Big crowd for Aud farewell
Business First of Buffalo - by James Fink Business First
The organizers of the “Farewell Old Friend” tribute to Memorial Auditorium estimated that more than 10,000 people attended the event, which was held this past weekend at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center.
While the convention center was filled with sports memorabilia vendors and displays that paid tribute to the Aud’s past, the focal point was the auctioning off sets of blue seats and dasher boards from the former home of the Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Braves. Most of the blue seats were sold as were all be a handful of the dasher boards.
Most were sold at set prices, beginning at $125 for some of the seats and $750 for sections of the boards. Others were sold at auction, with at least one person paying slightly more than $1,000 for a set of seats and dasher boards.
“The weekend far exceeded any and all of our expectations,” said Bruce Weinstein, whose company, Showcase Sports Marketing, organized the event. “Everyone waited 12 years for this event to take place.”
The Aud closed in 1996 and is will be demolished this fall to make way for a Bass Pro store that will anchor the $500 million Canal Side development in downtown Buffalo.
“Everyone knows the wrecking ball is coming,” Weinstein said. “This is the Aud’s final resting ground.”
Besides the auctioning of the seats and dasher boards, the other main attraction was a series of autograph sessions with Buffalo sports heroes including the “French Connection” of Gilbert Perreault, Rick Martin and Rene Robert and Braves star Randy Smith.
“The Aud was a pretty special place,” Robert recalled. “I miss the Aud but I do have a lot of memories of the building. I can replay almost every game I ever played in the Aud.”
Despite the rainy and bitter weather, fans did not mind waiting hours to enter the convention center for the right to purchase a set of blue seats and spend a few minutes with the likes of Perreault, Martin and Robert.
Michael Gernatt, 27, of Buffalo was one of those fans. He arrived at the convention at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, some 4 1/2 hours early for the evening session.
Gernatt paid $300 for some blue seats. It was worth the wait, he said.
“I want to remember the Aud forever,” he said.
Gernatt said he want many a Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bandits indoor lacrosse game in the Aud, frequently sitting in the blues.
So what is he going to do with his newly-acquired seats?
“I’m putting them in front of my big screen TV and will sit in them every time I watch a Sabres game or play PlayStation,” he said with a Cheshire cat-like smile.
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