Free Republic

Tim Horton loved cars more than he loved coffee, and it cost him his life. By 1973, the 43-year-old four-time Stanley Cup champion and future Hockey Hall of Famer had played 23 seasons in the NHL. Nonetheless, with the new season approaching, Buffalo Sabres general manager Punch Imlach enticed Horton to play an additional year for $150,000 and sweetened the deal with a sporty De Tomaso Ford Pantera. Imlach preyed on Horton’s lifelong weakness for fast cars, and the player couldn’t resist the offer of owning the supercar. Four months later, when Horton perished driving the sports car at breakneck...

Another chapter in the never-ending love/hate relationship between New York and fracking. The former has banned the latter, as we’re sure you know. First, let’s go back to 2010. East Resources, which is a privately held independent oil and gas company operating in the Marcellus, among other areas, sells a vast amount of acreage in the Marcellus and other areas to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion. Then go back to earlier this year. Ralph Wilson, the only man who ever owned the Buffalo Bills, dies in March. So his heirs put the Bills–who haven’t made the NFL playoffs since...

Former President Bill Clinton returned to Buffalo Wednesday with a message to Democrats: Grab onto the many opportunities Republicans are handing you, and focus your message. "President Nixon looks like a Communist compared to these guys," he said, referring to Republicans in Washington. Clinton told some 300 local Democrats that Americans are rejecting public policy based on ideology, whether conservative or liberal, and instead want to return to results-based politics. "America is yearning for a sense of purpose and unity," he said at the Buffalo Convention Center. Among his other points: Afghanistan, not Iraq, is the most important military front...

Former President Bill Clinton poses with a fan in a suite in HSBC Arena Wednesday night. More photos of Clinton's visit on the Picture Page, C10. Former President Bill Clinton lamented a new political climate stressing ideology over performance while in Buffalo Wednesday, lambasting the Republican Party on almost every front before joining next year's potential GOP candidate for governor for hockey in HSBC Arena. In a day that provided all kinds of strange political mixes, he wowed an audience of about 600 hand-picked Democrats in the Buffalo Convention Center as part of a swing through Rochester and Buffalo. His...