To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. The once-coveted Golds I sneaked in to exactly one game at The Aud, and I had accomplices. A friend who worked concessions brought me in with him saying I was his sister when he showed up for work at 4:00 p.m. I sat in the Oranges reading a book as the “If you were from South Buffalo and paid to get into preparations unfolded around me. I remember being struck The Aud, you were a failure,” another fan remembers. by how loud the rain sounded on the roof, especially with He tells a story showing that children weren’t the only an empty upper deck. Once the game started, I was to ones who could be short a ticket: wander around to look for an empty seat or stay in SRO “It was the major-league fights. The place was sold out. (standing room only) if I couldn’t find one. I found one– – Michael Powers Mike C. [names have been changed to protect the guilty] in the most prestigious seats in The Aud, the Lower Golds. comes in, he’s got his suit coat on, and he’s got a doctor’s bag. Four seats were empty just up from the visiting team’s bench. I knew He comes running up to the pass gate and he says, like, ‘Dr. Vinny those seats belonged to the father of one of my high school classmates, Boom Botz–they need me over at the dressing room–emergency!’ known to everyone else for his successful dairy business on Niagara They let him in the gate, he runs in, takes the bag and throws it Street. I knew the usher and explained with an “I’ll take the heat” wink in the garbage.” that I’d been told that I could sit there as I grabbed the aisle seat. worked at Aud events. “I never had a ticket for the first 15 years I was alive. The Aud was ‘Irish daycare,’ not just for us, but for everybody.” “The structure was nothing special, but what it could contain was sometimes amazing: bunches of Sabres games, a few Braves games (I am told), seeing Bob Seger, Rush, The Kinks, the Who, U2, Springsteen and many other legends for the first time, the acoustics were usually pretty awful.” 2 3 SUZANNE K. TAYLOR