Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1547037
by Bill Hoppe A RESURGENCE The Buffalo Sabres' Return To The Stanley Cup Playoffs For The First Time In 15 Years Has Reinvigorated The Hockey Community In Upstate New York THE MOMENTS FOLLOWING the Buffalo Sabres' rollicking come-from-behind 4-3 victo- ry over the Boston Bruins in their first playoff game in 15 years, Rich Jureller answered his phone and heard his 19-year-old daughter, Samantha, sobbing. Jureller, the Sabres' vice president of community relations, immediate- ly thought Samantha, who attends Kent State University, had been in an accident. No. They were tears of joy. "She's like, 'I can't believe the Sabres won,'" Jureller said. Learning the Sabres had erased a late 2-0 deficit and roared back to stun the Bruins in raucous KeyBank Center made Samantha so emotional she cried when she phoned her father. "I've never experienced anything like this before," she said of the Sabres' memorable victory April 19. "It was so surreal. I was just so happy." The younger generation of fans like Samantha had never experienced anything as special as the Sabres' resurgent 2025-26 season. "It was like the first moment in her life where, all of a sudden, she got it, right?" Rich Jureller said of his daughter's Sabres fandom. "Like, 'Holy cow, this is unbelievable,' and the emotion behind it." Simply making the Stanley Cup Playoffs and end- ing their NHL-record drought would've been sig- I N B U F F A L O IN JOSH DOAN TAGE THOMPSON 50 W I N S A P P E A R A N C E I N 2 N D R O U N D O F P L A Y O F F S I N 1 9 Y E A R S ATLANTIC D I V. C H A M P I O N S 1 ST 46 // OCTOBER 2026 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM 2 0 2 5 - 2 6