The night couldn’t have looked better. No sign of rain anywhere around the track for the first time, probably all season. The pits were filled and from what I saw, the stands were as well.

The night was a little backwards as the two features that got rained out last week were run first, then the heats, and finally all the features for this weeks normal schedule.

The Streetstock 50 lappertook some time to finish as there were several caution flags, which is normally to be expected with this class. Derrick Borkenhagen won this event, inheriting the lead after Gerald Poole slipped up the racetrack and ended in the wall. It was an easy win, however, since not too far behind was Ricky Washburn who was persistent in trying to take over the lead from Brokenhagen. Washburn ended up second followed by Chris Burek, Webb Nashwinter, and Roger Israel.

The first Modified feature of the night caused problems for several guys. Third and fourth place runners Joe Kubiniecand John Miller got together and both had damage, middle of the pack runner Robbie Krull had some minor damage, as did James Michael Friesen and Rick Hoctor. All would make the repairs needed and ran the second feature. Rick Richner ended up winning this feature as starting near the front proved to be the place to be. Not much passing was taking place and Todd Burley, who had been the dominant racer this season thus far, was unable to get up to the front and challenge Richner for the win. Founding out the top five for the first feature were Mat Williamson, Bobby Davidson, Rich Vinson, and Jeff McGinnis.

Heats were ran in a little different order with the Sportsman going first, then the Streetstocks, who were recovering from their 50 lapper, then the normal enders, the Modifieds.

The Streetstocksgot to run two more normal 15 lap features with Dan Rappleyea winning the first and Brandon Sheerwood winning the second.

The Sportsman only got to race one feature tonight, but it was a good one. There were several cautions in this feature as well as the track seemed to be tough to handle for every class. Don Spatorico won for the second time this season after he overtook Steve Miller on lap 16. Ryan Susice and Justin Wright battledhard for second for the last few laps with Susicecoming out the second place winner. The final two in the top five were John Smith and Nate Reynolds.

Around 11p.m. we began the Modified feature. Burelywas unable to win this feature as well and ended with a 6thplace finish after coming in with a flat tire during a caution period. The winner would turn out to be Stewart Friesen, who made his first appearance at Ransomville this season. He took the lead away from Sam Crogan around lap 20, but he didn’t get it without a fight. Croganhad lap most of the laps up til that point and didn’t just roll over and surrender the lead. He was able to hold onto second with Pete Bicknell closing in. Bicknell, Chad Brachmann and Scott Kerwin rounded out the top five.

Racing continues this upcoming Friday with another full night of racing planned. Be there at 7 to see all the racing action.

I have been going to Ransomville Speedway since I was 2 and it’s been the same year in and year out, with just a little variety of the drivers. There is a handful of people that get “special” attention from track personnel. I will not name names, even though some people will know who I am talking about. If these people get involved in an accident or stop on the track because they have a problem, there is an extended caution period.  There could be no cleanup necessary and it takes 3 caution laps to get back to green because the track personnel feel they should wait for the “super star” who is in the pits. Heaven forbid we should go on without him.

It happened tonight, twice that I noticed. One was of one car stopping in turns 3 and 4, getting a caution, and driving into the pits for repair, whatever repair there was. In normal circumstances, like if my uncle were that car, there would be a lap, maybe two, until the green flag was dropped again. They could care less if the car made it back out because he’s not going to be a contender, in their minds anyway. Tonight we had to wait 4 or 5 laps until the “star” got his car repaired, changing a tire, and then once he made it back on the track, the field oculd go back to green.

That makes me extremely upset. There is no reason we should have to wait and watch the cars still on the track go in a slow circle because the “star” in the pits needs time to get his car back to the track. NASCAR doesn’t wait for their star drivers to come back. They take the laps they need to clean up the accident and they go back green. Ransomville will purposely wait and wait and wait until the cars are back on the track. Now this does not work for everyone. If I were to go out and race and had a problem and the caution flag flew, I would have one lap to get into the pits, figure out whats wrong, fix it, and get back on the track. That may be enough time for some, depending on the damage, but not very often does that work.

In my mind, there should be no favoritism to anyone, no matter how famous you are with the fans. I feel that it would make the race more interesting if that so called favorite was not in the race because his crew couldn’t fix his problem in a lap or two. He doesn’t make it back, it’s his own fault and he can’t win. Too bad, there’s always next week.

It’s very possible this happens at other tracks as well, however I am not in the pits when I attend other tracks. I see this happen almost every week and definitely every year since I have been going and sitting in the pits. I don’t know see it stopping, even though it should. There is no room for favoritism on behave of the track in any way, shape, or form and whenever it happens, I will still be sitting in the pits complaining that they need to go back to green because that guy doesn’t need to have the extra laps. If he can’t make it back out, oh well.

I just needed to get that out and I’m sure some people will have a problem with this, but that is the point of blogs. I give my opinion and that is my opinion and complaint of the local racing scene.

In the two Streetstock features, there was plenty of action and cautions, as is almost a guarantee when you race in that class. In the first of two 15 lap Streetstock races Webb Nashwinter had the lead from the drop of the green flag and never looked back.  He was followed across the line by Derrick Borkenhagen, Jared Israel, Dave Conant Jr., and Gerald Poole

In the second feature Ben Harms was the lucky winner because of an unfortunate incident involoving the leaders around the halfway mark of the race. Don Rappeleya and Kirk Sheerwood were battling for the lead when both took a spin that allowed Harms to obtain the lead. He stayed out of trouble sitting in third but with the spins of the leaders, was able to become the fourth different winner in the Streetstock class this season so far. The rest of the top five were Charles Harvey, Jon Richael, Brandon Sheerwood, and Roger Israel

The Sportsman 25 lapper saw Ryan Susice come from the middle of the pack to the front. He got the lead because of  cautions on laps 1 and lap 4 that gave him the opportunity to move up a couple spots both times. Don Spatorico also had to move forward and had a chance with a late caution to move past Susice. The caution bunched up the field and gave him one last shot to get around Susice who had been blowing the field away from the time he got the lead. Spatorico was unable to take the advantage of the late restart and had to settle for second place. Susice held on to win his first of the season, followed by Don Spatorico, Jesse Cotriss, Steve Schumacher, and Nathan Reynolds.

In the Modified 30 lapper, Todd Burley had to come from back of the pack and fight his way to the front if he wanted to win his second of the season. It was a slow process for Burley who inherited the lead with just 1 lap to go overtaking McGinnis who had lead most of the race. A late caution with 5 laps left bunched the field allowing Burley to get right on the back bumper of McGinnis and overtake him in turns three and four and beat McGinnis to the checkered flag. This was Burleys second win in a row. Rounding out the top five was Jeff McGinnis, Robbie Krull, Tommy Flannigan, and Chad Brachmann

There was also a spectator one on one race held Friday night that saw some action with some older vehicles taking on some newer vehicles. A Pontiac Sunfire was able to hold off an SUV and two pickup trucks to be claimed the winner of the seasons first spectator race. The biggest action was seen after the race was over. Two pickup trucks, we shall call truck A and truck B, were on the track trying to beat each other out of the race when truck A slid up into truck B in turn 4. Both trucks received some damage, truck B more noticeable then truck A. From where I sat, I got a front row seat to see the damage with the driver’s side door not being able to be opened and both right side tires were flat. Now keep in mind that the vehicles that are driven in the spectator races are normal everyday vehicles that you and I would drive, no special motors, no crash guards, no roll bars. Driver of truck B was not very happy with the driver of truck A, who also received minor damage to the right front bumper of his truck. After truck A was done with his next race he returned to the pits and saw a fist in his face by the driver of truck B, who was then escorted out the pits to a waiting sheriff. All was resolved when the driver of truck A had left the track but there was some pretty exciting moments when non racing people try to get angry at each other for a racing incident. When all was said and done, the driver of the Pontiac Sunfire was to be crowned the winner.

Patrick Kaleta returned to action tonight after missing the last 22 of 26 games due to a neck injury. Not even half way through the first period Kaletagets right into the action by fighting with Dan Carcillo. Carcillothen got tied up with Nathan Paestchfor a “fight” with 3:24 left in the first. The scuffle started after the whistle near the boards and before any punches were even thrown, the refs were in breaking the fight up. Each player received a 10 min misconduct penalty as well as a 2 minute unsportsmanlike and 2 minute roughing penalties.  The first period was otherwise uneventful with no goals for either team.

The second period was good for the Sabres, scoring two goals and Phoenix scoring none even though they had several power-play opportunities. At 4:21 in the second period Tim Connolly pushed the puck past Ilja Bryzgalov to score his 9th goal of the season. Vanek and Rivet got the assists and the Sabres were on the board. The Sabres second goal came on a nice pass from a falling Roy to Paille who whipped a great shot past Bryzaglov.  It was Pailles 5th goal of the season and his first since December 22 against Pittsburgh. The second period ended with the Sabres up 2-0.

The 3rd period was also uneventful and the game ended 2-0 with the Sabres giving Phoenix a three game losing streak and their second shutout game in a row.

The Sabres next opponent, Anaheim Ducks, are sitting 5th in the Western Conference points standings. The game is the last of the Sabres west coast swing and then they will finally be home for a few games. Join MSG on Monday night at 10pm for the Sabres v Anaheim game and hopefully we can gain another 2 points and gain more ground on Philadelphia who sits currently in 6th with 61 points. The Sabres are 7th with 57 points.

1st period recap: The game has gotten off to a good start, Drew Stafford scored 10 seconds into the game off a pass from Thomas Vanek right off the opening faceoff. Just a minute and 1 second later, Nathan Paetsch scored his first goal of the season to make it 2-0. The Sabres only had three shots on the net and had already found the back with two of them. At 10:17 of the period Derek Roy scored his 19th of the season to make it 3-0. Dwayne Roloson was then replaced by Jeff Deslauriers, whom has not played since Nov. 30, a loss to Dallas.

2nd period recap: Just 2 minutes into the second and Jochen Hecht gets his 6th goal of the season to put the Sabres up 4-0. The Oilers received a 4-mintue powerplay, thanks to back to back penalties to Roy and Craig Rivet. Ryan Miller stops all shots on the first penalty kill, but with 22 seconds left in the second penalty, Eric Cole scores his 12th of the season to get Edmonton on the board and cut the Sabres lead to 3.  Less than a minute later, Buffalo goes on the powerplay and Tim Connolly gives Buffalo the 4 goal lead back with his 6th goal of the season.  Buffalo now holds a 6-1 lead when Vanek scored his 29th of the year off a tip-in from Rivet. Now on the powerplay again, Jaro Spacek scores his 2nd goal of the year and makes it 7-1 with one minute left in the period.

3rd period recap: With eight minutes left in the third, Buffalo goes on another powerplay and Stafford scores his second of the night of some great passing by Kotalik and Gaustad. The Sabres are now up 8-1. Less than a minute later, Stafford gets a hat trick and makes it 9-1 with seven minutes left. With a little over two minutes left, Edmonton gets themselves a second goal to leave the game with a little bit of dignity. With one minute left, Connolly scores a short-handed goal on a great two on one with Hecht. The Sabres are now up 10-2.  The Sabres are going to end the game with two men in the box and a score of 10-2.

Overall I thought the game was a little boring. It was very on sided, shown by the lopsided score, there was no real intensity, no real big hits, and for watching on TV, there was no excitment. It was a good game to watch on tv, as long as you are a Sabres fan, but not having Rick Jenarette or any of the normal MSG broadcast group, it was a little boring to watch.

The Sabres next game is tomorrow night, Wed Jan 28, aganist Calgary. Calgary is coming off a shoot-out win aganist Columbus prior to the All-Star break. They are 28-14-4 on the season and sitting third in the Western Conference standings. The Sabres are now 25-18-5 and still sitting seventh in the Eastern Conference, four points behind sixth place Philadelphia. The game starts at 8pm on MSG.

Now for yesterdays game. It was a fairly good game to watch with some good goals, plenty of hits, and some better goal-tending by Miller. Matt Ellis even stepped up his game and recorded two goals because of it. Now Matt Ellis had been a decent addition to this team since he has arrived. He has not been a major player in the points department but he has made some decent plays to help get some offense going. Today was just his day to get points and he helped the team win with his two goals. The goals started at 3:20 into the game when Henrik Tallinder shot the puck from the point that Ellis poked into the net. Thomas Vanek added a powerplay goal 1:48 later when he redirected Derek Roy’s shot from the point, giving Buffalo a 2-0 lead. Boston came back with a power play goal at 10:46 and cut the lead in half before Ellis scored his second of the night and brought the Sabres back to a two goal lead.  Boston scored one more time at 9:51 in the second, but Paul Gaustad scored three minutes later to get Buffalo back to a two goal lead once more. Many Buffalo fans had reason to worry in the third since Buffalo has been known to blow leads. They were out shot 11-2 in the third, but Miller make some outstanding saves to keep the game at 4-2.

The win today snapped the Bruins 10 game win streak, which has included beating some pretty tough teams in Atlanta, twice, Carolina, twice, and Pittsburgh, twice. The Sabres needed this win to show that they can still compete with the best teams in the league.

Two days ago, Lindy Ruff changed several players locker stalls to try and shake up the team. They have yet to experience the change since they have been on the road, but it seems to have had some affect. However, if they can continue to charge to the net, get good scoring opportunities, and Ryan Miller can keep making saves, this team should be able to pick up some points in the next few games.

The Sabres next game is at home on Tuesday against the Ottawa Senators who lost their game last night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. In their last 10 games, the Senators are 3-7-0 so this should be an interesting game. If you can recall, the first time we played Ottawa this year, the were riding a losing streak and they ended up beating us. Hopefully this time we can keep their losing streak going. Ottawa is also playing the New Jersey Devils today with the current score, at time of posting, being 1-1 at the end of the 1st period.

The game itself was just boring to watch. The fans were not into this game at all and it didn’t seem like any of the players were either. Both teams were skating slowly, not taking a ton of shots, and all-around didn’t look like playing.

The Sabres had terrible passes, not so good opportunities and a defensive side that let up two goals.

They have now lost two in a row and seven of their last nine. What needs to change? The players are here to stay for the next couple years and they need to learn to get back to the winning we all know they can do.  Is Lindy Ruff losing his good coaching? Do we need to change the coaching staff and get someone new in here that can put a spark underneath the team and get us winning again? I think we just need to get back to basics and not try to be to fancy. Shot the puck and work from there. More often than not you will get better scoring opportunities by just shooting at the net than trying to be fancy and work around the defense that are standing in the way. The Sabres have forgotten that and are getting fancy and losing the puck before they can get a shot on net.

Our next three games are not going to be easy and are all on the road. They travel to Florida, 9-11-3, on Thursday, Tampa Bay, 6-10-7, on Saturday, and Pittsburgh, 14-6-3, on Monday. These next three games will tell a lot of the Sabres chances for this month to better than the last.

The Sabres suffered two losses in back to back games this weekend and are now 8-3-3 on the season. Friday night at home against Atlanta ended in a disappointing overtime loss. A 5-4 game that saw the Sabres leading 4-3 after the 2nd period, just didn’t end how they wanted. Eight minutes into the 3rd period, Todd White scored his 4th goal on the Power Play for Atlanta, giving them the tying goal. Again on the Power Play, Jason Williams scored his 5th goal 48 seconds into the overtime period. On an up note, Max Afinogenov finally broke through and scored his first goal of the season and Thomas Vanek now has twelve.

Saturday nights game ended just as dissapointing but Buffalo never had much of a game. Leading 1-0 after the first period on a goal by Tim Connolly, his first of the season, the Bruins answered with three and never looked back.

Withthe losses this weekend, the Sabres are now tied withBoston, 19 points, for the lead in the division. Montreal is a close thirdwith 18 points.  

Luckily the Sabres have a few days to regroup until their next game on Wednesday against the St. Louis Blues. Buffalo is 4-2-1 at home, while St. Louis is 1-3-1 on the road and has a record of 5-7-1 on the season.

On Saturday, I got a chance to see my Alma Mater Oswego State hockey play at Buffalo State College. The Oswego State Lakers looked a bit sluggish from the drop of the opening puck and it showed when the Buffalo State Bengals took a 2-0 lead into the third period. However, since I had gone to Oswego for three years and watched many hockey games, you could not count out the Lakers just yet. With 1 min and 33 seconds left in the third period, the Lakers trailed 2-0 and were on the hunt for at least one goal. Junior Tyler Lyon, grabbed the puck and put it into the net and scored the one goal we were all looking for. With 1 minute left, the Lakers had six players on the ice with our goalie out of the net and were just throwing pucks left andright at the Bengals goalie. With 19 seconds left, the Bengals received a minor penalty for slashing and the Lakers had a 6 on 4 opportunity. Senior Ryan Ellis took advantage of this opportunity and scored with just 13 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime. The Bengals took another unfortunate penalty in overtime to give the Lakers another Power Play chance and with 1:30 left in overtime, Sophmore Chris Laganiere put the puck in the net and the Lakers won! Freshman goalie, Paul Beckwith stopped 18 of 20 shots to win his third game as a starting goaltender this year and the Lakers are 3-0 in SUNYAC play and 5-1 overall. The Bengals are now 2-2 in SUNYAC play and 3-5 overall.

I knew never to fully count out my Lakers and I knew that once we scored that one goal, we would have a chance to come back and beat the Buffalo State Bengals.

With the break every team has for the next couple days, maybe this will be a better week for the Buffalo Bills and Sabres.

Speaking of getting better, I am very surprised by the play of Thomas Vanek. Last year was a very upsetting year, especially because he was payed so much money and he didn’t do very much, not even close to what he could do. This year he is recording at least a point a game, and has a goal, regulation or shootout, in every game so far, including in back to back games, getting a short-handed goal. Vanek has been playing much better as a whole and being a much better line-mate than last year.

The one player I’m still waiting for is Max Afinogenov. He is all over the place, playing once again, like he is the only player on the ice. Instead of making a pass to a wide open player, he decides to dance around with it and nine times out of ten, he loses the puck that way. He does have four assists, which is more points than some players have, but he is one of three players with a minus rating already in the season. I don’t like the way he plays from time to time and he makes me nervous when he has the puck because you never know what he is going to do with it. There were talks of trading him, and then they didn’t, however there still is the trade deadline in a couple months. If his play continues to fumble, I would hope the Sabres would take the incentive and trade him for someone who can perhaps be a little more useful.

Overall last nights game was a little boring to watch in the first period. Boston had played the night before but they didn’t look tired at all. Buffalo looked more sluggish than Boston, and they had a couple days off. The game became progressively better as it went on and going to more than three shooters in the shootout is always fun to watch.

The Sabres next game is against the Minnesota Wild in Minnesota. The Wild are 4-0 on the season and haven’t played since Saturday, winning 1-0 in a shootout against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Sabres will then travel to Colorado on Saturday and return home to play the Ottawa Senators for their game against their rival team.

Ok so this is probably my favorite time of the year. Yea the weather is getting colder and it’s going to snow soon but it’s Hockey Season. Now I am not going to claim to be the biggest hockey fan, because a lot of people say that, but I will say that I love hockey. I especially love the Sabres, of course.

Now it all started when I was little and my brother decided that he wanted to play hockey. He had played for years and the family went to almost every game and we traveled quite a bit for tournaments. That was my favorite part actually. We got to go to new places, sometimes, and hang out with all the other hockey families and, of course, watch some hockey. We made a lot of trips up to Oswego and I ended up going to college up there, not because of the hockey, but it was a nice bonus.

So now that hockey season is here, I will declare this my favorite time. Now I didn’t get to watch the opening game, due to my last racing weekend, but that’s okay because I get updates and that’s all I really need. I watched bits and pieces of the game against the Islanders and I finally got to watch all of the game against the Rangers. Surprising to me is Thomas Vanek’s play, 2 short-handed goals, who would have thought. Vanek already has 5 goals and we have only played 3 games, his play is a lot better than last  year. As for the overall team, they looked very sloppy in the first period last night. The puck was bouncing everywhere, nobody looked like they knew where to go, and the Rangers scored first. That goal must have struck some kind of nerve because they started to come on strong after that.

Starting with 3 wins is a great way to start a season, but lets not forget that there are 79 more games to be played and we are going to lose some. It is good to know, however, that Lindy Ruff has trust in new backup goalie Patrick Lalime. He got to play in the second game and he looked good, nice to know that we have a decent backup. There is no reason that Miller needs to play as many games as he has and we have the backup support he needs. It was only one game for Lalime, but if he gets to play more and plays like that, there is no reason he can’t play against any team, like Ottawa or Toronto.

My other second favorite, racing, is now over, but hockey has begun and lets up that this year, we can keep watching into June.