Last night, my brother-in-law Casey was in attendance at Game 1 of the Sabres-Flyers NHL playoff series, a double-overtime thriller that the Buffalo News described as “an instant classic that will be talked about for years to come” and “a rollicking contest that included numerous highlight-reel plays, miracle saves, bouncing pucks with open nets and perhaps the most sensational open-ice hit you can hope to see.” Oh yeah, and the home team won, 3-2, to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. (LET’S GO, BUFFALO!) Casey has a post on his blog about the “high honor and distinct privilege” of being at the game.

For Casey, this is perhaps a bit of redemption for missing another “instant classic” just over six months ago. He was originally planning to attend the USC-Notre Dame game last October 15, and I was in the process of trying to get him tickets, when he changed his mind because he desperately needed to study. (Casey is a Ph.D. student in finance at the University of Rochester. He studies a lot.) After watching the incredible drama of that game — one of the greatest in college football history — on TV instead of in person, he concluded that, in retrospect, the only thing that could possibly have justified his decision to opt out of attending would have been his own death. Heh.

Well, last night’s game may not have been one of the greatest in hockey history, but it certainly was memorable. And this time, it was me and Becky who were watching on TV while Casey and his friend Steve experienced firsthand the awesomeness of being surrounded by crowd noise “so loud that my ears would just sort of crack, unable to register anything beyond a certain decibel level.”

That said, we had a great time watching the game, too, albeit not in person. After meeting up with Casey and Steve for chicken wings and beer at Anchor Bar, we went to Marissa’s house (Marissa is one of Becky’s SHA girls) and watched the game on a giant plasma TV in her basement. The atmosphere there was slightly less intense than at HSBC Arena, and the crowd noise slightly less extreme, but it was certainly very fun to watch such a great Sabres game with a bunch of crazy Buffalonians. Needless to say, overtime was very suspenseful and tense, and we all went completely nuts when Buffalo finally won the game.

Actually, you could argue that “completely nuts” is something of an understatement. You see, it so happens that Marissa lives down the street from Sabres center Daniel Briere, and sometime during the second period, with Buffalo nursing a 2-0 lead, someone joked that, if they hold on to win, we should go to Briere’s house after the game and leave a congratulatory sign on his door. I doubt this would actually have happened if the game had ended less dramatically — but when it went to double overtime, and then Briere scored the winning goal, the stalk-Briere plan obviously gained unstoppable momentum, Marissa’s objections notwithstanding. :) So, within minutes after the game ended, Kristy made a sign, and a half-dozen of us — laboring under various degrees of inebriation — ambled down the street, looking for Briere’s house. It took us a while to confirm exactly which one it was (because Marissa wasn’t with us), but ultimately we found the right one, and left him a bilingual greeting:

I hope he appreciated our sign. We certainly appreciated his goal! :)

After the game, while Casey and Steve were making their way down to Chippewa Street, the party at Marissa’s house continued unabated, albeit with less rythmic horn-honking and more of this sort of thing:

And also this sort of thing:

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Heh. That juggling guy ain’t got nothin’ on me! (The sad thing is, I was pretty much sober when the above video was shot…)

More photos of our time in Buffalo here and here. The first page is mostly pictures from the Great Big Sea concert; the second page is mostly us hanging out with the SHA girls.

Oh yeah, and I got some work done this weekend too. Not a ton, but some. Admittedly, going to Buffalo for five days, two weeks before finals, fits in pretty well with thebeef’s comment about “incredibly bad and unheard of choices” that make me “the ‘weather nerd’ in the NYT that we all love to read on a daily basis”… heh. It was totally worth it, though. Now comes crunch time. Tomorrow, I have decided, will be the most productive day of my life. :)

P.S. There is one other bit of news from the Buffalo trip that I’ll be posting about eventually. Stay tuned.

P.P.S. This is the Sabres’ first trip to the playoffs since 2001, which means the last two consecutive Buffalo playoff games have been attended by at least one member of the Zak family. Becky, her parents and I were at Game 7 of the Sabres-Penguins series in ‘01, which Pittsburgh won — coincidentally enough, also 3-2 in overtime. It’s the only NHL game I’ve ever attended, and it eliminated the Sabres from the playoffs, to which they would not return until last night.

UPDATE You can download a video of the final play, with the radio call by the legendary Rick Jeanneret, here. (Hat tip: In da Buff, via BFLOBLOG.) And you can view that “sensational open-ice hit” here.