Published: July 02, 2009 12:49 am      

HOPKINS: Final farewell to the ’old friend’

The building stood vacant at the foot of Main Street in Buffalo for 13 years before demolition crews gradually reduced it to a pile of rubble. It stood there almost sadly, like someone who just watched a longtime spouse or lover walk away, arm-in-arm with a young model.

From the outside, the mustard yellow building with a brown roof wasn’t much to look at, especially with the ribbon of elevated highways surrounding most of it. But neither was the Boston Garden, which similarly stood next to highways snaking through the heart of Beantown. It didn’t help that the young model stood just a few hundred feet away, taunting the old concrete-and-steel Aud with its fresh look and plate glass-fronted atrium.

Yet, the grand old building held a lot of memories for people young-ish and old. Young-ish, because there aren’t too many under the age of 18 who likely have solid memories of the original home of the Buffalo Sabres.

The place oozed hockey. Or, perhaps ’reeked’ is a better word. There is no way to accurately describe the smell that penetrated one’s nostrils as you entered the front doors of The Aud. A blend of must, mildew, dirt and that smell you get when you enter Grandma’s house, the home that she’s lived in all her life. It smelled like hockey. It smelled like anticipation. It smelled like Heaven.

It looked like hell. But that was a great part of its charm. A dingy, old sports stadium, with soot-gray floors sporting mashed pieces of gum in some places. On television it was a thing of beauty, similar to Tiger Stadium, which also looked old, but nice on television. Up close it looked as bad as the burned-out Detroit neighborhood in which it sat.

I loved The Aud. The strange yellow paint of its interior ’ ’institution yellow’ I call it ’ that must have been the color of choice for arenas at one time. Maple Leaf Gardens, the Winnipeg Arena and Boston Garden all spring to mind when I think of that color.

The ramps, more suitable for football stadiums, that brought people to and from their seats. The narrow concourses. The narrower hallways, some of which led to ... nowhere. Charming. How could you not love the building?

The oranges. The seats that screamed ’vertigo,’ that brought the occupants of the cheap seats closer than most venues allow. The upper blues, so high that television screens were installed to display the center ice scoreboard, obscured by the overhang holding the oranges.

And the horn. The deafening blast that greeted every home team goal. It made the move across Main Street, but it’s just not the same in that cavernous arena.

Now, The Aud is gone. Scores of words have been written and spoken about the ’great old lady’ since it was shuttered not too long after Pat LaFontaine shot that last symbolic puck in the net back in April 1996. I’m not from Western New York, but The Aud holds some of my greatest sports memories. Here are my five best experiences in The Aud:

5. My first visit. A nasty snow storm in January 1985 delayed my first visit to The Aud until March when my father and I visited my brother Bill, who was attending UB. We saw my beloved New York Rangers score 10 seconds into the game, but fall to the Sabres, 3-2. We sat in the oranges, and I overcame the vertigo to venture to the visitors’ TV broadcast basket, where I got Phil Esposito’s autograph.

4. Thanks, Neil. I suffered through the 11-6 Sabres skewering of the Rangers on New Year’s Eve 1992. I was in a much better mood when the Rangers came to town as defending Stanley Cup champs in 1995. I was walking near the press box entrance, and Rangers general manager Neil Smith happened to be walking in my direction. He spied my Rangers jersey and smiled. I shook his hand and thanked him for 1994.

3. Indoor soccer returns. Rudy Pikuzinski returned to his hometown to score five goals on a November night in 1992 to lead the expansion Buffalo Blizzard to a rousing win over Denver in the first professional indoor soccer game held in Buffalo since the Stallions folded following the 1983-84 season. Two Town of Tonawanda residents, brothers Bobby and Michael DiNunzio, were popular Blizzard players.

2. Bandits win! Few people may realize that the last sporting event actually held in The Aud was the 1996 Major Indoor Lacrosse League championship game. After smoking Rochester in the semifinals, the Bandits closed out the building’s history with a 15-10 win over the Philadelphia Wings before a raucous sellout crowd.

1. Dave Hannan! Dave Hannan! The longest game in Sabres history was played on April 27, 1994. Game Six of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals ended with the Sabres staving off elimination with a 1-0 win over Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils. A friend and I abandoned our orange seats before the fourth OT in favor of a pair of seats behind the Devils bench. A perfect place to watch Hannan’s shot from the right circle hit the net.

Yes, there were some great moments at The Aud. Farewell, old friend.

John Hopkins is the night city editor of the Tonawanda News. His column appears Thursdays. Contact him at john.hopkins@tonawanda-news.com.