BUFFALO — Before he chatted with the media Thursday following the first sessions of training camp, Sabres coach Lindy Ruff joked to make it short because “a man’s got to tailgate.”
Ruff and his team were heading to Orchard Park later in the day to watch the Bills and Detroit Lions play the first regular-season game at the new Highmark Stadium.
So, did Ruff have some fun in the parking lot before the Bills’ memorable 41-31 win?
“That’s all private information,” he said Friday in LECOM Harborcenter before pausing. “Broke three tables.”
Kidding aside, Ruff and the Sabres enjoyed their night at the stadium. When players were shown on the video boards drinking from beer horns, the 60,644 fans gave them a rousing ovation.
A year ago, before the Sabres ended their playoff drought, they likely wouldn’t have been featured on the screens.
“I thought it was awesome,” Ruff said of the crowd’s reaction. “I think the great thing about our community is the relation (between the teams). We’re in the playoffs, and we got some of the Bills riding the Zamboni and doing the beer sword, just here supporting us.
“And for our guys to go there and support them and be part of it, it’s just a great thing about being in Buffalo, you got two sports teams that interact with each other. That reception our boys got, I thought, was special.”
The game, of course, was wildly entertaining.
“Unbelievable game,” Ruff said. “The stadium was electric, the atmosphere was unbelievable and Josh Allen’s performance was second-to-none again.”
Ruff said everything about the night was “top notch.”
“From the way they started the game to just how loud the stadium got at times was incredible,” he said. “So I think you’ve got great memories from the old stadium; I think those are going to fade pretty fast because it’s a pretty special building.”
The Blue and Gold scrimmage the Sabres will hold this morning at KeyBank Center has added importance with a short camp and truncated preseason schedule.
They play four preseason games this season, down from six, and any player who has played 100 NHL games can only dress twice under the new collective bargaining agreement
“It just gives everybody that extra game,” Ruff said of the scrimmage. “There’s veterans that wanted to play more game, guys that said, ‘I want to play three games.’ and the answer is you just can’t.
“So part of putting this camp together was to have our guys together right away, was to put this scrimmage in and get them extra, really, what we can simulate as close to game situations as you would face in a preseason game.”