How did you spend your New Year’s Eve/Day?  Me, well it was nothing more than sitting at Ralph Wilson Stadium watching the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburg Penguins play hockey in front of the largest crowd to view a hockey game.  O yeah did I mention that it was OUTSIDE! (more on the issue in a minute)When I first heard that the Sabres were going to play a hockey game outside like the Heritage Classic in 2003 I could contain myself.  First of all its the Buffalo Sabres (if you couldn’t tell I am a huge fan.) and second IT WAS GOING TO BE OUTSIDE.The day the tickets went on sale I was on the phone waiting, as well as my brother and his wife, but to our amazement the tickets sold out in less then 30 minutes.  Wait, I don’t think you understood what you just read.  74 thousand tickets sold in less than 30 minutes.  Thats insane!!!  Well I had to face the fact that I wasn’t going to The Winter Classic.  I wanted to be part of history because my team was going to be part of history.  Earlier that month my brother and I sat down and picked out the games that we could make.  We live in Central New York (myself in Auburn, my brother in Liverpool) so the trip to Buffalo takes about 2 1/2 hours plus we are both very busy after school and on the weekends.  We picked some pretty intense games and got some great seats.  (you can see pictures from the games on my flickr site)On December 21st we made our way to Buffalo to experience Daniel Briere’s homecoming.  It was a calm night.  No snow, no wind and everything was good.  The thruway was packed because it was the start of Christmas Break for the schools, plus Christmas Eve was Monday.  We parked in our normal spot and walked quickly to the Arena.  Its Buffalo, it was freezing.  Right before we entered the doors my brothers cell phone rang.  I remember him answering the phone and smiling.  I tried to ask him a number of times what was going on, but he just ignored me.  He hung up and looked at me and said “Were going to the Winter Classic.”  The owner of the company he works for got him 2 tickets to the winter classic.I couldn’t believe it.  We were going to the Winter Classic.  O by the way Buffalo beat Philly 3 – 2.  If you watch the highlights from that game you can see us when Spacek dropped Danny.  It happened right in front of us.  to be continued…