A few years back, I was watching “The Sabres show,” which was a show about nothing ( No, not like Seinfeld). The 30-minute telecast was produced by the Sabres for one season, which offered the viewer incite into the way Ales Kotalik played pool and what sort of food items the Harbor Club had on sale. During this particular episode, there was an interview with Tom Golisano. Now, the interview went on for like 15 minutes, and, of course, there was about 3 minutes worth of hockey talk involved. All Golisano talked about was his charities and what he does away from arena. Um, yeah, it was real hard hitting stuff. Anyways, towards the end of the interview, Golisano spoke about one of his favorite movies of all-time, which happened to be one of my own, which was The God Father.
Well, I can only guess what Tom’s favorite quote from that movie must have been, because it pretty much became his company line for the way he ran the Sabres:
“It’s nothing personal, it’s just strictly business.”
Yeah, that about sums up Golisano’s reign as the owner of the Sabres. A guy who was in it to make a quick buck, and probably didn’t care much about winning a cup like the bartender on Elmwood Avenue or the nurse working at the VA Hospital. It was all business when it came to Tom.
I can’t tell you how happy I am for being able to write this post. I’ve said it so many times before, but I loathe Tom Golisano and Larry Quinn. I think they have been the biggest crutch for the Sabres. You can set your clock to about every six months in which we would scratch our head at the incompetence of ownership. And so, this is my ode to Tom Golisano.
Misconceptions
Now, that we are at the end of the Golisano era in Buffalo sports (God, it feels so good to say that), we are all going to hear a lot of BS from Sabres apologists in the media and from the Sabres themselves. We will here Lindy Ruff talk about how dark and scary the bankruptcy years were. Mike Robitaille will talk about how he was scared that checks were going to bounce. I’m sure we will all sorts of exaggerations, from the team bus running out of gas because they couldn’t afford to fill it; to Larry Quinn and Tom Golisano slicing the tires of the moving trucks heading to Portland or Mexico City, or whatever the hell city some apologists would like to believe the team was heading to.
Look, there is no way in hell the Sabres were on the verge of folding or moving. Here’s why:
1) Buffalo has always been a rich market when it comes to hockey. There’s a reason why fans get so up and arms about uniforms and what not, it’s because of the Sabres tradition. From the 70’s with the French Connection, to Pat LaFontaine and Alexander Mogilny in the early 90’s, to the Strongest Work Force unit of 1996, there was always a fan base. Sure, after the lockout, the fanfare increased dramatically. However, prior to the lockout, the Sabres were doing OK at the gates. Plus, being 10 minutes away from the Canadian border sure does help.
2) Where the hell were the Sabres going to move? It’s the NHL, people. This isn’t the NFL, where cities like LA are building stadiums, so that a team may pack up their crap and leave. The only two cities that are begging for a team are Hamilton and Winnipeg; cities that the NHL wants no part of.
3) By some accounts, New York State picked up a huge sum of the tab for the purchase of the team. They wanted the team to stay in Buffalo. That’s probably the biggest reason why Golisano bought the team, because NYS would be picking up a large chunk of the debt. I’m sure if some other buyer came in and wanted to move the team, NYS would have said get lost. I assure, the Bills are in more danger of moving than the Sabres ever were. Someone was going to buy the team eventually because it was too good of an investment to pass up.
Rigas was a crook, but…
Look, I must warn you, some of you may think the next part of my post makes John Rigas look like George Steinbrenner. Of course, he wasn’t. Rigas was a crook. A man who treated Adelphia Cable as a piggy bank where he can take as much money as he pleased. He let down a lot of people in Buffalo. Hell, the was suppose to build an Adelphia Tower in downtown Buffalo that was going to create a bunch of jobs. Pretty much, he was expected to be a savior to Buffalo. In the end, he was a fake and a criminal.
However, up until his moment of disgrace, the Sabres were far from that. Hey, I didn’t hate Rigas until I found out he was a crook. You could make the case that the Sabres of the late 90’s and early 2000’s were as successful on the ice as the Sabres were under Tom. Rigas owned the team from 1996-2002. In those 6 seasons, the Sabres made the playoffs five times, including two Eastern Conference Finals and one Stanley Cup Appearance. Now, it wasn’t all roses during that era. There were some head scratching moves (The Mike Peca Contract was the biggest one). However, it really wasn’t all that bad. As I documented when I was doing my Darcy Regier posts from last week, under Rigas, the GM made a lot of nice moves at the trade deadline, which ended up really helping the team in the playoffs. You really didn’t hear all that much about management sticking their nose in Darcy’s business (Besides the Peca deal).
Look, I bring all this up because we are going to hear a whole lot of propaganda about what really happened prior to Golisano buying the team. I can already predict what the focal point is going to be at the news conference on Thursday. It’s going to be how this team was a disgrace prior to Tom buying it. That John Rigas was a boob and that the Sabres couldn’t compete.
All I know is this, from the end of the 2002 season to about March of 2003, the Sabres didn’t have an owner and were owned by the NHL. Under the NHL’s watch, the team acquired Jochen Hecht and Daniel Briere. I don’t know about you, but I’d take that sort of player acquisitions for a calender year. Bottom line: I seriously doubt that the NHL was going to let player checks NOT clear. Maybe I’m painting too nice of a picture of what the Sabres were like under Rigas, but I think it’s more realistic than what we are going to hear from the Sabres about how Tom was a godsend to WNY.
Why did Tom buy the team?
Do you honestly think that Tom Golisano really cared about saving the Sabres? Do you think he really cared about buying the Sabres because he wanted to bring a Stanley Cup to Buffalo? I have already gone over the sweet deal that Golisano was getting from the Gov. and creditors, but the other reason had to do with political clout. Prior to owning the Sabres, Tom Golisano was nothing more than a glorified politician, who didn’t add up to much when it came to being a factor in Albany. He was like the 3rd string governor candidate. The Levi Brown or Enroth if you will. He ran for office 3 times and finished a distant third in the ballot each time.
Tom didn’t get respect.
The only way he was going to get the recognition that he desired, was if he was positioned to be the savior for the Sabres. It’s funny, because when Golisano decided to buy the team, there was a ton of hype surrounding it. And honestly, it kind of resembled what fans are feeling right now with Terry Pegula. Here was this Billionaire coming to Buffalo, and some even said that he had a reputation of George Steinbrenner as a no non-sense guy. Well, I guess they were talking about the guy who played Steinbrenner on Seinfeld.
Anyways, From 2005-2007, there wasn’t a photo opportunity that Golisano would turn down. I swear, I think it was a MSG rule for Golisano to be shown at every single Sabres game…and he was. He was at the arena more so than Jim Lorenz or Tim Connolly. He was always giving interviews to the Buffalo News and to the local affiliates. He was worshiped, and at the time, I was one of those worshipers. He loved being the focal point of attention. If he ran for Governor in 2006, he could have very easily carried WNY without spending a single dollar on the campaign trail for that region. Bottom line: He bought the team because of an investment and political love.
When did it all go wrong?
I could easily go into preambles about 7.1.07 and the other countless blunders by the Sabres management. However, the one thing that always pissed me off was how the Sabres would always lie to the public. Every time I heard a Larry Quinn interview, I wanted to bathe in the same water that John The Baptist hung out in when he blessed all of Jerusalem. It was just an icky feeling. From the mulligan comments, to top-to-bottom evaluations, to wanting to win 15 Stanley Cups, to bad mouthing the spending habits of big market teams, it was just such crap. Then, every year, we’d have a Night at the Opera at those tear jerking year end press conferences. From Darcy having to drink water to stop from crying, to Larry Quinn mentioning some stupid stat about injuries and pucks being shot on net, it was just such a major turnoff.
And where was Tommy G?
Ah, you see, once the sh#t hit the fan regarding the summer of 2007, Golisano, being a former politician, did what they normally would do in a scandal: He went hiding. No more interviews, no more friendly waves at Sabres games, and more importantly, no more interest. You see, Golisano wasn’t like a Mark Cuban or Jerry Jones, who had dreamed about owning a sports team, he just wanted to be respected. And once he lost it, he pretty much decided to get as far away from the product as possible and have Larry Quinn mail him his check every month or whatever payment method they had.
He stopped caring, people.
If he put in the energy like he did into his political campaign (BTW, he spent 93 million of his own dollars on his three campaigns), the Sabres may have won those multiple cups that Quinn was talking about. Bottom line: He stopped caring and I stopped caring about his punk ass.
Some credit
I’ll make this short: I give the Sabres management a ton of credit for getting the most out of WNY when it came to spending money. From fan fests, World Juniors, Winter Classics and new jerseys, they always knew how to exploit the hockey product to WNY. The would always give us something to buy. Those guys could market snow suits in Florida. They struck while the iron was hot.
Also, from what I heard from Golisano’s mouth, Jim Basile wanted to buy the Sabres for over 200 million, but because Jimmy wanted to move the team to Hamilton, Golisano said no. Of course, I’m sure the NHL would have not allowed the Sabres to move because they hate Hamilton. Also, he is selling the team to someone who really wants to win. That sale is the main reason why I think some fans will stick up for him.
Frankly, I think the Sabres picked this year all along to sell the team. World Juniors reportedly put 10 million bucks into the Sabres pockets. It was the last big investment for the Sabres without really doing much in return for it. Bottom line: They squeezed this orange of all the juice it had, and the only way they were going to make more money is if they actually gave long-term deals to players who weren’t making 3-4 million bucks a year.
So who saved the Sabres?
Um, we did.
First off, our taxes went into Golisano’s discount to buy the team. So, as far as I’m concerned, I own a portion of the team. Secondly, we were the ones that rallied around those teams after the lockout. We are the ones that made the slug jerseys the hottest selling item in hockey. What made those two years so special for me was how the fans worshiped the team. I’ve seen the Sabres as a success story before, but I’ve never seen the fans rally around the team like they did during those years.
I can’t prove it, but I think judging from management’s decisions after the summer of 2007, I think they just lucked into those teams. Please, tell me what sort of move by management after 2007 would tell me that I’m wrong? They didn’t make a move that changed the make-up of the franchise for the better. They were dumb to be blunt. I really don’t think Golisano or Quinn had much to do with building those teams after the lockout. They were just at the right place and at the right time.
In closing
Yes, I’m probably being really harsh on Tom Golisano. However, when you sit there and weigh out the negatives and positives that Golisano has brought to the Sabres, to me, it’s far more negative. Now, I know some of you will email or tweet to me that Golisano saved the team from bankruptcy. Maybe you’ll send me some Forbes magazine article, talking about how the Sabres don’t make as much as the larger market teams.
All I know is this, if Tom Golisano lost 10 million dollars each year he owned the Sabres, he would still make money off the sale of the team. So, don’t give me the whole, “He has to right to make a profit” crap, because in the end, he knew he was making money at the end of his ownership. Lets not forget that he bought this team with about 5% of his wealth. So, lets not act like he was the nerdy founder of Facebook, who put everything he had into this product.
In the end, if you like Tom Golisano, it’s going to be because you think he saved the team. To that, I say, did you ever hear Senators fans claiming that their owner saved their team from bankruptcy? I don’t hear it. It’s all small town attitude if you really believe Golisano saved the team. It’s like people wanting to believe in Santa Clause or World Peace.
Maybe you’ll be happy with him because he’s handing over the keys of the franchise to Terry Pegula, who resembles Kyle Petty, while Tommy represented Miss. Daisy. For me, I think of Golisano as a transition owner, who bought the team for political clout and a major return on his investment. I never once thought the team was in danger of leaving. As far as I was concerned, NYS and the NHL did just as much to keep the team in Buffalo as Tom Golisano did.
I know on Thursday, his press conference is going to consist of how he saved the team and that we should all be thankful that the team is never leaving WNY. Sure…Use old reliable against us. You know, the rhetoric that WNY should be so lucky to have a sports team. That’s the main reason why fans (The few of them) like Tom, it’s because they have been duped into thinking this team was going to die without him.
As I wrote before, I’ve always loathed ownership, and they have somewhat clouded my judgement with this team. I could never get over seeing our Stanley Cup team become mediocre because of a 2nd rate politician and a land developer. I wanted to enjoy last year’s run, but I couldn’t fully wrap my hands around them, because I knew the owner was trying to pick pocket me. I just never trusted him or Quinn. Honestly, they are the main reason why I’ve been so angry towards the Sabres at times.
Once the Pegula news became official, I’m going to be able to turn over a new leaf with this team. I won’t be as big of a cynic as I was for the last five years. I won’t think there is some sort of hidden agenda when it comes to signing players. I won’t have to hear about Larry Quinn and his Mulligans. I don’t have to read about management buying out players for 200K. Hell, maybe we will get a road post game show!
It’s going to be a fresh start for me. It’s time to actually have an owner in Buffalo whose goal is to win a cup. A head of the family, who is going to make a Free Agent an offer he can’t refuse. An owner who will put a horsehead in Tim Connolly’s bed because he sucked a$$. We deserve that dedication.
I don’t need a savior with this team. I just want someone who cares as much as I do. Tom never got that, and that’s why he’s not a friend of mine.
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