Game Two Quarter Finals
Sabres 3 – Islanders 2 (OT) Buffalo was under siege as New York was penalized for Elbowing, Charging, Roughing, Fighting, and high sticking as well as the usual holding, hooking and tripping for 10 penalties.
Buffalo earned eight penalties for their fair share of some high sticking, holding, hooking, and tripping, with the one fight featuring Sabres Captain Jim Schoenfeld and Islanders Bob Nystrom.
Sabres RW Danny Gare scored the overtime winner with his 3rd goal of the playoffs and earned 2 assists, Center Don Luce also scored his 3rd goal with 1 assist, with the game’s first goal coming from LW Brian “Spinner” Spencer.
Buffalo’s solid effort earned them the 2-0 Quarter Finals lead early in the week heading into the Easter weekend, I was a freshman in high school elated by the victory and upcoming break from school.
Buffalo Winter 
The name Brian “Spinner” Spencer sounded familiar to me so I asked my husband why Spinner’s name rings a bell.
Oldfan told me that Brian Spencer’s father broke into a TV studio in Vancouver to force them to broadcast the Leafs game instead of the local Vancouver game. He was killed by police. Spinner himself, according to Oldfan, was killed in Florida in a drug deal gone bad. That was after his NHL career was over. Very dark stuff. Sad.
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I posted about Spinner in August of 2021, one of my early articles.
Although the details of Mr. Spencer going to the television station to demand they play one team over another so that they could see their son play, and Brian did not know until much later what had happened to his dad, so tragic and sad, and yes after he finished playing pro hockey he was involved in some shady “business” endeavors that led to his death, I did not put all the gory details into my article.
I can only imagine the depth of Brian Spencer’s grief/depression after such a bizarre way to have one of your parents pass in that way.
Spinner was a good player for the Sabres during their Cup run of 1975, if fact it was his best season statistically in his career.
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