There\u2019s something organic about the way it all happened. A 60-year-old Buffalo man drove around 90 minutes to just outside of Rochester to buy a Body Opponent Bag \u2014 now called \u201cBob the dummy\u201d \u2014 on Facebook Marketplace two days before the city\u2019s first playoff game in 15 years. A group of younger Sabres fans known as the Blade Gang veered around KeyBank Center before that same April afternoon.<\/p>\n
And when Nick Mastrocovo moved his dummy \u2014 donning a Bruins jersey for the Sabres\u2019 first-round opponent \u2014 closer to the Blade Gang during the pregame festivities April 19, one member landed a punch. Everyone erupted. Another member tackled the dummy from behind. A viral moment was born. Mastrocovo and his cousin returned for Game 2 in referee jerseys, just in case something got out of control after the added attention. The Blade Gang traveled to Boston for road games. Playoff hockey in Buffalo suddenly had more than a pulse.<\/p>\n
It rapidly became the epicenter of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Sabres fans partake in pre-game antics involving a dummy dressed in a Bruins jersey before Game 5 of their first-round matchup, won by Buffalo in six games. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that they go viral without the dummy \u2026 and I don\u2019t think the dummy gets as much love without them,\u201d Mastrocovo told The Post.<\/p>\n
For more than a decade, the intersection of Washington and Perry was dormant this time of year. Seasons unofficially ended in December. Aprils were about coaching changes. The Sabres were the punch line on national television. In December, when Buffalo sat in last place in the Eastern Conference, that became the case again, but a historical turnaround that led to the Atlantic Division title has now reached the second round of the postseason for the first time in 18 years \u2014 with Game 1 of the second-round series against the Canadiens set for Wednesday in Buffalo.<\/p>\n
And at the center of it has been the Sabres fans who \u201care just nuts,\u201d Mastrocovo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d always go out in these stores in Buffalo and you see people wearing [Alex] Ovechkin shirts or [Sidney] Crosby shirts,\u201d Mastrocovo told The Post. \u201cSomeone wore something Sabres, the joke was, \u2018Oh did you lose a bet?\u2019 And now, you see these kids wearing Sabre jerseys.\u201d<\/p>\n
So for the first time since the 2006-07 season, there\u2019s a reason for fans to descend on downtown Buffalo, weaving through the highways and streets where \u2014 with a good gust of wind \u2014 you can smell the Cheerios from the General Mills factory.<\/p>\n
The Sabres are one of 10 NHL teams who haven\u2019t won a Stanley Cup, though they came close in 1999, and for as much as Josh Allen and Bills Mafia and folding-table shenanigans have shaped Buffalo\u2019s sports reputation in recent years, it has always been a hockey city, too.<\/p>\n
Sabres fans get pumped up before Game 1 of their first-round series against the Bruins, which they went on to win in six games. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Mastrocovo\u2019s mom helped clean the visiting locker room at the old Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, he said. His two hamsters growing up were named Rick and Martin \u2014 after one of the members of the Sabres\u2019 French Connection line. Those were links to the initial days, when they made the Stanley Cup Final in just their fifth season, and the Sabres have been a part of his entire life. They advanced to the Eastern Conference finals in 2006 and \u201907, but fell short again.<\/p>\n
Some of those runs were expected. This one, though, wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Alex Tuch, who collected 33 goals during the regular season and another four during their first-round series, hinted at what would happen with fans in the playoffs. \u201cI hope they have a lot of police officers and firemen on duty,\u201d he said on TNT after the Sabres officially clinched a spot in the tournament, \u201cbecause I feel like the whole city\u2019s gonna burn down. It\u2019s gonna be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Sabres fan skates outside the arena before their Game 5 matchup against the Bruins. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Ticket prices have skyrocketed. Local stores started prioritizing Sabres merch again. Watch parties at Canalside, the downtown waterfront, made cameos on broadcasts, capturing the pent-up energy. When singer Cami Clune\u2019s microphone stopped working during the Canadian national anthem in Game 5, fans inside KeyBank Center picked up with the words and created a crescendo that spread across social media.<\/p>\n
When the Sabres returned home from Boston after clinching the first-round series in Game 6, fans gathered at the airport to greet the team. The dummy, still in a Cam Neely No. 8 jersey, was there, too. Players recorded the scene as they drove by. And for around 30 minutes each pregame, Mastrocovo\u2019s dummy entered the spotlight. Fans wanted pictures as it rolled up the street.<\/p>\n
It took a beating, he joked. He messaged the woman he bought it from again and said, \u201cHey, I\u2019m not sure if you caught anything online, but I just want you to know what happened to your dummy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sabres fans get pumped up before Game 1 of their series against the Bruin in which they won in six games. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the best marketplace sale I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d he recalled her replying.<\/p>\n
The question becomes how long this will all last. Behind forward Tage Thompson (40 regular-season goals) and defenseman Rasmus Dahlin (74 points) and a goaltender in Alex Lyon who became the starter in the middle of the Bruins series, their season could last until June.<\/p>\n
Mastrocovo thinks it\u2019s all sustainable for future seasons, too.\u00a0For now, they\u2019re guaranteed four more games against the Canadiens. For two of those, Mastrocovo\u2019s dummy will have a plain, red Montreal jersey on \u2014 he has a Guy Lafleur one but wanted to be respectful.<\/p>\n
The fans, and the spectacle that the dummy and the Blade Gang and the watch party creates, will be at the center of everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just balls to the wall, 100 percent, let\u2019s go,\u201d Mastrocovo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s something organic about the way it all happened. A 60-year-old Buffalo man drove around 90 minutes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1809,385,99],"class_list":["post-628904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}