BIRON: A final dinner with the 2006 Sabres

As we did after every season, we gathered to have one last team dinner after our run in the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs came to an end. Players, coaches and trainers always found it bittersweet to get together, especially after such a heartbreaking loss.

Now I am not making this up: Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final was on the same night we had our dinner.

We all met up at The Buffalo Club on Delaware and had a great dinner. After a few glasses of wine and some beers, we decided to shoot some pool in their big billiards room and continued to reminisce about the fun season that ended too soon.

Next to the pool hall is the cigar room. I went in and grabbed a cigar. In that room was Lindy Ruff and a few other guys. Game 1 was on the TV and the game was tied late in the third period.

Dwayne Roloson was the starting goalie in Edmonton after he was traded from Minnesota earlier that year to help the Oilers. He was their MVP late in the year. Well, Rollie the Goalie got hurt with six minutes left and at that moment, it stung even more. Right then, we thought for sure we would have beaten the Oilers and we would be the ones raising the Cup.

I know that things would have been different had we won Game 7 against Carolina, but I was so angry that the Hurricanes basically got all the luck in the world on their way to winning it all.

We knew some change was coming, and on the plane back after Game 7, J-P Dumont was joking around that he would be looking for a new roommate on the road the next year. I was most likely going to be traded as I wanted to be a starting goalie and we all believed the Sabres could get a decent return in a trade.

J-P, Daniel Briere and I were pretty close, and we knew this was most likely our last plane ride together. Well, what do you know J-P was the one not returning after the Sabres walked away from his arbitration award that summer. I was back for one more season with Buffalo, knowing it would most likely be my last since I was set to become an unrestricted free agent the next summer.

Jay McKee signed with St Louis as a free agent that July so our card game was officially over as only Danny and I were left to shuffle up and deal.

I obviously remember the games, the trips, the fans, the trainers, the coaches, my teammates, and so many other things, but I was able to live many of those moments again in my career.

But what I never had again, and what I miss the most about that season, is the great games of cards we played. J-P, Danny, Jay and I would play on the plane or at the hotel, illustrating just how close of a group we all were.

That's why I'm so thankful that we were able to get the game together one more time this past winter when we filmed "Beyond Blue and Gold: Scary Good" to talk about that great season.