Way Beyond Blue and Gold: There's more story to tell

We should do a BBG for the 10th anniversary of the Ottawa Brawl.
When it was first suggested, I hesitated, wondering if we could possibly do such a memorable moment justice in the few short weeks of production time dedicated to a typical episode of Beyond Blue and Gold.

Then I realized that the three Sabres alumni involved in the infamous "last change," and the goalie who left his crease-and soon after, his skates - were still associated with the organization. I couldn't imagine telling the story without getting Adam Mair, Andrew Peters, Patrick Kaleta and Martin Biron together in a room to relive that night.

It didn't become a very special episode until I started going through the game tape and remembered all of the context that was worth exploring:

And then there's, you know, a fight that involved both goalies and coaches.
Thanks to some good timing with the Sabres' hockey schedule, we were able to secure interviews with Ruff, Miller and former Senators head coach Bryan Murray. Soon after, our round table interview with the brawlers went for two hours and fifteen minutes.
The guys had so much fun talking about that game and those years that we could have produced a feature-length documentary.
Heck, we could have run that discussion raw.
When I added it all up, it was obvious that this story could not be told in BBG's standard four-and-a-half minutes, or even in two parts.
The most compelling piece of information to come out of the round table was that it was Adam Mair - not Ruff - who made the line change. So that $10,000 fine Lindy received for putting his tough guys out on the ice against Ottawa's top line? As Peters put it: "That should have been Mairsy's fine."
If I had another five minutes of run time, I would have spent much of it on this topic.
Peters described Ruff as being "preoccupied at that moment" (screaming at the ref that Neil hit Drury with an elbow and should have been penalized), but Mair went on to say that for his eight-year career with the Sabres, to his knowledge, Lindy "never sent a player" after an opponent. The players "knew their roles" on the team, Mair said, and made the decision to go out and defend their captain.
Even if he didn't directly send the guys to the ice, did the coach encourage his players to "go out and run 'em"? No one remembered Lindy saying anything to the team, although Biron mused that it would have been more likely for Lindy to send a message to his bench by yelling at the ref, "If we go out there and run their best guys, it's onyou!"
Still, the only four words said that anyone is positive of before the enforcers jumped over the boards came from Adam Mair: "There is no puck."
This revelation came after we had already interviewed Lindy, so it was too late to follow up with him. It's not hard to guess why the head coach would take responsibility for the line change, but my one regret with the piece was not getting his perspective on this point.
Hopefully we'll get the chance to ask him in a future interview as we continue to explore some of the greatest moments, games, series and figures in Sabres history.
And as we dig beyond the surface, who knows what untold story we'll find next.