Category / Sports

by Greg

The End

Well, it was a great, great season, and a great run through the NCAA tournament for my Spartans, but last night, it came to a screeching halt. Not only did they lose the game, and not only did they lose it by 17 points, they were simply a shell of who they had been all season, and through the previous 5 games in the tournament. They had more than 20 turnovers, they were dominated on the boards (they led the entire nation in rebounding margin in the 2008-2009 season) and their shooting percentage was just horrible.

Still, they kept getting to within about 15 points for the last 10 minutes of the game or so. They were playing some pretty good defense, and started to catch up in the rebound column… but it was too late, and, well… you have to hit some shots! Sheesh! 🙂

It was a great season, though. Definitely fun to see my team get so far, do so well.

The Sabres on the other hand…

They played last night, too. Actually, they played Saturday night as well. Lost both times. Pretty badly. On Saturday, to their credit, they made a valiant attempt at redeeming an awful game. They got the score to 3-2 after being down 3-0 to start the third period. Dominated the third, but lost. And it was a key loss. Had they won it, they would have tied the team directly above them, and been very much “in the hunt” for the last playoff spot.

But they did not.

So, last night, they needed to win, well, pretty much the remaining four games in the season. Tough task against one of the best teams from the Western Conference, Detroit, but it’s what they had to do. It was 0-0 through half of the game, until they allowed a power play goal… then it just crashed and burned. They ended up losing 4-1.

They still have a slight chance at making the playoffs. They would need the three teams ahead of them to lose most or all of their games, while they win all three of theirs… right. Not going to happen.

The difference between the two endings is, even though MSU was not “on their game” they still kept their heads in the game, and were sticking around to the end. The Sabres… I guess you could say they are trying, and they are “sticking around” to the end, but it also seems pretty obvious that they don’t belong. I’d look for major player turnover in the offseason for the Sabres, while the Spartans will return largely the same team of guys… meaning it should be a good season next year, too!

So, my teams are done… time to start getting ready for Buffalo Bills football!!! 🙂

by Greg

It Comes Down To This

Two Big Games

The Sabres are basically already eliminated from the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. They have only 9 games left, and they are a full 8 points out of the top eight spots – the playoff teams. They fell to the 10th spot and have been hovering there for quite a while, thanks largely to long absences by their top two stars, Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek.

But perhaps, really, it’s just because they’re not that good.

Still, after watching them fight back two days ago – impressively, I might add – from a 3-1 deficit against the team directly above them in the standings… there’s still a very small glimmer of hope.

In fact, it’s really only as big as the next two games.

Toronto has had a rough season. The Sabres should beat them. It’s a home game, and they should win. (After their most recent slump, though, the Leafs are only 3 points behind the Sabres in the conference standings!)

The big game is tomorrow night, in Montreal. Hockey Night in Canada. Montreal is currently holding the 8th playoff spot. The Sabres will effectively be eliminated if they give that team two points. If they win both the next two, they will climb to within 4 points though, with seven games remaining. That’s still doable.

So, it should be interesting… looking forward to watching the next two games to see if this team has any fight left in them. They get their star goalie back tonight… perhaps that (plus the big come-from-behind win on Wednesday) will be just the boost they need.

by Greg

Sabres Lose Top Stars, Clinging to Playoff Hopes

Ryan Miller is OutThe Sabres seem to have plenty of bad luck in the injury department. Not just this season, but nearly every season. A few years ago, they made it to game seven of the conference finals, but most likely lost because they had one starting defenseman who was healthy! Many of the defensemen have missed time this season also. 2009 has been pretty much the same story, including the most recent injury to all-star goalie, Ryan Miller.

In Saturday’s victory over the Rangers, the Sabres lost Miller to a high ankle sprain. Those are bad. They usually place football players on the season-ending IR. They involve at least weeks of recovery, sometimes months. That’s bad. Miller is arguably the Sabres’ best player. And if some might give that title to Thomas Vanek, well, he’s gone too.

The Sabres’ best news this season has been the huge contribution from Tim Connolly, who it seems has been injured for more than two thirds of every season he’s been in the league! (Including this one.) He has become the star the Sabres hoped he would be since returning from his injuries this season.

Sabres.com posted an article about the injured Sabres, including an encouraging update: Thomas Vanek is skating again in practice. He was not expected back this early. Max Afinogenov and Andrew Peters are also currently recovering from injuries.

It’s definitely not good when you are clinging to eighth place in the conference – the final playoff spot – and you lose your top two players. The Sabres are likely thinking about making some trades before the trade deadline on March 4th. Maybe a veteran goalie, maybe another forward… who knows. While Connolly, Derek Roy, Jason Pominville, Drew Stafford, and a few others have had pretty good seasons, it’s hard to recover from losing your best two players. Perhaps a trade or two can give the Sabres what they need to make the playoffs, get their stars back, and make a run of it. Perhaps.

The playoffs are always more fun when your team is in it. We’ll see if the 2009 playoffs will be “fun”.

by Greg

University at Buffalo – BOWL GAME!

UB BullsI am actually an alumnus of three different universities. All undergrad. All within four years after completing high school. That’s kinda strange, but does give me a few teams to root for.

One of those is playing in a bowl game today!

At 1:00pm on ESPN2, you can see the UB Bulls take on UConn (do they have a football team?) in the International Bowl (I think) up in Toronto, Canada. (What is it with Buffalo teams playing in Canada???)

UB actually is not only competitive this year… they’re pretty good! We’ll be rooting them on here.

Also, as a little piece of trivia… way back in the spring of 1994, the UB football team roster included this name: Greg Campbell.

It’s true! But I gave up my career in football to pursue a degree from Cincinnati Bible College and helping people learn to live with Jesus. That’s been an interesting ride! Not what I would have expected. But, I definitely wouldn’t change anything.

I just might be picturing me out there catching passes in the UB blue today… 🙂

by Greg

Donte Whitner - Buffalo BillsWe were joined on the Buffalo Bills Review tonight by Bills starting strong safety, Donte Whitner! Was a fun (pretty short) conversation where we covered stuff like his being the 8th pick in the draft (and how that was such a surprise at the time!) and about his big playoff guarantee. Plus, he has a foundation that helps inner city kids and kids from single-parent homes in various ways. Cool stuff.

So, if you are a football fan, and forgot that I have a Buffalo Bills show… click on over and check it out. James Hardy (Bills’ rookie WR) will be joining us later this week on the Bills bye week. Stay tuned…

by Greg

Hockey Is Back!

With football season in full swing, and alllll the other stuff going on around here in Campbell-land, it’s pretty hard to fit anything else in, but we were offered the good six-month promo price on digital cable so we decided to do it for the bulk of the hockey season. So far we have been rewarded.

I followed the Sabres’ offseason moves and was optimistic that we’d see a return to something more like the President’s Trophy season of two years ago. If you can extrapolate anything from only two games… we just may be!

The Sabres have won their first two games, one against the Eastern Conference champs from last season (with some great saves by our supposedly superstar goalie, as well as TWO goals in the shoot out – both of which didn’t happen much last year!) and the other in a blowout on the road – 7-1 over the NY Islanders today. If Miller plays as well as he did in the first game (and as well as he did in the previous few years other than last season) then we certainly can score goals…

Could be a fun year!

Could we have two championship teams in Buffalo this year??! (How crazy would that be??!)

So, busy here, but having fun.
Go Buffalo!

by Greg

Are You Ready For Some Football??

NFLNFL football is back! The regular season starts this week with a game featuring the World Champ NY Giants and the Washington Redskins on NBC Thursday night, a full slate of games on Sunday (including the BILLS GAME!), and then a double-header on ESPN on Monday Night. I can’t wait!!

The Bills are looking really good this year. From the coaches and the offensive and defensive schemes, to the players, established and new… it really could be a fun season to be a Bills fan. (I know I say that pretty often, but… seriously. Just watch…) 🙂

The start of the season also means that it’s time for Dad & the Boys to make their weekly NFL picks! 🙂 I almost feel like I am looking forward to that more than the football 🙂 It was lots of fun last year, and should be even more fun this year! We’re doing the whole season this time!

There’s a cool Facebook application where you can make picks and compare your results against your friends… it’s called Pro Football Picks, if you’re interested.

So, just a few days away… let the games begin!!

by Greg

RE: Blogging

What I have noticed over my five years of blogging is that blogging is very much about the moment. If I try to get to something later, maybe even get a few paragraphs into a draft version here, it never happens. Or, if it could, it doesn’t seem relevant anymore. (To either reader or writer.)

That’s one reason why this blog has been so silent lately. It’s not that there are not things to comment on, or discuss… it’s just that there is never enough time to sit down and post something “in the moment”. I really thought there would be more here as I am taking several days off in a row, but there has not been. My days used to freer somehow, and I was already sitting at my computer… so posting to the blog in a sort of “stream of consciousness” way was very natural. Not so any more!

I have thoughts on the whole political race. Actually, much of what I think of senator Obama remains true. Read here and here if you are interested. (Posts from March and April of this year.) I have been working on our Buffalo Bills Show. Super fun stuff going on there! And I would love to share more stories from our family… always learn a lot from interaction with my kids!

I could also tell you about the crazy environmental “humans are bad” speech we got at the aquarium yesterday during the sea lion show…

But… at least… not right now.

So, from experience… never. You’ll have to hear that one from me in person. 🙂

The blog will roll on. Life will shift again, and there will be moments to jump into the e-stream of consciousness. There are still plenty of thoughts from Greg’s Head… but the “moments” to share them have been fewer and much farther between!

Stay tuned…

by Greg

Special Guests at the Apple Store

All kinds of people come into the Apple store. I get to meet and talk with people of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities. That’s a pretty fun part of the job, actually.

A couple days ago, I got to meet a few guys that were even more fun to chat with, being a long-time (big) Buffalo Bills fan.

I was working in the iPhone section, and a couple guys came up to check out the phones. One of them was studying it, so I offered to answer any questions, and began chatting with him.

The weird thing was, his friend looked a LOT like Ashton Youboty from the Buffalo Bills. I took a couple glances, but kept thinking, “Nah… he’s too young… too small. But it sure looks like him… Maybe a brother?”

As I was talking with Ashton-look-a-like’s friend, another guy from the store came up and said, “So you guys from Ohio State?” They were both wearing OSU garb, so it was a valid question. The guy is a Purdue grad, so it was a Big Ten thing… I didn’t bring up my MSU affiliation, as I was trying to be helpful with the iPhone, not play on long-standing college rivalries, which are an important part of life amongst Big Ten schools… 🙂

The guy who was checking out the iPhone said they did attend OSU, and they played football there. That of course intrigued me, as I knew that Ashton Youboty played football at OSU. Now I was pretty certain this was Ashton’s brother or something. Well, as I was going to ask, he left to go check out something else, but I asked his friend… and sure enough, it WAS Youboty, and the guy checking out the iPhone was another young Bills player, Dustin Fox!

After he revealed his “secret identity” I paused for a moment, then said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but… I just… thought you’d be bigger.”

He laughed and said, somewhat sheepishly, “Everybody does…”

We chatted a bit. Dustin said he’s the “team techie” and I showed him around to a few other toys in the store. They left and I was glad to have gotten to meet two of the (well, really just one) Buffalo Bills!

But the night was not over.

Much later in the night, I looked up at the big board that shows the names of people with appointments at the Genius bar, where we offer tech support on our products. One of the names on the board was Ashton Y. Now… there could be another person named Ashton. And perhaps even another Ashton with a last name starting with the letter Y. But, the likelihood of Ashton Youboty and this other potential Ashton Y. being in the same Apple store on the same night… not very likely. 🙂

So, apparently, Ashton was coming back.

And indeed… not long before closing time, Ashton (but not Dustin) and maybe four other friends strolled into the store. I was still manning the iPhone station, so I greeted them and helped one guy out, giving him an overview of what the iPhone does. Since they all came in together, I figured they were all Bills players, but honestly, I did not recognize any of them. Except Ashton, who was sitting at the Genius bar, getting some help from the Geniuses.

Well, as we were finishing up (it was just about closing time) the store cleared out – except for our Buffalo Bills friends – and I was no longer needing to stay at my station, so… I went over and introduced myself to Ashton. (Who, at this point, was just sitting at the Genius bar, waiting for something.)

“So, you’re Ashton Youboty,” I began. He nodded. “I just wanted to come say hello. I’m a big Bills fan, and your friend Dustin said you who you were when you guys were in here before.” I told him the story of how I thought they’d be bigger, and he said, “Man, I am bigger. I’m fat! The coaches want me to lose weight!” Then he added with emphasis, “It’s hard to lose weight!” Ha! He didn’t look like he needed to, but I’m sure his coaches know what they’re talking about. 🙂

After wrapping up a few other things, I had a moment to say hello to the other guys. I made sure that there were not other customers in the store, and that they (the Bills players) were not busy being Apple customers, and I finally got to say hello.

“So are you guys all Bills players?” I asked.

“Yeah.” (Their unified, hushed reply was a little less forthcoming than I had hoped…)

“Well, I have two boys at home, and they will want to know who I got to meet tonight, so… what are your names?”

The guy immediately to my right said, “Jabari.” I actually didn’t quite hear him, so I asked him to repeat and when I understood him that time I said, “Jabari Greer! Nice to meet you.” Ashton was next to Jabari, and then we went around the circle of guys and they all introduced themselves as I shook their hands.

“Reggie.”

“Reggie….” I said in a leading tone.

“Corner.” He smiled when he said it. Some of these guys are not really that outgoing… 🙂

“Reggie Corner! Nice to meet you.” (It really was. This was fun!)

We got to the last guy around the half circle, who said, “Jon Corto.” I heard him just fine, but I asked him to repeat it, because I had never heard of Jon Corto, and I know my Bills! So I probed a bit further, asking what position he played, and where he was from… still no luck.

As I was probing, Jabari said, “Well, tell us who you are!” So, I laughed and introduced myself. “My name’s Greg… Campbell. Actually, I have a Bills show…”

“Really?!” said Jabari, “Here in Rochester?”

I explained the Buffalo Bills Review, and actually, I thought I remembered that Jabari had been in the running for – or possibly won – an award from our show this past season, but that turned out to not be true. I did let him know that though, and he said, “I’m gonna have to check that out!”

In explaining the show, I mentioned that I grew up in Buffalo, and that’s how I became a big Bills fan. That’s when Jon asked where I was from in Buffalo. Turns out he is from Orchard Park – where the Bills play! So I talked with him a bit about that, how cool it is that he is from there and now playing for the Bills! Kinda living vicariously through that for a moment… 🙂

They didn’t stay much longer, but it was very cool to meet them all and chat a bit about Bills football, even the Buffalo Bills Review. When I started working at the Apple Store, never imagined that I’d get to meet five Buffalo Bills in one night! Was definitely a fun experience.

Wonder who will be coming in today?