beware of bucky and his influence

soooo...i'm listening to wgr yesterday, pretty excited about the thursday news conference...what sabres fan wouldn't be, right?...annnnndddd...mike schopp is talking with paul hamilton, the reporter who broke the story...annnnddddd...it's a good conversation...and all involved are trying not to get overly excited or overly speculative...

fine...

a little over half-way into the segment, they're talking about terry pegula's passion for hockey and schopp quantifies it with this, "this guys in the paper being mad about letting tallinder go"...ok, where did this come from?...

well, a caller had mentioned it...in fact over the course of yesterday, i'd heard callers mention that a few times, stating as historical fact that pegula was, indeed, ticked about the off-season tallinder situation...

and where did the callers get this stuck in their heads, pray-tell?...none other than the buckster himself, bucky gleason...

it all stems from a, generally, pretty good background article he wrote on december 2, 2010, sabres' owner-in-waiting comes across as a buffalo kind of guy...according to the buckster, it was culled from conversations from "anonymous sources" close to pegula...keep in mind that nothing has come directly from pegula or his camp...nothing...

soooo...the buckster gives us some background, then some speculation as to a possible pegula interest in the buying the bills (apparently gleason's dream?)...then, inevitably, gleason re-opens old wounds and fortifies it with a new, more recent quinn/regier-era catastrophe', "[pegula] was upset when Chris Drury and Daniel Briere left the organization. He couldn't comprehend how the team let Henrik Tallinder get away because he wanted a four-year contract rather than the three-year deal it offered"...

really?..."couldn't comprehend"?...like you and pegula had talked about it and this is a direct quote?...

the "anonymous blogger" has many
"sources" feeding him
"credible" information as well

once again, no one has interviewed pegula or any of his inner-circle...all the buckster has to go on is conversations with people who do not speak for pegula...all he has are anonymous sources...and we all know what can be done with anonymous sources...

the thing that ticks me off (and i addressed it on this blog as well as in one of his chats) was how pegula was depicted as angry and/or frustrated through an incredulous reaction to the mention of drury, briere and now hank tallinder...all of this gathered through second, third or even distant parties who will remain anonymous...

if you read bucky enough, you'll be able to sift through his articles and separate fact from opinion...on many occasions (which will be documented from here-on-in) you may notice that between the lines lies a hidden agenda, and/or animosity lurking just below the surface and/or speculation written to be taken as gospel...

bucky isn't stupid...he can string together thoughts and put them on paper rather well...he is sports reporter for a one-newspaper town...nothing more, nothing less...if someone wants to follow him off a cliff...go right ahead...

(shrugs)...caveat emptor...

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i like the fact that paul hamilton broke the buffalo sabres thursday press conference concerning the sale of the buffalo sabres...

as the beat reporter for the sabres on wgr, hamilton is about as close to the team as you can get...he's there at practice, there for the games, there in the locker room doing interviews with players...and there's a lot to be said for that...



i don't agree with everything he says, but for the amount of content he produces he manages to maintain a solid level of objectivity...sure, his opinion does make it's way into his material, but i've never really got the impression that he's being underhanded, vindictive or malicious with his opinions...

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the press conference on thursday is big news...the sale of the sabres to terry pegula is looked at as a welcome change for "long-suffering" sabres fans who've gone through 40 years of ups and downs, near misses and prolonged failures...although i really don't want to put pegula into "the savior" category--because i don't believe in saviors--it's a huge step forward for an organization that , lately, hasn't been able to combine a desire to win with the financial resources (among other things) to get the job done...