Puck Stop	Tom Golisano, Where Are You? by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

Dear Tom,

We have been covering your team here at Artvoice for three seasons now, since the lockout ended. We have been fans of the team and season ticket holders for far longer than that. We cheered on the Sabres from our seats in section 11 in the blues for many a season at the Aud, and switched over to section 113 in our new digs in 1996, where we have been ever since.

We voted for you when you ran for governor; we bought into your vision for New York and your commitment to put an end to the “three men in a room” form of governance. When the Sabres struggled through bankruptcy, we rooted for you and your ownership proposal while the Republican power structure dissed you. Once the franchise was securely in your hands, we felt confident that a bright future for the Sabres in Buffalo was assured.

Since you’ve owned the team, this community has responded and then some. We have snapped up tickets in numbers not seen since the 1970s. We have set records in team merchandise sales. Some might even say that somewhere along the line this city turned from a Bills town to a Sabres town. The success on the ice and realistic dreams of a Stanley Cup these past two seasons has captivated this community and made our spirits soar.

And that is what makes the events of the past eight months so hard to digest and so impossible to understand.

While other media outlets ostracized you and your executive management, we watched in silence while you allowed co-captains Chris Drury and Daniel Briere to leave for lucrative deals elsewhere. We accepted your explanations at face value. We assumed there was a plan. After all, the franchise had made it to the NHL’s “final four” on four occasions in nine seasons. Why wouldn’t we believe?

This season we have watched a Presidents’ Trophy powerhouse morph into one of the league’s also-rans. Could the departure of two players really make such a difference? We don’t buy it. In recent weeks, we have seen contract negotiations between the team and Brian Campbell turn public and tense, and visions of Briere, Drury, Jay McKee and others dance in our heads, and we ask: Why does it always have to come to this?

We understand the economics of the sport pose a burden on franchises like Buffalo. We have traveled to all of the NHL arenas, and last week we visited the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. You can’t touch a season ticket in the lower bowl there for less than $78 and $98 per game per seat. Other peer NHL cities charge similar eye-popping prices. By comparison Sabres season tickets are a screaming bargain.

But the NHL salary cap isn’t going down. The league is flush with higher revenues this year, primarily because the six Canadian teams are benefiting from a strong loonie. Under the current CBA the threshold for free agency goes down by yet another year. With that in mind, shouldn’t the front office be taking such forecasts into account now to make long-term strategic personnel decisions?

We’ve interviewed some of your players and have asked them if the Drury/Briere fiasco and the Campbell negotiations are having an effect on the psyche of this team. To their credit, nobody is biting, and to a man they all say the politically correct things. But just spending media time with the team at morning skates, practices and after the games, it’s easy to see that things aren’t like they were in that clubhouse. There is a lethargy, a lack of enthusiasm, a going through the motions that was not evident in previous seasons.

The recent 10-game winless streak was downright embarrassing. Sure, Coach Lindy Ruff made an accurate assessment when he said, “It was an ugly streak, but it wasn’t an ugly effort during that streak.” Sounds good, but at the end of the day this team is still near the bottom of the standings in the East, and on the outside looking in come playoff time. “Lack of ugly effort” doesn’t win you a prize.

So with all this going on, our question is: Tom Golisano, where are you?

Your players and your coaches need to hear from you. They need a vote of confidence that you have a commitment (sorry for paraphrasing your predecessor) to provide the tools to finish the job. Our marquee players will stay if they see an organizational commitment to keep a winner together here in Buffalo.

Your customers, especially your season ticket holders, need to hear from you. Buffalonians are rabid and passionate sports fans, but they can also be fickle. At this point last season, all regular season game tickets were sold out. Here it is mid January, and single game tickets are still available for certain games. We would hate to see the sellouts and strong ticket demand come to an end.

Your fans, your customers and your players are ready to follow, if you are ready to lead. Where are we at, Tom, and where are we heading? Is there a plan? Talk to us.

From the lower tier in the pressbox and from section 113,

Andrew Kulyk and Peter Farrell