There wasn’t an immediate protest from the Sabres because they hadn’t yet seen a clear-cut replay.Īs we arrived down in the interview room, all hell was breaking loose as Lindy Ruff and general manager Darcy Regier were livid, demanding that the goal be wiped out and the game to be resumed. What was so crazy about this is when all of the reporters headed down to the locker rooms, we had no idea there was even a controversy. In a year when the NHL had made it a point to disallow goals scored when any part of a players’ body was in the crease, on the most important non-goal of the season, it inexplicably relaxed what was considered a pretty stupid rule.Īnd thus, in the third overtime of Game 6 of the 1999 Stanley Cup finals at Marine Midland Arena, Brett Hull’s goal, despite his skate clearly occupying the crease, was allowed to stand, and the Dallas Stars skated off the ice as champions while the Sabres skated off screaming at the moon. Not quite seven months before the Bills suffered perhaps the most egregious loss in their history, due in large part to an officiating decision that fans will never believe was correct – it was a forward lateral! – the Sabres were dealt a similarly gut-wrenching defeat thanks to a terrible call. “There was in the crease last year with the Sabres and they get screwed, and now this.

It’s a blue-collar, hard-working city,” Hansen said, implying that Western New Yorkers simply didn’t deserve the seemingly endless stream of bad sports luck. “I don’t know if it’s the city of Buffalo or what it is, but it’s just unbelievable.

I remember being in the Bills locker room following the Music City Miracle debacle in Nashville and defensive end Phil Hansen said something that rang so true that day and remains poignant 20 years later.

By now, the words that define Buffalo’s sporting misery have become ingrained in your brain, and try as you might, you’ve never been able to eviscerate them from your cognitive memory bank.

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