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of the august reunion outside of facebook this might help solve that pass the word to all of your friends we have reopened our website for the clarence class of 1973 please head there for the latest information posted by budd bailey at 7 32 am no comments sunday february 19 2023 paul wieland forever young i m with paul wieland and seymour knox iv here the many friends of paul wieland probably all had the same reaction when they heard the news of his death earlier this week they were saddened of course over the loss of someone so vibrant and memorable but then the stories about paul came to mind and it was hard to do anything but smile at them you see wieland grew older but in many ways never grew up he always could go into something of a rage over a perceived injustice yet still see the humor in any situation we all should be that lucky to have a friend like that paul grew up in buffalo attending bishop timon high school and attended st bonaventure university he learned to love college basketball while good naturedly hating the other little three teams canisius and niagara in the process after graduation he had some odd jobs before landing at the courier express then paul moved down the street to the buffalo evening news i don t remember hearing much from him about those days although paul was quite descriptive about how intimidating a meeting with the bosses there could be but one story always stuck with me back when newspaper newsrooms had actual people in them as opposed to the remote staffs of today people used to call and ask for random bits of information one time paul overheard a call asking about the nation s longest river was it the missouri or mississippi wieland asked to have the call transferred to him river desk he said solemnly the question was repeated while looking up the answer paul stalled for time by saying it was nice to get a call because so few people wanted information on rivers wieland probably would have been happy working at the news for life adding a touch of whimsy to the paper s output as well as to the lives of those at the paper whenever possible then he found out that one of his bosses had inserted a made up quote into one of paul s news stories crossing a major line of behavior that started him job hunting while he was offered positions at some other newspapers taking them would lead to a pay cut in a sense since other cities had higher costs of living so he accepted a job in public relations for general motors it s hard to imagine wieland in the stuffy corporate world but the job came with more money and a perk a company car done sure enough paul lasted two years with the suits then he heard that the new nhl team that planned to play its first season in 1970 71 in buffalo was looking for a public relations person chuck burr was the original pr director but the knox brothers who led the team s ownership group thought that wasn t working out wieland accepted the job on one condition a company car done if you look at the sabres first ever media guide paul is listed as the assistant pr director but he soon moved up a step there he bonded with new general manager and coach punch imlach who soon had a problem that needed solving roger crozier often missed practice with stomach problems and the team needed a spare goalie wieland a beer league goalie in earlier days stepped in as a replacement paul s worst moment came when he went to make a poke check one time and accidentally tripped gil perreault the young star went crashing into the board and wieland had instant dreams of ruining the rookie s career before it got started luckily gil popped right up and beat wieland on his next 10 shots during practice as for after practice wieland learned a lesson about his teammates they weren t too good but they sure could drink he said years later now comes the part that would be the lead to any story about wieland s life that s not personal in nature the sabres had a problem in the 1970s all of their tickets were sold that meant the house was filled with the same people night after night more or less that s not a long term formula for success besides it also meant revenues would be flat with little room for growth owner peter gilbert of international cable proposed that his outlet carry a few sabre games on his system the sabres agreed but they didn t want the broadcast to look like the primitive coverage that was used for say high school games therefore they wanted to produce their own broadcasts and wieland would head up the operation gilbert agreed and the broadcasts were instantly popular you can connect the dots from there to the point where major league teams in all sports became involved in broadcasting directly that led to the creation of regional sports networks which became a huge business the model is still evolving today and it all started with the sabres paul made nhl history in 1973 when he became the first pr director to draw a penalty on the opposing team in the playoffs the goalie in him thought ken dryden s pads were too big so he quietly strolled into the montreal canadiens locker room and personally measured them yup too big he told the sabres coach joe crozier to save the information for the right time that turned out to be near the end of regulation time in game five with the score tied referee bruce hood didn t like it but a rule was a rule and the canadiens opened overtime shorthanded alas buffalo didn t score on the power play but the sabres did win the game on rene robert s goal wieland s wit moved front and center in 1974 when the nhl draft was taking place in montreal the proceedings were threatening to drag into infinity and boredom always was paul s enemy imlach asked what he could do to annoy nhl president clarence campbell and the answer from wieland was to draft a player that didn t exist from an unlikely country thus in the seventh round the sabres selected center taro tsujimoto of the tokyo katanas swords the joke lasted through training camp and taro probably will be part of sabres history forever wieland s sense of humor soon became famous around hockey circles as well as western new york i ve written about paul s famous april fool s day gags that usually were treasured by those who knew him here s the story april fool s day with the sabres there were other instances where his wit popped up a tradition started in 1976 that featured an extra paragraph silly in nature in the section of the press guide that dealt with media services in 1977 it read because of the extreme height of the press box there are skydiving exhibitions on the eves of holiday games special arrangements can be made for such exhibitions by calling the sabres public relations office at least 48 hours in advance of your visit footnote when i started writing the sabres media guide in 1987 i made sure to continue that tradition in 1988 i wrote press box seats will be filled on a space available basis gate crashers in the press box will be forced to watch reruns of gomer pyle for four hours paul s habit of playing a role in odd times in sabre history continued on february 12 1977 goalie gerry desjardins was injured so the team recalled don edwards from the minors and imlach ordered coach floyd smith to start edwards that didn t sit well with backup goalie al smith who skated on to the ice waved at seymour knox and said see ya seymour and left the building assistant general manager john andersen put out a call for wieland who was planning on broadcasting the game on cable as usual wieland signed an amateur tryout contract and began dressing for the game as edwards backup but the team couldn t get all the details done before the lineups were signed thus ending paul s nhl career before it started that was ok with him can you imagine if i had to go out and play against nhlers he told me years later i was just a beer league goalie they would have really embarrassed me one time paul noticed the college stickers that adorned the rear view windows of cars he saw a financial opportunity and had buffalo sabres universally stickers printed and sold he once told me i can t believe that i can come up with an idea like that and the knoxes will say go ahead and make them during a really boring preseason game in the early1980s paul started writing fake and silly coupons on paper and throwing them over the front of the press box into the crowd fans took them to the concessions stands and asked for their redemption drawing stares from the workers and head shakes from their bosses i should know i sat beside wieland that night writing and throwing i was hired for the sabres public relations department in 1986 with paul s stated reasons for hiring me ringing in my ears for days you re a good writer you know hockey and you re bleeping nuts high praise indeed working on television production was becoming a full time job for him so he was more of an overseer of the communications department rather than my direct boss in other words i was allowed to say no sometimes when wieland asked me to take the afternoon off because he needed another player for a doubles match in tennis still everyone in the communications department including new pr director john gurtler bonded pretty quickly establishing friendships that would last for the rest of our lives we chuckled together about some of the absurdities of life in the nhl and complained when the city of buffalo turned off the heat to our offices once the playoffs were over usually before the end of april unfortunately paul eventually spent more and more time on the television side of the hockey business at one point the sabres games were on channel 49 which was owned by the team one night the hockey game ended at 10 20 p m and paul figured he d have the announcers fill time until the bottom of the hour but no he was order to dump out immediately and go to local programming wieland was absolutely horrified to hear a recording saying we now return to our scheduled programming in this case the last 10 minutes of gomer pyle paul was outraged this is a bleeping gomer pyle station from then on channel 49 was always called the gomer by wieland it caught on at least internally by the time the early 1990s arrived things had started to change in the hockey business the money involved was rising rather quickly and everyone was starting to take things more seriously the staff grew in size ending some of the intimacy that paul had enjoyed in the sabres early years that seriousness put pressure on the entire sabres organization especially as the first round playoff losses of that era mounted which meant the team s fabled sense of humor that wieland had created was at risk all the things we did only enhanced our reputation in the community he told me once we never took ourselves too seriously the april fool s day broadcast soon became one of the casualties boo it might not have been the last straw for paul but maybe the company car was gone he also had some problems with some of the ethics of team leadership just like he had at the news in the late 1960s it was time to get out of the hockey business paul was off to massachusetts to run a public television station for six years where he did some production work for some major outlets on the side and watched his boston red sox during free time in the summer but when it was time to retire from that job wieland saw it as an opportunity to move back to the buffalo area he landed a job as a teacher at his beloved st bonaventure working for dean lee coppola better known as mel moonlight a nickname given by paul for all of lee s freelance work involving the sabres back in the 1970s based on the social media postings i ve seen lately wieland touched a lot of lives as a faculty member i remember him excitedly telling me early in his tenure one of my kids said in a survey that i was his favorite teacher of all of his instructors at st bonaventure that s quite a compliment paul finally left his teaching job in 2017 i remember writing up something of a tribute to his career for the party that was held in ellicottville such messages are always better when they get to be read by the subject while they are around to see it we met for lunches and bumped into each other every so often such as when he had a book signing of one of his literary efforts my last encounter came on my birthday in 2021 when i happened to spy an extra seat next to him at the induction ceremony of the greater buffalo sports hall of fame it was a great present he was in considerable pain at that point due to a variety of ailments and was laughing about the idea that he was allowed to smoke medical marijuana for relief i asked about another lunch meeting during 2022 but he wasn t up for it immediately i ll let you know he wrote the news of wieland s death was shocking and sudden then but not surprising no doubt all of his other friends like me were left wishing for one more two hour lunch to share some laughs and review good times paul combined smarts humor and wit to carve out a unique niche in the local sports community that s an act that s impossible to follow follow budd on twitter wdx2bb posted by budd bailey at 9 03 am 2 comments tuesday may 24 2022 our turn mensana the monthly newsletter of the local chapter of mensa usually doesn t discuss the events of the day in its pages however we thought it was necessary to address the mass shootings that took place in buffalo earlier this month for better or worse i volunteered to come up with something maybe you ll like it it was difficult to escape the aftermath of the mass shootings in buffalo on saturday may 14 but it wasn t for a lack of trying after a difficult week for everyone in our area my wife and i drove to a social event with friends and others in northern new jersey usually when word gets out at such functions that we re from buffalo someone says something clever like has the snow melted up there yet but this time the questions were different numerous and serious people wanted to know how close we were to the site of the incident and how we and others in this part of the world reacted to it that was no different from what happened earlier in the week when people from various parts of our lives checked in we even heard from a friend in perth australia which is as far as you can go from buffalo and still be on land like everyone else in western new york my reaction was shock but not surprise there are too many shootings like this one in america of course because one is too many but every so often one pops up in another city or town one friend of mine works at virginia tech university and spent a terror filled day there another friend of mine lived up a hill from the supermarket in boulder colorado that saw a similar attack these incidents arrive like well a virus in unexpected places without warning it was simply enough our turn on the way back we drove past the town of conklin which is located on interstate 81 south of binghamt...
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