The Blackout in Buffalo

[jcrandall]

What a fun day.

We did the Buffalo vs. Chargers game in New York, and they had no power. Talk about old-school football, no clocks, no scoreboard, nothing.

It was lots of fun till I had to use the bathroom, 80 guys in a dark room trying to hit a troff. You got the idea!

Power came back about 10 minutes into 3rd quarter, so the game slowed down. I never realized how much time the comercial timeouts take until you see a game without them.

I can say I saw a game that you couldn't even see on Sunday Ticket!

 

[Mr Tony]

that was suppose to be our game here in Minneapolis on CBS

they switched us to.........Pittsburgh & Cincy

 

[jcrandall]

One of the funniest things, in the middle of a play, the entire sound system loudly did the windows XP boot up sound, as the stadium scoreboard/PA system was rebooting.

Kinda funny as everyone was like WTH...

 

[Andrewwski]

I heard that too. Pretty funny.

Did you notice when they had the "planned outage," another transformer blew right away? I think they blew a transformer trying to switch from the secondary line to the primary. Does it have anything to do with the fact that the balloons were still tangled in the lines at the time?

That was one of the most unusual games I've ever been to. Imagine what that guy that let go of the balloons is thinking!

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I heard that too. Pretty funny.

Did you notice when they had the "planned outage," another transformer blew right away? I think they blew a transformer trying to switch from the secondary line to the primary. Does it have anything to do with the fact that the balloons were still tangled in the lines at the time?

That was one of the most unusual games I've ever been to. Imagine what that guy that let go of the balloons is thinking!

He was probably thinking "I wonder what will happen if this balloon hits the electrical wires?
Later (when it happened) he was probably thinking "Awesome!" and "I better get the hell outta here!"

 

[Islandguy43]

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He was probably thinking "I wonder what will happen if this balloon hits the electrical wires?
Later (when it happened) he was probably thinking "Awesome!" and "I better get the hell outta here!"

Hey, maybe it was a TWC get even attempt. Lin TV was not letting TWC show their Buffalo CBS channel, so nobody gets to the see the game either...nationwide...

 

[yourbeliefs]

What was that like? Like what happened when there was a penalty that needed to be announced, the lack of a play clock, questionable calls that could use replay... I mean a lot of fundamental play issues come up with the lack of electricity; stuff that we take for granted nowadays.

 

[jcrandall]

penaltys you had to know the hand signals. anything questionable and the refs ran to the coach.

there were multiple delay of game penaltys and the QB had no 40 second clock, so it was tough for that. Refs used stopwatches.

Interesting to watch, and a great game.

 

[yourbeliefs]

penaltys you had to know the hand signals. anything questionable and the refs ran to the coach.

there were multiple delay of game penaltys and the QB had no 40 second clock, so it was tough for that. Refs used stopwatches.

Interesting to watch, and a great game.

You'd figure that they'd cut them a little slack and be more lenient on the players with the lack of a clock. I mean it has to be hard to be the QB and be counting down in your head 40 seconds while you're getting plays and coordinating with your teammates and getting the snap count right and dealing with the crowd noise..
Also had to stink for the fans to never know the time situation.

Were vendors able to sell much without POS machines working?

 

[darrencp22]

penaltys you had to know the hand signals. anything questionable and the refs ran to the coach.

there were multiple delay of game penaltys and the QB had no 40 second clock, so it was tough for that. Refs used stopwatches.

Interesting to watch, and a great game.

Hey what made you make the trip to a Bills game?

 

[mattsarz]

You'd figure that they'd cut them a little slack and be more lenient on the players with the lack of a clock. I mean it has to be hard to be the QB and be counting down in your head 40 seconds while you're getting plays and coordinating with your teammates and getting the snap count right and dealing with the crowd noise..
Also had to stink for the fans to never know the time situation.

Were vendors able to sell much without POS machines working?

For the play clock, the back judge kept the time and signalled when there was 10 and 5 seconds remaining.

Vendors who were in the stands should have had no problem. I read that some of the concession stands were running via gas powered generators.

Also, while LIN-owned WIVB in Buffalo is unavailable on Time Warner systems due to a dispute between the two entities, CFTO (CTV) out of Toronto showed the game in Niagara County (including my hometown of North Tonawanda) only because it qualified as being significantly viewed according to the FCC.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Also, while LIN-owned WIVB in Buffalo is unavailable on Time Warner systems due to a dispute between the two entities, CFTO (CTV) out of Toronto showed the game in Niagara County (including my hometown of North Tonawanda) only because it qualified as being significantly viewed according to the FCC.

Too bad the NFL couldn't come down and force some sort of legal injunction that would require that the games be broadcast. I mean they're fighting to stay on regular cable channel tiers against Comcast, and lord knows the NFL has quite a bit of clout.

 

[mattsarz]

Too bad the NFL couldn't come down and force some sort of legal injunction that would require that the games be broadcast. I mean they're fighting to stay on regular cable channel tiers against Comcast, and lord knows the NFL has quite a bit of clout.

The game was broadcast in Buffalo. My father had no problem giving TW the finger and putting up an antenna to view the game in HD.

I also have a cousin who works in ad sales for WIVB, specifically website advertisements. The station is catching a lot of flack too. Both sides are at fault here and no one wins. Two Bills games have been missing from cable there (DirecTV, Dish Network and FIOS are not affected).

 

[yourbeliefs]

The game was broadcast in Buffalo. My father had no problem giving TW the finger and putting up an antenna to view the game in HD.

I hate LIN as well. As a D* member I had to deal with them being snobby about letting D* carry their HD signals. At least they finally came to an agreement and now I don't need an antenna to just view my CW and ABC channels in HD. Given LIN's horrible track record with providers, I wouldn't be surprised if this was more of LIN being bitchy than TWC being unruly.