Chris Brown (Flower Mound, Texas/Univ. of Michigan) scored the lone goal for Team USA, as the U.S. National Junior team dropped a 4-1 decision to Canada in the semifinal round of the 2011 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship before a sellout crowd of 18,690 at HSBC Arena.
The U.S. will play for a medal for the eighth time in nine years when it faces Sweden Wednesday (Jan. 5) at 3:30 p.m. EST in the bronze-medal game.
“Our players are working hard as individuals, but we didn’t come together as a team,” saidKeith Allain, head coach of the U.S. National Junior Team. “We’ll have a good practice tomorrow and will prepare to play for bronze on Wednesday.”
In a rematch of last season’s MAAC Tournament semifinals, the Niagara men’s basketball team was defeated by the Fairfield Stags, 70-48, on Monday at the Arena at Harbor Yard.
Niagara (3-12, 0-3 MAAC) managed to slow down conference-leading Fairfield (10-3, 3-0 MAAC) in the first half by controlling possession, which limited the Stags offensive possessions. The Purple Eagles, however, were unable to take advantage as their season-long offensive struggles continued.
The Stags went on a 16-4 run midway through the first half to build a 23-9 lead with 3:46 left. Niagara finished the half trailing by 16 and with season-lows in points (14) and field goal percentage (16 percent).
The University at Buffalo men’s basketball team closed out non-conference play with an impressive 78-66 win over Cornell at Newman Arena on Monday night. The Bulls shot 53 percent from the field to defeat the three-time defending Ivy League champ and improve to 8-4 on the season.
The Bulls did most of their damage inside of the arc, making 19 of their 25 two-point shots (76 percent).
Early on, the Cornell defense keyed on Zach Filzen and held the Bulls’ leading scorer to four first-half points. Sophomore Tony Watson proved to be a spark off the bench with nine first-half points on three consecutive three-pointers that turned a tie game into 26-17 Buffalo advantage. Watson finished with a career-high 11 points and the Bulls held a 36-27 lead at the break.
The Buffalo Bills 2010 campaign mercifully came to its conclusion Sunday with a 38-7 drubbing at the hands of the New York Jets. It’s already been rehashed all over the internet that the Bills ran for the bus instead of standing up to fight back against a bunch of Jets backups, so I won’t do a lot of piling on.
I’m not going to nitpick at Buffalo’s 12th loss because frankly, I wanted the Bills to lose. In no way, shape or form did I feel that beating what amounted to a Jets JV squad would be more beneficial than moving up in the draft. As a result of the debacle the Bills will pick third. Had Buffalo won they would’ve fallen to seventh.
Color me happy.
Anyway, here’s a few observations about the game and several more about where the future of this organization may be going.
We’re journeying today on a series of the best… and worst of Buffalo Sports Daily circa 2010. Kicking things off today is what we deem our five best stories of the past year.
I’d like to assume we’ve had more than five meaningful stories over the past year, but these are the one I both enjoyed writing the most and received (generally speaking) the most positive feedback from.
Before commencing on our pats on the back, it’s definitely worth noting we’re highly conscious of dropping the ball more than a couple of times (but not as many as Stevie Johnson). We fully intend on taking pokes at ourselves multiple times over the coming days, as you’ll see.
Here’s a little “Did You Know” to get your Monday morning started. Did you know that if the Super Bowl had commenced two years earlier, Buffalo would have six, not four Super Bowl appearances to their credit?
The very first Super Bowl was played in 1966, matching the champions of the NFL against the AFL. Prior to that each league had their own separate championships. In both 1964 and ‘65 the Bills won the AFL championship.
Had the Super Bowl started two years ago, Buffalo would’ve faced Cleveland in the very first Super Bowl. The following year it would’ve been Buffalo against Green Bay.
While it was a depressing year for football if you’re a fan of the Buffalo Bills, a few native Western New Yorkers made it a memorable season overall. Five former area stars made it to the league as rookies… two of which are quickly becoming household names.
Buffalo-born former Riverside High School star Mike Williams had a superb rookie campaign for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The fourth-round pick had 11 touchdown receptions in his first year; the most by a NFL rookie since Randy Moss grabbed a rookie record 17 with Minnesota in 1998.
Williams finished the season with 65 catches for 964 yards.
It was an equally impressive year for former Williamsville product Rob Gronkowksi. The New England rookie caught 42 passes for 556 yards and 10 touchdowns. The 10 scores are the second most in NFL history by a rookie tight end, behind only Mike Ditka, who had 12 with the Chicago Bears in 1961.
Football fans, Buffalo Bills ones in particular, can now officially start the annual NFL draft speculation and endless annoying mock drafts.
When the 2011 NFL draft commences in April the Bills will be on the clock with the third overall pick.
At 4-12 the Bills finished with the same record as Cincinnati, but Buffalo wins the tiebreaker by virtue of strength of schedule.
The Denver Broncos will pick second overall and the Bengals will select fourth.
Buffalo had a chance after losing to the Jets Sunday, 38-7 to move all the way up to the second pick behind Carolina. But the Broncos blew an early lead and lost against San Diego. The Bengals entered today ahead of the Bills in the tiebreaker race, but wins by Indianapolis, Houston and Oakland swung things the Bills way. Had Denver won the Bills would’ve had a coin flip with the Bengals for the second overall pick and Denver would’ve fallen to fourth.
The Bills have never had a third overall pick in franchise history. They’ve had the first overall pick four times and used those opportunities to select O.J. Simpson, Walt Patulski, Tom Cousineau and Bruce Smith.
With their 4-1 quarterfinal win over Switzerland today, Canada has advanced to the semifinal round of the 2011 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship. They will now face the defending champion United States team tomorrow night at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, NY. Game time is 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are available for $140 (lower bowl) and $95 (upper bowl). Tickets can be purchased online at www.buffaloworldjuniors.com, by calling 1-888-467-2273, or at the HSBC Arena Box Office.
The winner of tomorrow’s USA/Canada game will play for the gold medal on Wednesday night at HSBC Arena. Only single seats remain for the gold-medal game. Finland and Russia play in tonight’s second quarterfinal beginning at 7:30 p.m. The winner moves on to play Sweden at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow afternoon in the first semifinal game. Tickets are still available for this game.
The Bills went into the New Meadowlands Stadium Sunday afternoon against a New York Jets lineup missing both their starting running backs, both Pro-Bowl cornerbacks and both starting safeties. They also took the field without their starting right tackle, their Pro-Bowl center barely played a quarter and the starting quarterback played all of one series and didn’t throw a single pass.
It meant absolutely nothing.
Buffalo couldn’t have scripted a more pathetic ending to their desolate 2010 campaign. Even with a slew of New York backups playing the majority of the game, it was men against boys as the Bills were thoroughly spanked in grand fashion, 38-7.
The Buffalo Bills just announced that Brian Brohm will get the starting nod at quarterback this afternoon as the Bills finish the season off against the New York Jets.
Ryan Fitzpatrick will serve as the third/emergency quarterback. Levi Brown will backup Brohm. Fitzpatrick tested his injured knee this morning but couldn’t move laterally enough to satisfy the coaching staff.
Fitzpatrick finishes the season with exactly 3,000 passing yards, 23 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.
This will be Brohm’s second career start for the Bills. He started last year in Atlanta when the Bills lost to the Falcons, 31-3.
Other Bills inactives this afternoon are David Nelson, Donald Jones, Ed Wang, Kellen Heard, Colin Brown, Mike Caussin and John McCargo.
This afternoon is the final time the Buffalo Bills will hit the field the field in 2010 and for safety Donte Whitner, it’s likely to be the last Sunday he puts on a Bills uniform.
Whitner is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent following the season and according to both reports and Whitner himself, the sides aren’t even in the same ballpark on an extension. Reports have the two more than $2-million apart annually in negotiations with Whitner wanting top-five safety money, about $7-milllion per and the Bills offering in the neighborhood of $5-million.
Sunday morning Whitner himself seemed resigned to the fact his time in Buffalo is probably ending. If you read between the lines, he said as much on his twitter.
If you didn’t get a chance to catch the Buffalo Sabres thrilling 7-6 shootout victory over the Boston Bruins Saturday night, here’s the shootout in its entirety posted on Youtube by a fan.
All three Sabres shooters scored and Tyler Ennis’ goal was of the highlight reel variety. Also, notice the quick stare down Ryan Miller gives Zdeno Chara after stopping him to preserve the win.
The Buffalo Bills close out the 2010 season this afternoon with a trip to face the New York Jets. A significant chunk of the game’s luster was lost last week when the Jets backed into the playoffs following Jacksonville’s overtime loss to Washington. At 10-5, the Jets are already locked into a wild-card spot, making this contest have all the makings of a late preseason confrontation.
While the contest means zilch to either team in regards to the standings, don’t tell any Bills player their last Sunday rendezvous of the season is meaningless. It’s also the 100th regular season meeting between the two and even if it costs them draft position, Buffalo desperately wants to end their disappointing campaign on a winning note.
Despite their overall struggles in recent years, Buffalo has had success playing the Jets on the road. They’ve won three of their last four meetings at the New Meadowland Stadium, walking away victorious in 2006, 2007 and 2009.
If Drew Stafford could face the Boston Bruins every night, he’d be hockey’s next $100-million dollar man. For the second time this season Stafford scored a hat trick against Boston, with the last coming in the final 27 seconds to send the game into overtime with an extra attacker.
If that wasn’t enough, Stafford kept the magic going shootout. So did Thomas Vanek and Tyler Ennis and fortunately for Buffalo, Ryan Miller concluded his worst night of the season by stopping nemesis Zdeno Charo to preserve a wild 7-6 victory in front of a frenzied HSBC Arena crowd.
Derek Roy who? The Sabres improved to 2-1 since their best offensive player left the lineup with a quadriceps injury that will force him to miss the rest of the season.
A day off at an international tournament comes along as frequently as soft goals and cupcake opponents, which is to say not very often.
When it does, the smart coaches know how to take advantage of it and use it as a steppingstone to bigger and better things down the line.
It’s a good thing this isn’t Keith Allain’s first rodeo. The three-time coach of the U.S. National Junior Team knows what works and what doesn’t in a short tournament like this.
Early this morning Shawne Merriman hinted on his twitter that “exciting news” was coming for Buffalo Bills fans. While it’s debatable exactly how enthused fans really are about him, the Bills announced that they’ve signed Merriman to a two-year extension that will keep him in Buffalo through the end of the 2012 season.
According to contract details via ESPN, Merriman is guaranteed $2.5-million for 2011 and the contract will average $5.25-million per year over the two years. Merriman also will have playing time and performance clauses in his contract that if reached could increase the total of his deal to over $9-million per season.
Merriman was claimed off waivers by Buffalo in November but never played a down. He was injured just 20 minutes into his first Bills practice (Achilles) and was eventually placed on Injured Reserve. In essence, he earned about $1.8-million for roughly a half-hour of work— not a bad gig.
Chris Brown (Flower Mound, Texas/Univ. of Michigan) scored the lone goal for Team USA, as the U.S. National Junior team dropped a 4-1 decision to Canada in the semifinal round of the 2011 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship before a sellout crowd of 18,690 at HSBC Arena.
In a rematch of last season’s MAAC Tournament semifinals, the Niagara men’s basketball team was defeated by the Fairfield Stags, 70-48, on Monday at the Arena at Harbor Yard.
The University at Buffalo men’s basketball team closed out non-conference play with an impressive 78-66 win over Cornell at Newman Arena on Monday night. The Bulls shot 53 percent from the field to defeat the three-time defending Ivy League champ and improve to 8-4 on the season.
The Buffalo Bills 2010 campaign mercifully came to its conclusion Sunday with a 38-7 drubbing at the hands of the New York Jets. It’s already been rehashed all over the internet that the Bills ran for the bus instead of standing up to fight back against a bunch of Jets backups, so I won’t do a lot of piling on.
We’re journeying today on a series of the best… and worst of Buffalo Sports Daily circa 2010. Kicking things off today is what we deem our five best stories of the past year.
Here’s a little “Did You Know” to get your Monday morning started. Did you know that if the Super Bowl had commenced two years earlier, Buffalo would have six, not four Super Bowl appearances to their credit?
While it was a depressing year for football if you’re a fan of the Buffalo Bills, a few native Western New Yorkers made it a memorable season overall. Five former area stars made it to the league as rookies… two of which are quickly becoming household names.
Football fans, Buffalo Bills ones in particular, can now officially start the annual NFL draft speculation and endless annoying mock drafts.
With their 4-1 quarterfinal win over Switzerland today, Canada has advanced to the semifinal round of the 2011 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship. They will now face the defending champion United States team tomorrow night at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, NY. Game time is 7:30 p.m.
The Bills went into the New Meadowlands Stadium Sunday afternoon against a New York Jets lineup missing both their starting running backs, both Pro-Bowl cornerbacks and both starting safeties. They also took the field without their starting right tackle, their Pro-Bowl center barely played a quarter and the starting quarterback played all of one series and didn’t throw a single pass.
The Buffalo Bills just announced that Brian Brohm will get the starting nod at quarterback this afternoon as the Bills finish the season off against the New York Jets.
This afternoon is the final time the Buffalo Bills will hit the field the field in 2010 and for safety Donte Whitner, it’s likely to be the last Sunday he puts on a Bills uniform.
The Buffalo Bills close out the 2010 season this afternoon with a trip to face the New York Jets. A significant chunk of the game’s luster was lost last week when the Jets backed into the playoffs following Jacksonville’s overtime loss to Washington. At 10-5, the Jets are already locked into a wild-card spot, making this contest have all the makings of a late preseason confrontation.
If Drew Stafford could face the Boston Bruins every night, he’d be hockey’s next $100-million dollar man. For the second time this season Stafford scored a hat trick against Boston, with the last coming in the final 27 seconds to send the game into overtime with an extra attacker.
A day off at an international tournament comes along as frequently as soft goals and cupcake opponents, which is to say not very often.
Early this morning Shawne Merriman hinted on his twitter that “exciting news” was coming for Buffalo Bills fans. While it’s debatable exactly how enthused fans really are about him, the Bills announced that they’ve signed Merriman to a two-year extension that will keep him in Buffalo through the end of the 2012 season.
