This video goes out to the suffering people of Buffalo, who really haven't caught many breaks over the years.  All those Super Bowls.  Close proximity to Canadia.

And now the Sabres, who — as I understand it — were looking super-awesome all season but are now staring down the barrel of a 3-0 deficit to the Senators of Ottawa in the Eastern Conference championship.  Well, with the faith of this kid and the craziness of playoff hockey, maybe the Sabes can pull it out.  I'll be rooting for you, Buffalo.  In a not-really-thinking- about-it, passive kind of way. 

INFORMATIVE UPDATE:  The dad is chanting "Emery," as in the Sens' Ray Emery. 

With a sharp salute to my friends at the FanHaus 

See, hockey, this is what I'm talking about. Last night's NHL action included a league-record eight (!) games going into overtime, which is enough for even me to sit up and take notice.

The biggest of those eight games was Buffalo's 6-5 barnburner win over Ottawa. Both teams surrendered two-goal leads before the deciding shootout, but more importantly, there was an all-out melee early in the second period after Sabres captain Chris Drury took a vicious blindside hit. That's right, all 12 players on the ice dropped their gloves, including the goalies. Ottawa's Ray Emery liked it so much, he took on Sabres enforcer Andrew Peters after knocking down his outmatched fellow goaltender.

Also see: Larry Brown Sports 

Just as I predicted before the season three days ago, the Sabres beat the Islanders to begin their season 10-0, tying them for the best start in NHL history. Meanwhile, Jim Kiick and Larry Csonka are holding a bottle of champagne at the ready, waiting for the one time each year that they become briefly relevant. Oops, wrong sport. Whatever, they're still douchebags.

In much more interesting hockey news, the Canadiens beat the Bruins 3-2 in Boston on a tie-breaking goal scored with 1.2 seconds left in the game. Not surprisingly, that didn't go over well in Boston, and fans littered the ice with garbage, forcing the referees to call the game before the final buzzer. Said Montreal captain Saku Koivu:

"When you see the bottles with liquid being thrown from 20 rows up, you worry about your head or face being hurt. The referees did the right thing to end the game… It was a huge win. It feels a lot bigger when you steal it in the last few seconds."

He then added, "And it feels a lot — I mean a LOT – better when you piss off a bunch of pretentious Boston assholes."

Today is Sports Equality Day here at With Leather, where I do things like pay attention to college football and hockey. Up next: men's tennis!

But first, I give a salute to the Buffalo Sabres, who have opened the NHL season — yes, it's begun already — with a team-record nine straight victories. That's right: no losses, no ties, no losses in overtime. They're 9-0-0-0. They go for win number 10 (which would tie the league record) against the Islanders on Thursday, so they can probably start looking ahead to No. 11 now.

I don't have any real hockey alliances, but I'm down with the Sabres kicking ass, because I feel that hockey teams that play in cities where it actually snows should win, while the Florida Panthers and Phoenix Coyotes and Dallas Stars should suck balls. Plus the Sabres are the only team with a Little League World Series MVP on its roster. So go get 'em, Sabes. Do it for Canadia and all the old-school NHL teams.

Oh, and I was kidding about the tennis thing.