Welcome to Expected Buffalo! This site will be dedicated to covering the Buffalo Sabres with a focus on analytics.

For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Chad Dedominicis. I’ve been covering hockey and the Sabres for about seven years. I’ve written for sites such as The Fourth Period, The Hockey Writers, and I’m currently the Managing Editor of SB Nation’s Die By The Blade. Speaking of Die By The Blade, I will remain with that site as its ME and produce content there as well.

Why I’m Starting xBuffalo

I’ve had this idea of starting my own website stored away for a few years now in the event something dried up with my current writing situation. Turns out that wasn’t what pushed me to start this new venture. The situation in my “day job” is what made me put this plan into action.

Back on Bell Let’s Talk day I put a post on Twitter that shared insight on some difficult times I’ve had in the last year and a half. In that post, I mentioned the idea that perhaps focusing my time more on hockey is what I’m supposed to do.

I started a new job with a company back in the middle of February that was going well in the first month. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 situation, that company was forced to close their doors for good and I’m out looking for a job again.

Now, it’s time to chase the dream.

Subscription

That leads me to the part that I’m not a fan of but for me is necessary to do this (eventually) full-time. This site will be placed behind a paywall after a month. It’s possible I’ll extend the period of free access with the current situation going on in the world. We’ll see how things look in May.

The subscription rate will be $5 a month to have full access to the site that can be purchased on Patreon. If you want to be eager and support us early on feel free to jump in early on a subscription. If not, that’s fine too.

As I said, I hate having to monetize the content that I produce, but this is the direction that the industry is heading. I’ve produced free content for seven years now and I’ve had pride in doing that. However, that is going to change now with my work away from Die By The Blade.

We’ll see where this goes. I’m excited about this new beginning in my life and I have a lot of cool ideas. It stinks having to launch this site in the middle of the suspended play, but it also gives me some time to work out the early kinks that will surely be there.

I hope you come along for the ride and if you decide not to that’s fine as well. No hard feelings and you can continue to consume the written content I produce at DBTB.

My only expectation for this site is to have fun and try to turn a dream into reality.