An 0-2 road trip to savor

Traveling to Buffalo with my son to watch the Bills in person was a first for both of us ... and an unforgettable experience even though they (and then the Sabres) lost in our presence

Before our dates with the Bills and the Sabres, I made my first visit to Niagara Falls in more than 40 years. (Photo courtesy of Aaron Stein)

---

The Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo Sabres have won precisely zero championships in the 101 combined seasons they have logged in the NFL and the NHL. So you would not wish Buffalo sports fandom unto your Dallas-born son if you could avoid it.

It happened anyway.

Aaron is 15 and ranks the NFL as his favorite league by some distance. He picked Josh Allen last season in his first-ever fantasy football draft and became steadily immersed in everything Bills ... perhaps nudged along by the knowledge that those same Bills, before I essentially stopped paying attention after becoming a full-time NBA scribe just as four consecutive trips to the Super Bowl were delivering four successive defeats in the 1990s, were also once my team.

The Sabres are the Buffalo institution that means the most to me — by far — but Aaron's deepening infatuation with the Bills has pulled me back in and made a homecoming trip inevitable sooner rather than later. He drafted both Allen and Stefon Diggs this year, commandeers every TV in the house on Sundays when the Bills are on and eagerly co-signed when I proposed a November trip to The 716 to see the real thing.

My family left Western New York for Southern California in 1978 after about eight years, including the infamous Blizzard of '77, in its frigid grasp. I have joked for ages that we moved in protest of my beloved Buffalo Braves becoming the San Diego Clippers that same summer, but that was a mere coincidence. I was 9 when my father got a new job that required us to switch coasts — with all of my sporting allegiances in the big four North American team sports (Yankees, Bills, Braves and Sabres) already cemented by that point. The problem: I could never convince him to make the 80-miles-each-way journey in inevitably horrid driving conditions from Olean, N.Y., to Buffalo whenever we were offered Sabres or Braves tickets.

So I departed the region for sunny SoCal without ever making it to the historic Memorial Auditorium, or Rich Stadium, to see any of my favorite teams live.

In adulthood, I've been making frequent trips back to Buffalo since the Cleveland Cavaliers' run to the NBA Finals in 2015. A helpful Clevelander surprised me by explaining that the drive to Buffalo was a simple three hours from The Land of LeBron. Having exited the Rust Belt several years before I hit driving age, I had no idea Buffalo was so accessible by car.

The rekindling of my Bills interest, though, was totally sparked by my son. Between an intense NBA job and the sporting pursuits I’m deeply invested in emotionally (primarily Manchester City, Cal State Fullerton and professional tennis), there just wasn't enough bandwidth for the NFL until I watched with amazement how swiftly it captivated Aaron. The heart wants what it wants ... and my 15-year-old wants to break down replays of how Diggs managed to stay inbounds on Allen’s laser throw on an out route, over and over, even though that second-quarter touchdown Sunday was one of the few highlights in a humbling 41-15 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

We obviously didn’t quite get the storybook father-and-son excursion. Not when a Sunday afternoon spent in the rain and wind featured Indy's Jonathan Taylor plowing anywhere he wanted through the Buffalo defense … followed by the Sabres losing to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden in the final half-second of regulation while we were eating dinner and watching on TV in the hotel restaurant … followed by the Sabres' 7-4 home loss to Columbus on our last night in town punctuated by two empty-netters.

Yet it was still a priceless experience, because father-and-son trips are by definition priceless. We won’t soon forget taking in a morning of the Bills fans' signature tailgating, inhaling delectable smells wafting from countless grills at an ungodly early hour for even a decorated carnivore like me to contemplate eating and just immersing ourselves in the stadium-goer experience, with all its pluses and minuses.

I don't want to stop being a sports fan. I don't have a favorite NBA team and I haven't had once since the Braves, but that's work life. On the job, I am required to be unemotional and extremely rational and nuanced and I have successfully managed it for three decades because the NBA is the one sport I’ve found that trying to track every dribble as a reporter enhanced my interest and connection to it. But that's really not how sports are supposed to work. Stifling emotion as a spectator, especially a live spectator, is thoroughly unnatural. Too many sportswriters are encouraged to drain all the fandom out of their systems, or they can’t stop it from happening when the cold business of sport consistently intervenes, but I’ve always had trouble accepting such strictures. I also try to convince myself that my ongoing fervent fandom in sports I don't cover helps me maintain a semblance of empathy in my NBA coverage for the readers in, say, Sacramento who live and die with a Kings team that has been letting them down for a decade and a half.

Despite the weekend’s on-field (and on-ice) disappointments, we flew home with several good memories and pictures for the proverbial scrapbook. We didn’t see any tables smashed by airborne members of the Bills Mafia, but a fortuitous connection led to on-field passes pregame that placed the future GM in our house mere steps away from Allen’s preparatory routine with his various receivers. I suspect that hour spent on the Highmark Stadium turf dulled some of the pain inflicted by the relentless Taylor.

(L): Stefon Diggs catches a pregame pass from Josh Allen; (R): Allen tries to loosen up moments before a home game that, thanks to four scoring runs and one TD reception for the Colts’ Jonathan Taylor, got uncomfortable for the home team rather quickly.

We will also cherish a visit to the American side of Niagara Falls as pictured above — my first visit there since the late 1970s — and the clear view from center-ice seats we enjoyed for the blossoming-in-progress of Sabres winger-turned-center Tage Thompson. (For the record: I’ve been on the Thompson bandwagon since the first time I saw him play — and score — at Pittsburgh in November 2018 in a glorious OT win over the Penguins after falling behind 4-1 … and I never got off!)

Marc Stein @TheSteinLine

Home! #The716 Love you, @BuffaloSabres! https://t.co/AirtyxZTes

Marc Stein @TheSteinLine

A must in the cold: @BuffaloSabres layers … https://t.co/FrObvgPxiS

November 22nd 2021

1 Retweet74 Likes

Of course, by the time we boarded Tuesday’s likewise-way-too-early flight home, I was forced to consider the notion that this was exactly the sort of character-building, quintessentially Buffalo sports weekend my son needed to experience if he intends to stick with the Bills.

That’s difficult to forecast given how sports fans have evolved, often prioritizing individuals over teams, but he’s insistent that he’s 10 toes in on the Bills as Damian Lillard might say. While nothing we saw approaches the heartbreak of Scott Norwood’s Wide Right in the 1991 Super Bowl, or the Brett Hull No Goal in the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals, I think he has an inkling now about how cold this sports stuff can get for Buffalonians.

---

The Stein Line is a reader-supported newsletter, with both free and paid subscriptions available, and those who opt for the paid edition are taking an active role in the reporting by providing vital assistance to bolster my independent coverage of the league. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends interested in the NBA and please consider becoming a paid subscriber to have full access to all of my posts.

And from now through Cyber Monday at midnight ET, as we celebrate our first Thanksgiving as a Substacker with you, annual subscriptions have been reduced 20% from $50 to 40.

As a reminder: Tuesday editions, on this and every Newsletter Tuesday, go out free to anyone who signs up, just as my Tuesday pieces did in their New York Times incarnation.

---

(More from the) Travelogue

Confession time: Not a single chicken wing was consumed by the Steins on this trip. That goes down as a definite food fail based on my usual standards, but my son is not (yet) a wing enthusiast, so I made the fatherly call to resist forcing Anchor Bar, Gabriel’s Gate or Bar Bill on him. There will be time for those culinary delights on future visits.

Here, then, are a few standout stops from a busy three-day stay that truthfully didn’t leave much time for food exploration …

Best meal: I had a tremendous breakfast Saturday at Public Espresso adjacent to the Hotel at the Lafayette. The eggs were perfect, as were my two cappucinos, and the pastrami-cured lox had me wishing I ordered two extra portions. It was that good. My only complaint: Both locations of the restaurant are closed on Mondays. That meant, with the Bills playing Sunday, I could only make one visit. How is a coffee shop connected to a downtown hotel closed any days?

Best shopping experience: The New Era flagship store is always must-see. Modern sports shopping at its best in a downtown that, based on my findings to date, doesn’t exactly ooze much modernity.

Best restaurant decor: Although I realize that it’s probably sacrilege to many Western New Yorkers (and Canadians) to say the following words, I cannot fib: I’m just not a Tim Horton’s guy on the donut or coffee front. That said … seeing the stadium seating and signage in the location closest to Key Bank Center moves me every time. (I want one of those chairs!)

---

Numbers Game

🏀 .422

Hard to believe but true: Luke Walton's .422 winning percentage in two-plus seasons (68-93) represents the second-highest winning percentage for a coach in the Kings' Sacramento history behind Rick Adelman's .633. 

🏀 5

Sacramento fired Michael Malone in December 2014 and, by replacing Walton with Alvin Gentry on Sunday, has moved on to its fifth coach in eight seasons since Malone's ouster. Now in his seventh season in Denver, Malone is the league's fifth longest-tenured coach with the Nuggets, trailing only San Antonio's Gregg Popovich (in his 26th season), Miami's Erik Spoelstra (14th), Golden State's Steve Kerr (eighth) and Utah's Quin Snyder (eighth). 

🏀 328

Is there a better bargain in the NBA than Oklahoma City's Lu Dort. In the third season of a modest four-year, $5.4 million deal he signed during the 2019-20 season, Dort recently scored 20 points or better in five successive games — including a 34-point showing against Houston — as part of an expanding offensive game to complement his highly rated D. At just $1,782,621, Dort ranks 328th among players this season in terms of salary. 

🏀 3

First-year Magic coach Jamahl Mosley is 3-0 lifetime at Madison Square Garden if you count his victory there in April with Dallas as the stand-in for an ill Rick Carlisle. (League rules dictate that Mosley's win with the Mavericks officially goes on Carlisle's coaching ledger.) Orlando already swept its two MSG visits this season but is just 2-14 in all other games under Mosley. 

🏀 173

Until the recent addition of former All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas, Shaquille Harrison ranked as the most experienced member of USA Basketball's World Cup qualifying squad this month with 173 career NBA games on his résumé. Jordan Bell and Luke Hornet are next in line with 160 and 133 NBA games, respectively. 

🏀 7

Markieff Morris has missed Miami's past seven games with what the team has listed as whiplash after being shoved by Denver's Nikola Jokic on Nov. 8. Morris' absence will reach at least 10 games because he is not traveling with the Heat on their current four-game road trip, which has three stops remaining. Miami's first game after the trip is its rematch with Denver at home on Nov. 29. 

🏀 27

The WNBA heeded calls to do away with single-elimination in the first two rounds of its playoffs by announcing that it will switch to best-of-three matchups in the first round next season before proceeding to best-of-five series in both the conference semifinals and the WNBA Finals. One problem, however, persists: In a move presumably aimed at reducing travel in the opening round, teams holding the higher seed will host Game 1 and Game 2. The lower seed in Round 1 will thus play a decisive Game 3 at home if it can manage a split on the higher seed's floor. The changes will take the maximum possible number of playoff games leaguewide from 19 to 27.