As I was driving to work today, I was listening the soundtrack from the Broadway musical "Beauty and the Beast". As my favorite song from the musical came on, "If I Can't Love Her" which is song by the Beast, I started to sing along attempting to imitate the Beast's baritone singing voice. I also starting developing a mini-crush on the Beast just by listening to his beautiful voice sing such beautiful words. When I arrived at work, I immediately googled who played the Beast in the original production of the musical and I found out his name was Terrence Mann. Having no idea who that was I decided I needed more information on him and I needed to see what he looked like. I imagined he was about 6'2", dark hair, gorgeous eyes, great physique, around 30 years old. I sort of imagined him as a dark haired, young looking Simon Baker. I went to IMDB.com and discover that Terrence Mann is quite talented with two Tony award nominations under his belt, one for Beauty and the Beast, the other for Les Mis. He also has done extensive work in television and movies. I checked his birthday and well, he is certainly not the age I imagined him to be. He's actually the same age as my dad..... hmmmmmm.... I also found a picture of him and well to my dismay his looks aren't what imagined either.....Oh well, luckily I only had about a 30 minute mini-crush on him. He's not bad looking for an older gentleman, he's just not my type. But he is quite talented and he still has an amazing voice!
After my little bout of a disappoint on my mini-crush for the day, I checked out my usual sites, e-mail, facebook, myspace, sabres.com, letsgosabres.com, etc. As I was reading this off-seasons transactions on the homepage of letsgosabres.com, I began to smile. It makes me feel good inside that we've resigned such players as Paul Gaustad, Ryan Miller, Clarke MacArthur, and Daniel Paille and that they have chose to stay in Buffalo. Being a native Western New Yorker, it means a lot when the players, coaches, and administrative staff of the Sabres or Bills take pride in being apart of their organization and our city. Buffalo fans are always proud of the Bills or Sabres no matter how they play. Where else can you find a city where you mention the Sabres or Bills and almost every knows the result of the game just played or has a favorite player on the team? An example of this is, one day when I was teaching my Level 2 tap class (ages 6 - 10 year olds), I wore my Sabres Hoodie, and my little tappers went wild. One of my 6 year olds with curly blonde hair and big blue eyes told me, "Wyan Milla is my favowite! Oh, but I like them all! But I weally like when they go 'WYAN MILLA MAKES THE SAVE!!!'" Another student likes Max Afinogenov, because he's so fast and another likes Derek Roy, because he's such a cutie. Yes, one of my 2nd graders referred to Derek Roy as being such a cutie. We had to spend 10 minutes of the class, listening to everyone's favorite Sabre. I was little bummed when my little dancers didn't like my answer as to who my favorite Sabre was. One of them responded with saying, "He doesn't count. He's the coach". Apparently, they don't have the same respect as I do for Lindy Ruff. Who I believe not only is an outstanding coach, but a respectable person. He truly seems to care for his players and the Western New York community. I also love how he doesn't patronize his players. If they were playing bad, he says they were playing bad, if they deserve praise, he gives them praise. I really hate excuses in life, I watch other coaches press conferences and I hate how they try to place the blame on other people and circumstances other than themselves. If your players were playing poorly or you made a bad coaching call, own up to it. Everyone makes mistakes in life, that's how you learn. That's why I like Lindy, if his players weren't playing well, he says it, if he feels he made a bad call, he says it. I like honesty and I have a feeling Lindy is a very honest coach with his players.
So, back to those off-season transactions, I am very happy with the decisions the Sabres organizations have made this off-season and I am even more excited with the players who have decided to come back. Not only are those players outstanding on the ice, but they are off the ice and in the community. I mean seriously how many hockey organizations say that their goalie has created his own ice cream flavor? I think Buffalo is the only one with that honor.
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