To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. The Fans Sabres fans kept the stands filled, almost exclusively with season ticket holders. For years it was such a tough ticket to come by that people would line up at 4:00 a.m. for a chance to buy a pair. “People would sleep outside. You’d walk up, they’d give you a number, and then we’d start about quarter to nine lining up numerically,” remembers Donna Thielke. “You could only get two tickets per person.” Betty Krencik adds, “We waited all night in line–it was freezing cold–to get tickets to see the Sabres play the Boston Bruins back in 1970. That’s how I met my husband!” In their first decade the Sabres sold out The Aud for 326 consecutive home games (359 if you count the playoffs) between 1972 and 1980. As I polled people about their memories of The Aud, one was shared by every generation: sneaking into The Aud. standing-roomonly tickets and During years of sell-outs, many Standing enter The Aud Room Only tickets were sold. legitimately. The rest of the kids would wait outside a row of exit doors. The friends on the inside simply ran down the row of doors, popping them all open, and the unpaid patrons f looded the downstairs hall knowing that the security guard could only catch one or two of them. The rest would get to watch the game. SUZANNE K. TAYLOR JOHN BOUTET COLLECTION Al Coppola remembers his tricks: “A couple of times before the garage door [at the south entrance] closed, that’s how I got in. That was in the colder View through the garage door at the south entrance during demolition. weather. In the warmer weather, at the dock on the Those from South Buffalo had an even easier time side, there was a window at the top and there were getting in; one of their own was guarding the doors at the south end. these big grooves and I’d just climb on those. I was in that window Donny “Bughead” Smith, the only one-legged ticket-taker in The many a time.” Aud, knew who to let in. “If it wasn’t Bughead, someone else would let For others it was a group effort. One or two friends would purchase you in,” explains Kevin Callahan, whose father was a Buffalo cop who 2 JOHN BOUTET COLLECTION 2