It’s hard to argue with how great Terry Pegula has been for the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Sabres. Pegula buying the team and bringing back all the old school nostalgia from the eras of Sabres hockey that fans of all ages can identify with coupled with his emotional outpouring over Gilbert Perreault and just his love for the team are incredible to see in this day and age.
Pegula’s appreciation for the Sabres past doesn’t just apply to the NHL workings of things but if reports are right it also applies to where the future Sabres come from as well.
A report from Buffalo’s WIVB-TV 4 says that Pegula is working on a deal to purchase the AHL’s Rochester Americans.
From the 1979-1980 season until the 2007-2008 season the Americans were the primary affiliate of the Sabres. In 2008, however, things broke down between the Sabres and Americans management and the Florida Panthers took over as the affiliate for the Americans. With the regional ties to the Sabres gone, the quality of play and attendance both dropped off dramatically.
The drop off in everything even inspired the Americans to make a video talking about the good old days and how they’d like to see things go back to that. It might as well have been a love letter to Terry Pegula begging him to buy the team.
With Pegula’s interest in buying the Americans it would almost certainly mean they would go back to being the Sabres affiliate. This was all made possible because the Panthers severed ties with Rochester after this season. The Sabres are currently affiliated with the Portland Pirates in Maine.
It makes sense to go back to a formula that worked so well in the past and helped grow a fan base that stretches across western and central New York and with what Terry Pegula is doing to reunite the past with the present, it will only go to benefit fans in that area who wish to get fully absorbed into the Sabres organization. It hasn’t been so long since the two were united, but it’s safe to say that the Sabres resonated with fans in Rochester a lot better than they did with the Panthers.