East Hatred: Buffalo Sabres

With tonight's game against the Sabres we get our next edition of why we should hate this-team-we-barely-know.

With the Sabres comes a team that we have a little bit to build on to get to hatin' them. Mainly due to the bus loads of drunken Sabres fans that have spilled onto Front St. for their few visits to our fair city.

Before we go full on "DIE SABRES!!" this evening, some notes on their fans: These people are loyal to a fault. Unlike some other fan bases that we'll get to later in the season, Buffalo fans don't jump on and off the bandwagon with each win or loss. These people love their Sabres and have for years.

Credit where it's due is over...

Six hours of drinking on a bus for a road game is a lot of fun, I've done it. Buffalo fans have it down to a science and arrive at maximum inebriation an hour or so before puck drop. The last time they visited, it lead to some very interesting, um, encounters in the concourses.

But, drunken visiting fans isn't enough to go full hatred on them. A good start, but every team has drunken fans.

Hating the team itself will take some work, and some time. But, we have a few places to start.

1999's "Toe in the Crease." They didn't call it, changed the rule the following year, and we're still hearing about it 14 years later. It was Game 6, so it wasn't like the Sabres would have skated the Cup that night. Besides, if you're going to be upset about inconsistent officiating in this league, you won't have time to do anything else. No, this isn't a Blue Jacket specific reason to hate the Sabres, more a general thing, but we need something to work with here.

OK, maybe this is a good reason to dislike the Sabres...

Since RJ is now a Blue Jacket, we'll count this as a good reason. Even though...GET YOUR HEAD UP RJ!!! And Campbell is long gone. Either way...that's former Sabre crushing current Blue Jacket, work up some disgust folks.

Finally, the biggest stretch of all to dislike the people of western New York, they were probably the biggest beneficiary of MacLean's bone head draft pick in 2003. You remember the 2003 draft, right? The one where you couldn't make a bad pick? Yeah, that one. The one where MacLean made the brilliant choice of Zherdev. Falling directly into the Sabres lap was Thomas Vanek. You're welcome, Buffalo.

Which brings us to...

TWO captains? Really? This is more of a reason to laugh at them than hate them, but we'll add it to the pile of shenanigans we're compiling here. Why not.

So, easier to hate than the Islanders at this point, but still tough to work up some good bile against the Sabres. This move to the East is going to need some extra help to really get upset with our opponents.

Oh, look, there's the Bruins on the horizon...