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for August 2010
 As we get later into summer and the nights are starting to cool down, the Bisons are starting to turn up the heat. The Herd continued on their recent hot streak by defeating the Columbus Clippers 6-2 tonight at Coca-Cola Field.
While the Bisons earned the win tonight for their third straight over the IL’s West Division leader, they didn’t need a nine-run inning or a walk-off home run…they just needed the right arm of Dillon Gee.
Gee who made his 23rd start of the season this evening gave his ballclub an excellent showing in his 7.1 innings. In his outing today Gee (11-7) gave up only five hits and two runs for his 14th quality start this year. He is now tied with Pat Misch for the team-lead in quality starts and leads the team with his eleven wins.
Continue reading ‘Bisons Win For Seventh Time in Eight Tries’
 Day nine brought a new face to Buffalo Bills Training Camp. CJ Spiller has finally arrived and the crowd was excited. He came out of the locker room to cheers and the fans were watching his every move. It was nice to see him on the field. The coaches didn’t hesitate to throw him right into the action, using him at RB and punt returner. As for the rest of the team, they started practice a half hour late and finished a few minutes early as Chan Gailey decided to give them a little break. They worked hard all night and spent time on the usual drills, including the 7-on-7, 11-on-11, punt returns and the 2-minute drill.
As always, the team spent a lot of time on the individual drills. I focused on the Quarterback passing drills. They worked with the wide receivers and tight ends for a while and then later with the running backs. Trent Edwards threw the best passes of the 4 quarterbacks. He was connecting with Lee Evans and Steve Johnson every time. He also threw a couple passes to Shawn Nelson and Jonathan Stupar, who continued his solid camp by catching everything thrown his way. Brian Brohm showed nice zip on his ball and connected with Steve Johnson a few times too, although some of his passes were a little low. Ryan Fitzpatrick looked alright, but he did overthrow CJ Spiller in the running back drills. Kawika Mitchell was the best defensive player out there. He made several big hits, including one on Joique Bell as a welcome to the NFL, rookie.
Continue reading ‘Bills Training Camp Report For August 6′
 It was the day eight of the Buffalo Bills Training Camp and the first full week of practice is now complete. The team continued to practice in full pads and work harder than they have worked in years. This is truly a different camp from what we are used to seeing. There is a lot more work on individual drills, plus more one-on-one teaching by the coaches. The players are also a lot more focused. As always, the team spent time working on the 7-on-7, 9-on-9, and the 11-on-11 drills. The team also worked on special teams drills, including kickoff coverage and line blocking on punts.
The players started out the day right away like they usually do by working on gap assignments and doing a quick walk-thru. Following the walk-thru, the team split into the individual units and worked on their own drills. My focus was the Defensive Backs and the Linebackers vs Running Backs/Tight Ends. The Defensive Backs started out practicing route running and working on footwork drills. Next, the players practiced catching balls from the jugs machine. For the most part, the players caught everything thrown their way. But, Ashton Youboty dropped one and also misjudged one. Ellis Lankster dropped one that was right off his fingertips. Drayton Florence also had one that he misjudged and couldn’t catch the ball. On the positive side, Terrence McGee timed his jumps perfectly and caught everything. Reggie Corner had a couple nice leaping catches. Leodis McKelvin also hauled in a few high ones. After the players were done with this drill, they worked on one-on-ones against eachother.
Continue reading ‘Bills Training Camp Report – August 5, 2010′
It only seemed like forever, but the C.J Spiller/Buffalo Bills saga has come to an end. ESPN’s Tim Graham reports that Spiller and the Buffalo Bills agreed to terms on a five-year, $25 million deal, that could turn into maximum value of a $37.5 million based on escalators and incentives. Of that money, $20.5 million is guaranteed.
John Clayton of ESPN first reported the imminent signing earlier this morning, reports that Spiller is en route to Buffalo to put fresh ink on the contract and could report to camp as early as this afternoon. The Bills next practice is tonight at 7PM, making it very likely Spiller will be on the field at Growney Stadium, which will please a fan base that has been extremely quiet through the first week of camp.
This leaves Seattle’s Russell Okung as the only unsigned player from this April’s NFL draft.
Spiller has missed eight days’ worth of training camp practices. Pat Kirwan wrote yesterday at NFL.com that the Bills have installed 65 percent of their offense to date, so the dynamic rookie out of Clemson has a lot of catching up to do. The team has a practice closed to the public this morning.
Once Spiller’s signing becomes official, the team will need to free up a roster spot to stay at the league’s maximum of 80 players.
(Brian Galliford of Buffalo Rumblings contributed to this report.)
 After a week of Buffalo Bills training camp, I’ve put together a list of observations based on what I’ve seen with these critical brown eyes, as well as what I’ve been told by people I trust.
These are in complete random order— and certainly not in any pecking order of importance. I also jotted these down quick and are in no kind of mood for a spell and grammar check— so deal with it.
◊ I could be wrong, but I really think 2008 second round draft pick James Hardy’s roster spot could be in jeopardy. Stevie Johnson has looked good as a number two. Marcus Easley is definitely going to get playing time, even as a rookie. The staff seems determined to do something Dick Jauron and Co. couldn’t do—find smart ways to use Roscoe Parrish. That’s four receivers right there. Chad Jackson is having a solid start to camp, and David Nelson is a serious contender for an opening day roster spot if the team keeps six receivers. That being said, competition at this position definitely will be most heavily based on the preseason. There’s a lot left to be determined of course, but I do not like Hardy’s chances right now. His high draft pedigree means nothing to this staff.
Continue reading ‘Bills Training Camp Observations’
 Former Canisius College basketball player Frank Turner (Atlantic City, N.J.) has signed a professional contract to join Eiffel Towers Den Bosch, a professional team that plays in Holland in the Holland-Eredivisie. Turner signed a one-year deal with the team that finished third in the league’s standings last season.
“From an individual standpoint, Frank has accomplished many things in a relatively short amount of time,” Canisius head coach Tom Parrotta said. “He has earned two college degrees, he has his name splashed throughout the program’s record book and he has become the example for every student-athlete that comes to Canisius College from here on out. It is very simple – get a great education, play your heart out on the basketball court and be a solid individual off the court. Frank accomplished all three of these things and then some. I’m extremely proud that Frank has realized his dream of playing professional basketball and I feel he will do very well at the next level. I am very anxious to follow his pro career.”
Continue reading ‘Former Canisius Star Turner Signs Pro Deal in Holland’
Buffalo Sabres GM Darcy Regier announced today the Sabres have re-signed restricted free agent defenseman Marc-Andre Gragnani (Gruh-na-nee) to a one-year contract.
Gragnani (3/11/1987, 6’2”, 201 lbs.) spent the 2009-10 season with Buffalo’s AHL affiliate in Portland, scoring 43 points (12+31) in 66 games. His 12 goals were third among AHL blueliners, and he was 11th in defense scoring. In addition, six of Gragnani’s 12 goals were scored on the power play. In three AHL seasons with Portland/Rochester, the 23-year-old has 146 points (35+111) in 220 games. He has also played in six NHL games with the Sabres during this time.
Gragnani was drafted by Buffalo in the third round (87th overall) of the 2005 Entry Draft.
 ◊ Adam Schefter of ESPN was in town Wednesday at Buffalo Bills camp. He files this report on the team.
◊ Bills.com has all the details as the team officially released nine-year veteran Aaron Schobel yesterday.
◊ Brian Galliford of Buffalo Rumblings doesn’t think it’s quite time for the Bills to panic over C.J. Spiller not being signed.
◊ Sal Maiorana of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle writes that Jarius Byrd is hoping to be even luckier than last year.
Continue reading ‘The Daily Links – August 04, 2010′
 The University at Buffalo held its annual football kickoff luncheon on Wednesday at the Millennium Hotel. Head Coach Jeff Quinn as well as senior cornerback Domonic Cook and senior nose tackle Anel Montanez addressed the largest luncheon audience since its inception.
Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard was the keynote speaker for the event. Howard was a teammate of UB athletic director Warde Manual at Michigan and is now a college football analyst on ESPN’s popular College GameDay show.
Continue reading ‘Howard Highlights UB Football Media Luncheon’
 Time is running out to enter your team in Buffalo’s largest street hockey tournament! The ninth annual Buffalo Sabres Street HockeyFest presented by HSBC Bank is all set for the weekend of August 21-22, and limited spaces remain in all age groups. The newly-expanded two-day event runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day on the streets surrounding HSBC Arena. Last year’s tournament featured 186 teams with almost 1,000 participants.
The street hockey tournament is open to boys and girls ages 5-17 at a cost of $125 per team. Each team consists of up to five people and all teams are guaranteed three games. Each team member will receive a HockeyFest hat and t-shirt. Trophies will be awarded to the champions of each division.
Continue reading ‘Deadline Approaching For Sabres Street Hockeyfest’
 Five alumni will be inducted into the Dr. and Mrs. Edmond J. Gicewicz Family UB Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, Sept. 17 in the UB Center for the Arts Atrium on the North Campus. In addition, three others will receive honors for their support of and service to the UB athletics program. The induction ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. followed by a dessert reception with open bar at 7:30 p.m.
Turner Battle, BA ’05, of Amherst, NY, the most decorated of all UB basketball players in the Mid-American Conference, was its player of the year his senior season and an Associated Press Honorable Mention All-American. During that 2004-05 campaign, the Bulls finished with a 23-10 record, were beaten by one point in overtime by Ohio in the MAC Championship game and advanced to the second round of the NIT Tournament. Battle averaged team-highs of 15.5-points and 4.4 steals and logged the most minutes (1,160) by a Bull during a single season. Additionally, his leadership on and off the court was immeasurable, leading the Bulls in scoring his last three seasons and finishing his career with 1,414 to stand fifth on the all-time list. He also topped the Bulls in assists all four years and in steals for two. In 2003-04, he was chosen a MAC second-team pick after earning honorable mention as a sophomore and all-freshman in his initial campaign. When his career ended, he was among the top five in eight of 11 categories.
Continue reading ‘Battle Among Five Going Into UB Hall of Fame’
 ESPN’s Adam Schefter is in Pittsford today on his training camp tour covering the Buffalo Bills, and is reporting that the team will release veteran defensive end Aaron Schobel on Wednesday. Once that happens, Schobel will be an unrestricted free agent.
Schefter also reports that Schobel plans on continuing his playing career, and will begin talking with teams “soon.” Of course, the Houston Texans were the first team mentioned.
Unless the Bills decided that they wanted to do Schobel perhaps the biggest favor of his life, I don’t get the logic behind this decision. As an unrestricted free agent, the market for Schobel’s services could be significant, and Buffalo didn’t technically have to do anything with him. On the Reserve/Did Not Report list, he didn’t count against the team’s active roster, and the team could have left him there indefinitely. Schobel could have forced the team’s hand by reporting, but he told BuffaloBills.com on Monday that he wouldn’t pursue that course of action. It’s unclear whether the team would have had to pay Schobel while on the DNR list, which might have been a factor in the decision.
Schobel was due to make $8.28 million in 2010, and any team that would have traded for Schobel would have had to take on that salary. That fact alone makes it highly unlikely that the team would have been able to swap him for even a very-low-round draft pick. Still, it’d have been nice to see them try. If it wasn’t clear Monday, however, it’s certainly clear now – Schobel’s career in Buffalo is over.
(Brian Galliford is the leader of Buffalo Rumblings, the best Buffalo Bills’ fan site on the web, period. He’s generously allowed us to run his positional breakdown series. You can see this series as well as countless exclusive news and columns by clicking here)
 Douglas J. Gladstone, the author of A Bitter Cup of Coffee; How MLB & The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees A Curve, will read excerpts from his book at Talking Leaves Books on Friday, August 20, 2010 beginning at 5 P.M. Mr. Gladstone will also take questions from the audience and sign copies of the book for all those individuals who purchase it that afternoon.
With a foreword written by the Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist, Dave Marash, A Bitter Cup of Coffee tells the true story of a group of former big-league ballplayers denied pensions as a result of the failure of both the league and the union to retroactively amend the vesting requirement change that granted instant pension eligibility to ballplayers in 1980. Prior to that year, ballplayers had to have four years service credit to earn an annuity and medical benefits. Since 1980, however, all you have needed is one day of service credit for health insurance and 43 days of service credit for a pension.
Here’s, in part, what the Midwest Book Review had to say about the book in its official review, which was published nine weeks ago:
Continue reading ‘Gladstone to Read Excerpts at Talking Leaves Books’
 The Jamestown Jets announced they will be holding a pair of evaluation camps in preparation for the 2010-2011 season. The camps will be held in Buffalo, NY at the Amherst Pepsi Center on August 11 and August 18. Each session will begin at 7:30 pm. and will conclude at 9:30 pm.
The Jets will have successful players from the past in attendance to take the ice with the camp participants. Some of the players expected to be at the camp include, Tyler Underhill (NAHL – Texas Tornado), Tyler Nelson (OJHL – Trenton Golden Hawks/Robert Morris University), Sean Cirbus (Northfield Prep) and Mike Robertson (St. Mary’s University – NCAA Div. III) . The Jets will also have current contracted and invited players on the ice to participate.
Continue reading ‘Jamestown Jets to Hold Evaluation Camp in Amherst’
 Buffalo Sabres GM Darcy Regier announced the Sabres have agreed to terms with unrestricted free agent defenseman Shaone Morrisonn on a two-year contract.
Morrisonn (12/23/1982, 6’4”, 217 lbs., shoots left) has spent the last five seasons with Washington. The 27-year-old was consistently among Washington’s leaders in hits and blocked shots throughout his career, including 163 hits and 104 blocks last season. In 418 career games with Washington and Boston, Morrisonn has 70 points (10+60), 423 PIMs and is a plus-36.
A native of Vancouver, BC, Morrisonn was originally drafted in the first round (19th overall) by Boston in the 2001 Entry Draft. He was traded to Washington in March 2004 in the deal that sent Sergei Gonchar to the Bruins. Morrisonn played his junior hockey with the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers.
 As evidence that the Buffalo Sabres and owner Tom Golisano are trying to save money any way possible, the team has shockingly waived forward Tim Kennedy, just days after he was awarded a one-year, $1-million dollar contract through arbitration.
In a report by Bucky Gleason of the Buffalo News, Kennedy’s agent expressed shock over the move.
“It makes no sense to me,” said Allain Roy, Kennedy’s agent to Gleason.. “You’ll have to talk to Darcy on that one. It’s an enigma to everybody in hockey.”
The move can’t be salary cap relate. Buffalo was close to $9 million under the $59.7 million salary cap before Kennedy’s arbitration reward.
He was also improving on the ice. Kennedy had 10 goals and 26 assists as a rookie last season. He was also one of Buffalo’s few bright spots among the forwards in their first round playoff loss to Boston this spring.
Couple that with the fact that he’s a hometown boy, and there has to be more to this story than meets the eye. Releasing Kennedy after his arbitration merely to save the organization money will turn a lot of fans against the organization.
We’ll await more details and an explanation from Darcy Regier. He’s unlikely to speak until after the waiver period ends Tuesday at noon. At that time, it appears the Sabres will buy out Kennedy’s deal and he’ll become an unrestricted free agent.
The Sabres haven’t made any official announcement. In fact, the only news currently released were highlights from Patrick Kaleta’s Beach Volleyball event this past weekend on Sabres.com.
Stay tuned.
 Some random observations through the first half-week of Buffalo Bills training camp, based on what I’ve seen and heard:
◊ The consensus around people covering the Bills is certainly surprise regarding Aaron Schobel. Four days ago it appeared imminent that Schobel would return to the Bills sometime within the next 7 to 10 days, especially after multiple reports, including here that he was looking for a rental in the Orchard Park area. I’d love to be a fly on the wall to hear what conversation took place between Buddy Nix and Schobel’s representation over the weekend to suddenly flip to this conclusion. Nix and Chan Gailey has maintained a patience approach with Schobel since OTAs several months ago. Now, only four days into training camp Nix announces in essence the team is wiping their hands with him. It’s interesting to say the least.
Continue reading ‘Bills Training Camp Observations’
 The Buffalo Bills moving on without Aaron Schobel. GM Buddy Nix made the following statement to the media this morning:
“Aaron has been contemplating retirement for the past seven months, but we are at the point where we are moving forward and have informed his agent of our plans. Aaron has been a very good player for the Bills and we wish him and his family the best, but there comes a point where we have to move forward and that point is today. We are focusing on the team’s best interests.”
Things seemed in place for Schobel to return as of late last week. NFL.com’s Jason La Canfora first reported that Schobel was seeking out rental space in the Buffalo area, and later we reported that Schobel was going through the same real estate company that originally sold his home last April.
Continue reading ‘Nix Says Bills Moving On Without Schobel’
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