RICO'S PICO'S FOR GAME 5
By RICO
Wednesday, June 16, 1999

It's the middle of the night in an undisclosed hotel north of Dallas. In the middle of the night there is this loud explosion! Lindy Ruff is suddenly awoken and jumps to the window expecting to see the building next door aflame. Instead, he sees 1,000 people milling around outside the hotel, with signs and drums and horns and what's that.... rifles! Ruff hurries out of his room and finds Assistant Coach Mike Ramsey also awake. It was rumored that the Dallas fans would try to disrupt the Sabres as they slept in their hotel. But who'd expect this mob!

One fan has a bullhorn and shouts into it "Sabres SUCK, Sabres SUCK! Hasek is a basket case!" That wins a loud round of approval. Then another fan tries to climb up the wall the four stories to the floor the Sabres are staying on. One fan throws a rock at a window, but it bounces off the hardened glass. Rob Ray sticks his head out a window and is pelted with a grape fruit!

"OK jerk, you're gonna wish you'd never done that," proclaims Ray. Ray is down the elevator and heads out to the rowdy crowd. He takes on 3 cowboys and whips their butts. Then another 6-4 Texan comes in and gets into a scuffle with Ray. In the fight, Rob Ray loses his shirt, just like the good ole days and downs the drunken Texan who goes by the name of Darian Hatcher. All the fans back off the brute called Ray and he finally gets back into the hotel. The mob scene then disintegrates as they fear more retaliatory acts by the Ray Man.

When the game begins the next night, the Sabres come out flying and hitting everything in sight. Vaclav Varada single-handedly knocks down Hatcher from behind, making him crash to the boards. From there, Varada retrieves the loose puck and passes it right in front to Mike Peca, who blasts it home for the first goal. Joe Nieuwendyk is able to beat Hasek up high for the first Stars goal, but then Lightning Strikes as Satan comes full force down the middle, stick handles around 3 Stars and beats Belfour on the short side. Satan rules!

In the Second period, Hasek is called upon to make 3 great saves in a row and then he slaps the puck down to Geoff Sanderson who gets another breakaway to put the Sabres up 3-1. But Langenbrunner is able to blast one home from a scramble in front of Hasek to close the gap to 3-2 after 2.

In the third, the goon Skrudland is able to connect on a garbage goal to tie it up and the game goes into overtime. The teams battle to a scoreless tie in the first period, but Mike Modano is able to end the long game with a blast that beats Hasek on his glove side. Dallas wins 4-3 and leads the series 3 games to 2.

After the game, Ruff is asked if the noise level at the hotel was acceptable to him.

"I feel that the Sabres fans could have made a hell of lot more noise! And they will when the Stars try to sleep in Buffalo."

After that comment, Ken Hitchcock makes reservations for a secret hotel in Toronto!