to get up and check the score of the game. As I was about too, what happened? The power goes off again. Of course. Hey, lets chop of my arm while we're at it! If you have never experienced a power outage, then I envy you. In the modern 21^st century life that we have come accustomed to, it's tough to live without you 40 inch HDTV and your new computer. Much less light and a decent shower.

So I got another quick glimpse of what life is like in Upstate New York. Will it ever change? Of course not, that would be to easy.

Stop this before it goes to far

This has got to stop. Right now, because I can't take it anymore. The greatest tragedy in sports history is about to happen and what are we as Americans doing about it? Nothing, absolutely nothing. And no, I'm not talking about steroids, spygate [ Matt Walsh] or the tennis betting scandal [ who cares? It's tennis!] no I am referring to the Bills possible move to Toronto.

Fooled ya, didn't I? You prop ably though I was going to talk about Roger Clemens or something. Well no, this means twenty times more to me then Roger Clemens ever will. The Buffalo Bills are as good as sold to a group of Toronto based investors as soon as Ralph Wilson decides to sell the team. Are you listening? The Bills could be moving to… gulp, CANADA! Are you kidding me? What did we do to deserve this? This is so wrong on to many levels to mention, but the biggest is the fans. Having a team move is one thing that I will never wish on a sports fan, even those idiots in Boston. No, they don't even deserve this and that is a stretch for me to admit. Especially a team that the town loves the way that Buffalo loves the Bills. It's like taking away baseball from all of America and putting in right smack In the middle of Russia, with teams making brief appearances in China, you take away the Bills from culture in Buffalo and put them in the one place that I don't think any American wants Football. Canada just doesn't play Football, that's the bottom line, end of story. They have their own cute little CFL to keep them occupied between hockey season and Baseball season [ another sport that should not be played in Canada]. They don't need the NFL.

That is beside the point that I would prop ably give a Canadian Football team 2 years before they tank worst then the Sabers did before Golisano came in and fixed things up. About half the city of Toronto will be behind this after the first couple of games when excitement has reached a fever pitch, then will tumble back down. You notice how half of the Rogers Centre is empty and you can hear a pin drop during Blue Jays games? That will be the atmosphere after home game number three I guarantee it. But surely the Bills will find ways to get other fans right? So wrong. The Bills have absolutely no national audience. The fans you see wearing all the Bills gear? From Buffalo/Western/Upstate New York, and trust me, those fans are NOT coming along for the little Toronto joy ride. You move the team and those fans are prop ably moving to a team downstate. Football will not sell enough in Toronto if half the stadium [if you call the "Rogers Centre" a stadium, or public place] is empty. In baseball it works just enough if the team is winning, the Blue Jays have won World Series and in the past years have been decent, but in football you need a packed Stadium to keep your market going strong, and that will not happen in Toronto, a place where once the Maple Leafs begin playing people will be asking how you play football in that town.

What is embarrassing is how much Buffalo loves the Bills. You can't describe it, you just can't. The Bills haven't made the playoffs in this millennium but they still sold out every home game in this past season. They still have that Chicago Cubs view in football. Scott Norwood is the Bill Buckner of football, Steve Bartman has nothing on the "Forward Lateral" of 1999 in Tennessee. Those memories, just gone like that? Something is wrong. People where getting ready to name their kids after whoever was the MVP of the first Super Bowl that the Bills won. Looks like they will have to win one soon. The only thing that even rivals how wrong this truly is, is when the Browns where moved out of Cleveland in 1995. That was just plain wrong, but this makes that look like a visit to the St.Judes Hospital. The Bills are Buffalo, no one cares about us, no one knows about us, but we still BILLieve. That was a bumper sticker I saw visiting my grandfather who lives near Buffalo.

People say "why are you complaining? Toronto is just up the road from Buffalo, you can still root for the Bills." Those people have stable teams in stable towns. Only Bills fans truly know what it feels like, and to have your team being moved out of their town is like having someone go into your bag, steel your iPod, take some money, then throw it back on the ground. The stuff was valuable, sure, but what sucks the most is that someone would have the nerve to go through your stuff, YOUR stuff. You feel violated, disrespected, and just crumby. That is the feeling of every Bills fan right now.

Ralph Wilson, I have a question. What the Hell is going on in that Billion year old head of yours? You want to become the first owner to put a team on foreign soil? Why the Hell don't you think anyone has tried it before? There have been a lot of owners in the NFL that are way smarter then you could ever dream to be and they didn't feel the need to put a team where it will crash and burn. Why do you? Want to screw over the city that has done so much for you? Face it, without the city of Buffalo Ralph Wilson would be nothing more then a dot on the human radar. A nobody in American culture, a nobody in football. He would be just retiring now with nothing to his name. Now he has something to his name alright, a city that has made him public enemy number one.

This next piece is based on strict rumor, but could be very credible. Tom Golisano is a savoir of sorts in the city of Buffalo already. He saved the Sabers from the fate that the Bills might face by buying the team and turning them into a winning hockey team and the toast of the town. In 2006 the Buffalo Sabers where named the greatest franchise in sports by ESPN the Magazine, based on success and fan experience. Now Golisano admits that he didn't know a lot about hockey before he bought the team so he can't take a lot of credit for the winning turnaround, but the fan experience is all him and his staff. Now Golisano was prepared to make the same turnaround for the Bills [scientific studies show that if Golisano bought the Bills he would own 90% of Buffalo and be named mayor the next day]. He, along with Rich Foods, where reportedly prepared to buy the team but according to Golisano, Wilson would not sell the team to any American market for any amount of money because he has had his mind set on moving the team to Toronto for years. Wow, Golisano vs. Wilson round one. Any bets? I got my college fund on Golisano because he was born after the pre Cambrian period. According to this report, the Bills and the city of Buffalo would then go into a exact repeat of the 1995 Cleveland Browns case where if the city of Buffalo built a 60,000 seat domed stadium on Buffalo's waterfront they would get and expansion franchise and the Super Bowl in the future. I've dug deeper and found that almost everyone doesn't believe that the team will go to Toronto anyway, and the repeat of the 1995 Browns situation is even less likely, but I don't care. As long as I don't have to root for the Giants for the rest of my life, I'm good with rooting for the new age Bills, or my old Bills that I have grown to love.

I have herd that Ralph Wilson would never move the team because he "loves the Bills". If he loves the Bills so much, then why doesn't he build a new stadium that would increase revenue and be able to keep the Bills here in Buffalo? Or at least try? Because he has had his mind set on moving this team for years apparently. They don't sign big time free agents, loose star players, and don't even actually play in Buffalo. Maybe a stadium by the waterfront right now would be able to keep the Bills right now. An outdoor stadium [because the idea of having the Bills play in a dome sickens me] would do wonders for the Bills. But Ralph Wilson doesn't want to try keeping the team here. He says he does to stay alive while living in Buffalo [ which is pointless because he could drop dead any second, being that he is 4.2 Billion years old] but doesn't really think that.

Let me assure you no one wants to talk, or think, about this. I don't the NFL doesn't, and any other Bills fan sure as hell doesn't. But this issue needs to be addressed before it is to late. We don't have to go down the Cleveland Browns road. If the fans stay involved, this can end before it starts. Some people say that the situation is beyond saving, all we have to do is BILLieve.