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Wednesday, September 10, 2014


If you take everything you have seen in the media lately and group it all together, it is really easy to feel like the world is falling apart. But if you look a little closer, you will start to notice that many of the headlines, good and bad, being generated these days are based on sports and politics. Of course, the big problem is that the wide majority of these headlines are bad news, which is probably why everyone is so on edge.

No one wants to seem to work together to solve problems anymore and no one, absolutely no one, is accountable anymore. People also seem to be overreacting to the strangest things. A basketball owner sends an email almost three years ago with a potentially inappropriate comment on it and he is forced to sell his share of the team. I guess his comment was not inappropriate almost three years ago. It is either that or someone saw an opportunity and grabbed it.

Ray Rice landed a punch to his then fiancée and knocked her out. Then he dragged her out of the elevator and just kind of left her lying on the concrete floor until she woke up. The NFL’s initial reaction was based solely, so the league says, on the video of what happened outside of the elevator. Ok, but that doesn’t make any sense.

The video from outside of the elevator shows Ray Rice dragging his fiancée, face down, across an elevator divide and then a tiled floor. That could not have felt very good when she woke up. What did NFL commissioner Roger Goodell think happened? Did he think she just passed out and Rice reacted poorly?

Roger Goodell has maintained that he did not see the video from inside the elevator until days after his woefully inadequate two-day suspension to Rice was handed down. Even if that were true, what did Goodell base his original decision on that caused him to change his mind so much when he finally did see the knockout punch? Goodell maintains that he “got it wrong” with the first suspension. If his intention was to hope that this little incident went away and he wouldn’t have to deal with it again, then he got it perfectly correct.

I think Goodell’s original intention the entire time was to hope this went away. I also think that was what the police wanted as well. I can promise you that if some regular Schmoe from Anywhere, USA knocked his wife out on video like that, he would be seeing a lot of jail time.

Then there is the end of the saga of the sale of the Buffalo Bills. An ordeal that the Buffalo media handled horribly and wound up ending like everyone figured it would in the first place. There was no way that Terry Pegula was going to let the Bills get away from him. Before he bought the Sabres, Pegula indicated that he wanted to buy the Bills for his wife. Now his wife owns the Bills and Terry owns the Sabres. His and hers matching sports franchises.

We in Western New York have no idea how lucky we are to have the Pegulas on our side. We now have a billionaire who is willing to be the face of our area and bring our area back to life. Terry Pegula has already invested millions of dollars in downtown Buffalo and he is prepared to invest hundreds of millions more.

When it was announced that Pegula was buying the Bills, pathetic Buffalo sports fans complained that Pegula would ruin the Bills like he ruined the Sabres. The Buffalo Sabres are three years away from being legitimate Stanley Cup contenders. If that is ruining an NHL franchise, then Pegula can ruin the Sabres all he wants.

People are also complaining that Pegula will start demanding taxpayer funds to build a new stadium. Let’s look at a few facts to offset the wild speculation that has run rampant among ungrateful Buffalo sports fans:

1) Pegula has never said that he will build a new stadium. Pegula is just like us – he grew up with Rich Stadium/The Ralph. He may like his stadium right where it is.

2) Terry Pegula could have easily held Erie County and the state of New York hostage for public money to remodel First Niagara Center and build HarborCenter. Both projects were done, and are being done, on Terry Pegula’s own dime. Taxpayers in Erie County and New York State can relax. Terry Pegula is not that kind of sports owner.

3) Pegula hasn’t even put his name on the door at One Bills Drive yet. He only hired Tim Murray less than a year ago (and Murray is making some of the best moves in hockey). How about we give the guy a chance before we hang him from the goalposts at the Ralph?

Buffalo sports fans are so used to complaining about failure that it is the only reaction we know when something happens. Give Terry Pegula and his wife Kim a chance. I can almost guarantee that you will not be sorry.

Nick Oliver is a Niagara County resident and excited about the future of WNY. His column appears every Wednesday and he hopes that Terry Pegula reads it one day.



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