The start of the Rochester Americans season is less than three weeks away so it’s time to start pushing out the news and information!  Training camp officially opened in Buffalo on Saturday and the big news there was that Teppo Numminen was hired as an assistant coach to help play a role in the development of young defensemen.  First McKee and now Numminen, these kids will have some quality instructors.

** Tickets for the home opener on October 13th are only $11 and $12 and now on sale.. it’s time for Rochester Americans fans to stop talking about the team, stop talking about the Sabres being back and to start buying tickets.

** The Amerks hosted a “select a seat” event on Saturday where they gave fans the opportunity to sit in different seats and pick what they wanted for either package deals or individual tickets.  I stopped down there to check it out and while there weren’t exactly lines out the door there were probably a few more sales than usual on the first day of ticket sales.

** Water will be frozen and the ice will be painted inside of Blue Cross Arena at the end of this week.  I’ll be stopping down to check it out and of course share some pictures.  There isn’t going to be a Sabres logo on the jersey, will there be one on the ice?  I doubt it.  Does it matter?  No.

** The Sabres hosted a chat on Twitter the other day with Ted Black and when asked about the dollar beers and dogs on Friday nights we’ve grown to enjoy the last two (or three?) seasons he said, “Working on some variations of that offer.”

I’d have to imagine they’re working on some promotions for the season but nothing has been announced yet.

** It does not appear as though the Rochester Americans will be playing in any preseason games this season.  There wasn’t one in Portland last season either.  Is a preseason game all that necessary?  I think it is for the purpose of building a little bit of excitement for local hockey fans for the season ahead.  A year ago at this time everyone was getting ready for the preseason game at Blue Cross Arena between the Florida Panthers and what would become Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins.

Not everyone is a Buffalo Sabres fan who has been following the prospects closely so it’d be a great chance to give fans an introduction to many of the players.  For the players and coaches though they’ll likely see enough action in Sabres preseason games on top of what they already experienced in the Traverse City Tournament.

** Players are expected to start arriving in Rochester the week of September 26th, no official word yet on an “opening” of training camp that will be open to the public.

** There will be a couple of upgrades inside of Blue Cross Arena, whether or not they’ll be finished in time for the start of the season is still up in the air.  All of the production equipment is being upgraded/updated.  There’ll be a new sound system installed and hopefully a sound engineer can properly tune it so noise levels are acceptable all around.  The scoreboard is also going to get an upgrade, not sure with exactly what just yet but a 55″ LED TV from WalMart would be an upgrade from what’s currently attached to the ceiling.

The Sabres do a lot of video work so we’ll likely get much more in terms of quality video highlights this season compared to years past.

For those paying attention to the F*N Arena in Buffalo you’ve likely heard of and noticed all of the changes going on there from the millions spent on new locker rooms to cup holders above urinals and even zamboni’s equipped with lasers.  Unfortunately major changes like that are not in the near future for Blue Cross Arena and that’s because the building is owned by the City of Rochester.

That’s it for now… stay tuned as news starts flowing out of Buffalo from the start of training camp there.

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