Honor Braves in HSBC
The Sabres have been holed up in a meeting this morning and Lindy Ruff has decided to go on the ice and practice. Best thing for them would be to simply toss the DVD of Monday's 2-0 loss to Nashville into the trash can and that's what we're going to do here for now at least.
Wanted to throw this out to you from Saturday's jaunt to Montreal but it took me until now to get this neat picture I took of the Bell Centre rafters loaded here (click for a better view). I've been thinking about this point for a while, especially now that the Aud is coming down and we just had the farewell event in the Convention Center: How about honoring the Braves in HSBC Arena like they honor the late, great Expos in Montreal? The folks at The Sports Road Trip have been pushing this for a couple years and after taking a look Saturday, I concur with that idea.
For all of us 40-somethings and up, the Braves were a huge part of this town in the 70s. You should have seen all the folks crowding around their memorabilia tables a couple weeks ago. Parents telling their kids about those great playoff games with the Celtics ("We had a team that played the Celtics?" I heard one wide-eyed kid say. Yep son, it's true).
In the Bell Centre, they have a banner honoring the Expos and their retired numbers for guys like Tim Raines, Andre Dawson and Gary Carter. And it's right next to Patrick Roy's No. 33 that was hung last week as well as Bob Gainey's 23 and Larry Robinson's 19.
As the Aud comes down, why can't we put a Braves banner into the HSBC rafters with the numbers of, say, Bob McAdoo, Randy Smith and Ernie D?
---Mike Harrington
