Cunneyworth Looking to Stay with Amerks

A look at the Portland Pirates website shows that there is no members in their hockey operations yet. One of those spots is probably not going to be filled by Amerks coach Randy Cunneyworth. According to today's Democrat and Chronicle, the Sabres have granted the Panthers permission to negotiate a new contract with Cunneyworth so he can stay the coach of the Amerks. Cunneyworth has been apart of the Amerks and the Sabres for the last eight years, the last three coaching the dual affiliation team.

Cunneyworth is a great teacher of the game and he will be missed if he does not come along with the Sabres prospects to Portland. The amount of talent that he has been apart of churning out in the last few years shows how valuable he is to the organization and the Sabres in general.

Notes about things

The Sabres kept their heads above the water with the shootout win last night against the Senators. While I only caught the last couple of minutes of the game, it was good to see a sense of urgency and not what I saw against the Senators on Tuesday. All this is moot though, because the high-flying Canadiens are coming to town tonight. The Canadiens lead the division by four points over the Senators and are playing very well, which was evident the last time they came to town. If the Sabres want to keep themselves alive in the last 5 games, they obviously need to come away with two points tonight.

The Amerks and Knighthawks have found a new majority owner in Curt Styres. Styres bought out owners Randell Latona and Walter Turek to become the new majority owner. Donner still stays on board with the team running day-to-day operations. This puts to rest all the rumors floating about on the Sabres possibly owning the team. Where the team will move to is unknown at this point and there are no rumors floating yet.

The Sabres' Future with the Amerks

It seems like an odd title but there are some rumblings about a renewed interest with the Sabres and Amerks. It starts with the Knighthawks owing $27,000 in back taxes to the state. The Knighthawks are part of the deal with the Amerks. The next deal comes with the Rhinos and the city of Rochester seizing PAETEC Park due to the default of the loans on the stadium. This leads us to probably the most hated man in Rochester sports right now, Steve Donner. Donner has a 40% ownership in the Amerks and also has an ownership in the Rhinos. Because NBT bank wants its money from the Rhinos, they have sued the three major owners in the Rhinos, including Donner. This has a huge implication towards the Amerks and the Knighthawks which again Donner is majority owner of. There has been speculation that Tommy G., the same person who came in and swooped the Sabres out of bankruptcy, may come in a swoop up the Amerks and Knighthawks.

Isnt it interesting that the Sabres have yet to announce anything toward their next affiliation. It was announced in November that the Sabres were officially done with Donner and the Amerks and they were going to move on. Speculation at that time was the team was going to affiliate with the Portland Pirates, who are currently the farm team of the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks were not happy with the Pirates because of the distance that their callups had to travel to get to the main team. They were reportedly looking for something closer. That was November, this is now. Nothing has been said about the affiliation since then.

Do I see Golisano picking up the Amerks and running them alongside the Sabres. I'm not sure. I do know one thing though, if he does do that the Knighthawks would have to be a seperate entity in the deal. There would need to be a new owner in the K-hawks due to a conflict of interest with the Bandits. Golisano is a local Rochester boy but I dont think that he has ever expressed interest in running that team due to the financial mess that the Amerks are now. There is another wrinkle in this story that came out today. It was assumed that the Florida Panthers, current joint affiliator with the Sabres, would take over the affiliation full time and what not. But this article in the Democrat and Chronicle suggests otherwise. The Panthers are having concerns with the same issues that the Sabres were having with Rochester, including the late payment of affiliation fees.

Most of this is speculation I know, I'm not claiming otherwise. But there is one thing I know. This is a friggin mess.