mcSabre
June 2nd, 2006, 10:51:48 AM
****Rally puts Carolina in Cup finals
Jim Nesbitt and Toby Coleman, Staff Writers
For the hockey diehards lucky enough to witness the electric madness of Game 7 in person, there were scores of jolting little deaths and sudden revivals.
With every mad rush up the ice by the Canes or Sabres, hopes and fears would rise with the hammering pace of a fan's heartbeat.
With every furious scramble in front of a wide-mouthed goal, anticipation or dread would flood the brain, frozen by slow-moving seconds of blurred ice action and a long-held breath.
Every body-slamming hit brought a roar of delight or indignation.
Every red light and horn blast signaled Armageddon or salvation, doom or rapture.
And when that final horn sounded, only Caniacs felt the renewal of victory, the flush of the Eastern Conference championship and the fresh, bright chance of winning Lord Stanley's battered cup.
"There's a feeling of going forward and not stopping," said Peter Burger, 46, a kitchen cabinet distributor from Greensboro.
His wife, Elizabeth, wearing her lucky white Ron Francis jersey and a temporary Canes tattoo under each eye, had her cap set for future glory.
"I'm ready for the Cup," she said. "We're on fire."
For Sabres fans, with their loud reputation for rude behavior, the end came like the hard and final slam of a jailhouse door.
Game 7 was another sports heartbreak to hang alongside Scott Norwood's wide-right shanked kick in the Super Bowl and Brett Hull's skate-in-the-crease goal that robbed the Sabres of Stanley Cup glory.
"It'll be a long ride home," said Ryan Rooney, 19, of Evans, N.Y. "That's Buffalo sports for you, man. You get so close, but so far away."
'It's our town now!'
In the hours before faceoff, the sun-seared parking lot on the west side of the RBC Center turned into a battleground of woofing and taunting. The combatants: raucous Sabres fans and tame-by-comparison Caniacs.
Sabres fans were the aggressors, hurling beer-soaked boos, boasts and insults from a double skirmish line of cars, sport utility vehicles and pickups, their team banners snapping in the humid breeze like the flags of an invading army.
They could be heard from a long way off, yelling, "Let's go, Buffalo," tapping out a Morse code of car horn honks to match the rhythm of their war chants.
"It's our town now! Let's go, Buffalo," went one battle cry.
As two Sabres fans passed a gaggle of Caniacs, one jabbed a finger at his rivals and yelled: "You guys can't even sell this place out. You're pathetic!"
John Henderson, 35, of Holly Springs eyed the enemy from the shaded safety beside a friend's SUV.
"Those Sabres fans are obnoxious as hell," he said after 30 Sabres stalwarts surrounded and taunted him as he walked through the skirmish line. "They're abused children. I guess I'd be miserable, too, if I lived in Buffalo."
While home-grown Southerners and transplants who have adopted a veneer of Dixie reserve have routinely expressed shock at the rough-talking manners of Sabres fans, few question their long-suffering devotion.
At 2 a.m. Thursday, Sandy Heusinger, 48, was sitting in her home in Angola, a Buffalo suburb, with her daughter, Kimberly, and two of her daughter's friends, Sarah Wood and Ryan Rooney.
They wanted to go to Game 7. They pulled out a 1977 John F. Kennedy half-dollar piece and flipped it three times. Three tails.
An hour later, after borrowing a blue Chevy Cavalier from a friend, Heusinger and her crew were on the road to Raleigh -- a 12-hour trip. Shortly after 5 p.m., Heusinger, a Sabres and Bills season ticket holder, was strolling the skirmish line, a Molson tucked into a Bills Koozie.
"My fate was decided by this coin," said Rooney, who parked the half dollar in the right pocket of his green shorts for good luck.
'A funny seesaw'
First period.
A rocket shuttle between elation and a sinking feeling of deja vu for Caniacs.
Tension City for Sabres devotees.
When the Canes drew their first penalty late in the period, Scott Nixon of Wake Forest had an instant nightmare vision of Game 6 and that overtime loss with Doug Weight in the penalty box.
"I thought -- uh-oh, here we go again," Nixon said. "Penalties are killing us."
For Elizabeth Burger, it was a wild ride of highs and lows.
"It's a funny seesaw of emotion," said Burger, 39, a college volleyball player raised in Florida who learned to love hockey from her husband, Peter, who grew up on Long Island watching the Islanders.
"It's happy excitement when we're at their end and sick excitement when they're at ours. I get knots in my stomach when they're down at our end."
When Mike Commodore rifled in the Canes' first goal, Burger's emotions took an express elevator to the top floor. She hugged her husband and chimed in for Rick Flair's "Wooooooooooo!" as the pro wrestler's image flashed across the scoreboard screen.
Her feeling?
"That we can do this, that we're on fire," she said.
T.C. Assad, a Sabres season ticket holder who managed to go to 22 games this season despite living in Blairsville, Ga., sat with clasped hands and a tight look of pain on his face.
Minutes after Commodore scored, Assad turned his Sabres cap backward, hoping to rally his team.
"It's Game 7. It's hockey in June. It's a warm winter in Buffalo," said the former Marine.
'Low -- very low'
Second period.
The Sabres stormed back, igniting their tense, frustrated fans.
The Burgers plummeted to the basement. The first Sabres goal by Doug Janik, a rocket blast from the right point with both teams playing a man short, was a shock. Giving up a second goal with seconds to go -- a nightmare.
"Dejection. Low -- very low," said Peter Burger, pushing his hand below knee level.
The penalties caused Elizabeth Burger's tension to rise as her spirits fell.
"Once we start, we just keep getting them," she said. "It's hard to relax and enjoy the game when you love your team so much."
For the Sabres fans who dominated Section 317, the sudden comeback, so late in the period, shattered their silence.
With that last-second goal, Sandy Heusinger jumped from her seat, yelling as she waved a white plastic pom-pom over her head, a smile beaming across her face.
Rooney jumped up and down, screaming, "Buffalo!"
"Oh, man -- it was like the adrenaline was rushing and everything else around you," he said, pumping his hands. "It's something. It really is."
'Have a nice drive'
Third period.
First, the early strike by Doug Weight to tie the score. A hint that the Canes were about to live up to their name.
Then came the deluge that drowned the Sabres' hopes. Canes captain Rod Brind'Amour scored the go-ahead. Justin Williams got the insurance.
And all Assad could do was watch his dreams of Sabres glory circle the drain.
When Brind'Amour scored, Caniac Larry Shipp of Cary turned to Assad and said: "That was the game."
He shook Assad's hand. Assad shook his head.
Assad got out of his seat with 14.9 seconds left and headed for the exit.
A Caniac touched his shoulder from behind and said: "Have a nice drive home."
"I will," Assad said. "We've got a good team. We'll be back."
Staff writer Jim Nesbitt can be reached at 829-8955 or jim.nesbitt@newsobserver.com.****
Jim Nesbitt and Toby Coleman, Staff Writers
For the hockey diehards lucky enough to witness the electric madness of Game 7 in person, there were scores of jolting little deaths and sudden revivals.
With every mad rush up the ice by the Canes or Sabres, hopes and fears would rise with the hammering pace of a fan's heartbeat.
With every furious scramble in front of a wide-mouthed goal, anticipation or dread would flood the brain, frozen by slow-moving seconds of blurred ice action and a long-held breath.
Every body-slamming hit brought a roar of delight or indignation.
Every red light and horn blast signaled Armageddon or salvation, doom or rapture.
And when that final horn sounded, only Caniacs felt the renewal of victory, the flush of the Eastern Conference championship and the fresh, bright chance of winning Lord Stanley's battered cup.
"There's a feeling of going forward and not stopping," said Peter Burger, 46, a kitchen cabinet distributor from Greensboro.
His wife, Elizabeth, wearing her lucky white Ron Francis jersey and a temporary Canes tattoo under each eye, had her cap set for future glory.
"I'm ready for the Cup," she said. "We're on fire."
For Sabres fans, with their loud reputation for rude behavior, the end came like the hard and final slam of a jailhouse door.
Game 7 was another sports heartbreak to hang alongside Scott Norwood's wide-right shanked kick in the Super Bowl and Brett Hull's skate-in-the-crease goal that robbed the Sabres of Stanley Cup glory.
"It'll be a long ride home," said Ryan Rooney, 19, of Evans, N.Y. "That's Buffalo sports for you, man. You get so close, but so far away."
'It's our town now!'
In the hours before faceoff, the sun-seared parking lot on the west side of the RBC Center turned into a battleground of woofing and taunting. The combatants: raucous Sabres fans and tame-by-comparison Caniacs.
Sabres fans were the aggressors, hurling beer-soaked boos, boasts and insults from a double skirmish line of cars, sport utility vehicles and pickups, their team banners snapping in the humid breeze like the flags of an invading army.
They could be heard from a long way off, yelling, "Let's go, Buffalo," tapping out a Morse code of car horn honks to match the rhythm of their war chants.
"It's our town now! Let's go, Buffalo," went one battle cry.
As two Sabres fans passed a gaggle of Caniacs, one jabbed a finger at his rivals and yelled: "You guys can't even sell this place out. You're pathetic!"
John Henderson, 35, of Holly Springs eyed the enemy from the shaded safety beside a friend's SUV.
"Those Sabres fans are obnoxious as hell," he said after 30 Sabres stalwarts surrounded and taunted him as he walked through the skirmish line. "They're abused children. I guess I'd be miserable, too, if I lived in Buffalo."
While home-grown Southerners and transplants who have adopted a veneer of Dixie reserve have routinely expressed shock at the rough-talking manners of Sabres fans, few question their long-suffering devotion.
At 2 a.m. Thursday, Sandy Heusinger, 48, was sitting in her home in Angola, a Buffalo suburb, with her daughter, Kimberly, and two of her daughter's friends, Sarah Wood and Ryan Rooney.
They wanted to go to Game 7. They pulled out a 1977 John F. Kennedy half-dollar piece and flipped it three times. Three tails.
An hour later, after borrowing a blue Chevy Cavalier from a friend, Heusinger and her crew were on the road to Raleigh -- a 12-hour trip. Shortly after 5 p.m., Heusinger, a Sabres and Bills season ticket holder, was strolling the skirmish line, a Molson tucked into a Bills Koozie.
"My fate was decided by this coin," said Rooney, who parked the half dollar in the right pocket of his green shorts for good luck.
'A funny seesaw'
First period.
A rocket shuttle between elation and a sinking feeling of deja vu for Caniacs.
Tension City for Sabres devotees.
When the Canes drew their first penalty late in the period, Scott Nixon of Wake Forest had an instant nightmare vision of Game 6 and that overtime loss with Doug Weight in the penalty box.
"I thought -- uh-oh, here we go again," Nixon said. "Penalties are killing us."
For Elizabeth Burger, it was a wild ride of highs and lows.
"It's a funny seesaw of emotion," said Burger, 39, a college volleyball player raised in Florida who learned to love hockey from her husband, Peter, who grew up on Long Island watching the Islanders.
"It's happy excitement when we're at their end and sick excitement when they're at ours. I get knots in my stomach when they're down at our end."
When Mike Commodore rifled in the Canes' first goal, Burger's emotions took an express elevator to the top floor. She hugged her husband and chimed in for Rick Flair's "Wooooooooooo!" as the pro wrestler's image flashed across the scoreboard screen.
Her feeling?
"That we can do this, that we're on fire," she said.
T.C. Assad, a Sabres season ticket holder who managed to go to 22 games this season despite living in Blairsville, Ga., sat with clasped hands and a tight look of pain on his face.
Minutes after Commodore scored, Assad turned his Sabres cap backward, hoping to rally his team.
"It's Game 7. It's hockey in June. It's a warm winter in Buffalo," said the former Marine.
'Low -- very low'
Second period.
The Sabres stormed back, igniting their tense, frustrated fans.
The Burgers plummeted to the basement. The first Sabres goal by Doug Janik, a rocket blast from the right point with both teams playing a man short, was a shock. Giving up a second goal with seconds to go -- a nightmare.
"Dejection. Low -- very low," said Peter Burger, pushing his hand below knee level.
The penalties caused Elizabeth Burger's tension to rise as her spirits fell.
"Once we start, we just keep getting them," she said. "It's hard to relax and enjoy the game when you love your team so much."
For the Sabres fans who dominated Section 317, the sudden comeback, so late in the period, shattered their silence.
With that last-second goal, Sandy Heusinger jumped from her seat, yelling as she waved a white plastic pom-pom over her head, a smile beaming across her face.
Rooney jumped up and down, screaming, "Buffalo!"
"Oh, man -- it was like the adrenaline was rushing and everything else around you," he said, pumping his hands. "It's something. It really is."
'Have a nice drive'
Third period.
First, the early strike by Doug Weight to tie the score. A hint that the Canes were about to live up to their name.
Then came the deluge that drowned the Sabres' hopes. Canes captain Rod Brind'Amour scored the go-ahead. Justin Williams got the insurance.
And all Assad could do was watch his dreams of Sabres glory circle the drain.
When Brind'Amour scored, Caniac Larry Shipp of Cary turned to Assad and said: "That was the game."
He shook Assad's hand. Assad shook his head.
Assad got out of his seat with 14.9 seconds left and headed for the exit.
A Caniac touched his shoulder from behind and said: "Have a nice drive home."
"I will," Assad said. "We've got a good team. We'll be back."
Staff writer Jim Nesbitt can be reached at 829-8955 or jim.nesbitt@newsobserver.com.****