Poor Buffalo. While I cannot say I’ve ever been to the place, it’s hard not to sympathize with its residents - at least from a sports standpoint.
Its NFL team - the Buffalo Bills - have gone from Scott Norwood missing a possible Super Bowl winning field goal* to losing three more Super Bowls in a variety of embarrassing ways to not being anywhere near competitive the last few years. (Let’s not forget the fact that they were the victims of the Music City Miracle as well.)
* - Although I do feel bad for him, because it wasn’t like that was an easy kick by any means.
If that wasn’t enough, their NHL team faced its fair share of crestfallen moments. Of course, there’s the Brett Hull crease goal, but beyond that they’ve dealt with the loss of Dominik Hasek, the too-short career of Pat LaFontaine and the aborted Daniel Briere/Chris Drury era.
In fact, the Buffalo Sabres are facing some bad luck this season too; from the injury of Derek Roy and a tough schedule (more on that later), the 2010-11 campaign seems to fit into the main theme of bad luck in Buffalo.
So this is my (lengthy) way of saying that it’s hard not to rush to the region’s defense when someone bad-mouths it, whether that person has a point or not. Twitter is currently abuzz over comments made by Anaheim Ducks prospect (and native Californian) Emerson Etem toward the host city of the 2011 World Junior Hockey Championships.
Here is a link to his comment and a screen capture of it, in case he decides to take it off Twitter to try to curb the controversy.
Oof, that’s harsh.
While many people are angry - and you cannot completely blame them - keep in mind Etem is young and grew up in the weather wonderland that is California. After all, much older and (you would think) wiser players such as Dan Ellis put their digital feet in their mouths on Twitter too.
That being said, Etem might face the prospect of being booed by local fans, even though he will skate for Team USA. It doesn’t get much odder than that, does it?