The NHL officially has a plan to resume competition this season, and that means the Buffalo Sabres’ season is officially over. And fans are furious again/still.
The league’s plan to bring hockey back in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic — which led to the NHL suspending its season in March, along with just about every other sports organization — includes a 24-team playoff system, commissioner Gary Bettman announced Tuesday. Although he did not have a date for hockey’s return, he said the regular season is over.
So for the ninth consecutive year, the Sabres barely missed the playoffs, which were expanded in this new setup from 16 teams originally. They finished with a 30-31-8 record and were sixth in the Atlantic Division. Couple that with the team also announcing Tuesday that general manager Jason Botterill, hardly a fan favorite, will return for a fourth season, and fans aren’t happy.
At least one particular fan was so frustrated that they put the team up for sale on Craigslist on Wednesday in search of new owners to replace Terry and Kim Pegula. Here’s the listing description:
For Sale: NHL Hockey Franchise
Team: Buffalo Sabres
Available: ASAP*Lost team with diehard fanbase looking for wealthy owner who actually understands hockey*
Organization on the cheap. Could be flipped. Major structural damage but few core pieces still in tact.
Non-Negotiable Terms:
-Franchise must stay in current city and is ineligible for relocation.
-Immediate family (i.e. wife) is not eligible for internal position within the organization
-Must provide “team puppy”
Props for insisting on a team puppy, but we wish the poster wrote “e.g. husband or wife” instead of “i.e. wife”, which assumes a potential new owner would be a man.
Per The Buffalo News, the person behind the post is a longtime Sabres fan named Jill Thompson, who described the atmosphere around Buffalo hockey when she first became a fan in the 1980s as “a respected and proud hockey community.” But she said the state of the team now is “at a polar opposite of the spectrum.”
Thompson explained to The Buffalo News why she’s attempting to “sell” the team:
“When I post about the Sabres on Twitter, it’s sadly in a negative light and that is because I am upset for the level of disrespect/lack of accountability/neglect of everything down to the smallest details that we are shown from the owners. As one of the most loyal fan bases in all of sports, we deserve better.
“Ultimately the Pegulas are not only giving us a bad name in hockey, they are giving the city of Buffalo a bad name, too. This is what pushed me to find some humor in such a miserable spot and post the ad on Craigslist trying to sell the franchise to owners that care.
“I just moved back a year ago from Charlotte. I’m not a season ticket holder and would’ve considered it this upcoming season had things been dealt with differently by the owners.”
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