How Darcy Regier's Keeping Busy This August

To his credit, whilst some other GM's may be taking a bit of a vacation (albeit, not far from their electronic devices,) Sabres GM Darcy Regier is bee-bopping around the hockey world doing various hockey-related things.

Regier's "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" has the usual things this August like signings for the big club (Marc-Andre Gragnani) and their affiliate in Rochester (Mike Ryan, Paul Szechrua,) as well as introducing new Sabre Christian Ehrhoff.

But, this time of year, other things have been occupying his time as well:

• NHL Research and Development Camp talking (or trying to talk) trade(s) with other GM's as a solution to the Sabres cap-problem.
• Talking about what's happened, is happening and what will (could) happen with his team during an "Unplugged" interview with Sean Fitz-Gerald of Canada's National Post.
• Last week he and Terry Pegula, among others, took in a game at Lake Placid watching 2011 first-round pick Joel Armia, flounder on the ice with Team Finland.

Regier, being the longest tenured GM with one team, using his unoffensive personality, also chimed in on the recent death of Rick Rypien in a Canoe-Slam article.

The veteran GM, who often times is asked about the bigger hockey issues, "suggested a possible link to depression, substance abuse and the very difficult, stress-filled job of fighting for a living under risk of serious injury. Regier didn’t pretend to be an expert, but cited the many ex-footballers who were revealed to have similar problems."


One could go on and on about Rypien's suicide and Boogard's overdose and nearly every blogger in the hockey world has presented their own thesis, especially on Rypien's death.

One could also present an elongated diatribe on Regier's thought process when tying together Rypien, Boogard, depression, substance abuse and fighting.

I'll refrain. We have enough arm-chair psychologists dissecting this very complex issue and I'll leave it to former NHL defenseman, Mathieu Schneider to respond to Regier. He said that "[the tie-in was] pure speculation."


Regardless, Regier's been busy, as usual, this off-season and the big thing he has on his plate right now seems to be the Sabres cap-problem. It'll be interesting to see how he handles it in the coming months.