Hi, Sabres fans!

Since the Sabres haven’t played since March, we had time to improve some things behind the scenes.

We’re ready for our 12th season of covering the team, and while it’s been the franchise’s worst stretch of hockey ever, we’re hopeful that they can return to relevance and start making the playoffs on a more regular basis in the near future.

With today’s launch of our redesign, you’ll find that we’ve cleaned and touched up several areas of the site to enhance your viewing experience. We’ve also moved to a new server and have taken measures to fix the crashing issues that were present last season.

I’ll go over a few of the most notable differences:

New Logo

We’ve rebranded our logo a handful of times over the last 11 years, but we wanted to give it another update. The biggest change is that we’ve added some color to it and flipped the direction of the Buffalo.

We want to make it clear that we are not affiliated with the team in any way, so we are happy to use this new logo moving forward.

Pick ‘Em Upgrades

For those of you who participate in our free Pick ‘Em contest, you’re going to love what we have done to the page! The actual contest will remain the same for Season 11 as it has for the last decade.

We have cleaned up the standings table so that the rankings display very nicely on the mobile or the web, but now you can click on a participant’s name to see all kinds of info, including their all-time pick ’em stats. We’ll have a more in-depth post later this week about all of the Pick ‘Em changes we’ve made.

Return of the Podcast

We’re bringing back the BHC podcast! Craig Schutts and John Krieger started it off with their 2020 playoff predictions and reactions to the new jerseys.

The plan is to have a more consistent podcast and make it available for listeners across a number of platforms.

Line Combos Graphics

We’ve found that our readers love looking at the line combos! We’ve made brand new graphics for this that are bigger and clearer, and more responsive to mobile or desktop.

Now if only we could get some better players to put onto the lines…

Improved Mobile View

Most of our readers view the site on mobile, so we’ve built a design that prioritizes that. You’ll see a much clearer menu and a nicer login/logout/register option. The homepage and posts have been optimized for mobile as well.

New Pages

We have compiled a few new pages that are active on the site:

Sabres Draft History – A look at every single draft pick the Sabres made with a focus on the countries those players represented.

Sabres Trade History – A complete list of every trade the Sabres have ever made, along with a counter of how many they’ve made with every NHL team. Spoiler: The Kings are the Sabres most active trade partner with 20 trades.

Stanley Cup History – A year-by-year rundown of each Cup winner and loser. This page also includes a list of all current teams that have yet to win it all.

Buffalo Sports Playoff History – We’ve compiled a year-by-year list of which major sports teams made the playoffs. We took into account the Sabres, Bills, Bisons, and Bandits. We realize there are other Buffalo sports teams but are keeping it to these four for now.

How the Sabres got their name – A look back to how the team was named, what it means, and how Sabretooth came about. Do you know how old the Sabres mascot is?

Calder & Vezina Trophy History – A year-by-year look at who won each award, along with the runner-up candidates. On a desktop or laptop, you’ll be able to see stats for the winners, too.

Minor Details

We also improved many other areas of the site, so you’ll see some other enhancements. Changes were made to font, colors, comments, and much more.

We hope you continue to visit BHC and we look forward to continuing our coverage of the Sabres!