Buffalo Sabres fans make 'Eichel Tower' grow with goals

When Buffalo Sabres forward Jack Eichel scores a goal, 7-year-old C.J. Gworek jumps out of his seat on his family’s couch in Spring Hill, Tennessee and searches for a puck.

After finding one of many black vulcanized rubber discs in his home, he and his dad John place the puck on a stack numbered with Eichel’s goal total on a shelf in their family room.

A photo of the pucks is then taken by John and then sent out to over 1,200 followers from a Twitter account named “TheEichelTower.”

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“C.J. just loves it when he scores, and he’s like shot out of a cannon off the couch to go get a puck and put the new one up there,” said John, a Buffalo native who is now a senior editor with Athlon Sports in Nashville. “It’s supposed to be for fun and it’s cool that a lot of people like it.”

The Eichel Tower is another idea spawned from 'Eichel Mania' with Buffalo fans. This one came from a young child and turned into a piece that has been referenced by the Sabres in team broadcasts and on local talk radio shows.

It started the morning after Buffalo’s Jan. 26 win over the Ottawa Senators. The night before Sabres broadcaster Dan Dunleavy sounded elated when Eichel scored his second goal of the game, which proved the game-winner.

“The Eichel Tower has put the Buffalo Sabres up top 3-2!” he roared.

C.J. was asleep so John DVR’d the game so C.J. could see Eichel’s goals before school.

“It wasn’t until when I replayed it for C.J. and as soon as he said, it C.J.’s head snapped and he was like ‘we should build an Eichel Tower,’” John said. “It’s just stuff a 7-year-old says. He’s not even thinking about it. He’s just excited.”

Because C.J. plays hockey and had a bunch of pucks in the house, the project was manageable. John took a photo of the tower after it was completed and tweeted it with his personal account to Dunleavy, who retweeted the photo.

John also sensed a teaching moment with C.J. about social media. So he made the account about The Eichel Tower.

“I was like ‘that might be kind of neat and a cool thing to teach C.J.' because he has no concept of social media because he’s too young,” John said. “He’s not on social media. But it would be something cool to just kind of teach him, so that’s where the Twitter thing came from.”

When Eichel would score they would add another puck to the tower and tweet a photo at Dunleavy, who would retweet it. This gave the account some social following. Dunleavy also acknowledged the tower after an Eichel goal against the Colorado Avalanche.

But it wasn’t until Eichel’s overtime winner with one second left on March 12 against the Carolina Hurricanes where The Eichel Tower account really took off. After the game local radio host Jeremy White tweeted about the tower, and suggested the Sabres should build one in Buffalo.

That game was on a Saturday, and by Monday, John estimated the account shot up from near 400 followers to over 1,000.

“Every time he scores it gets a little spike. It’s been kind of cool,” John said.

The Eichel Tower will have some kind of future following the season, though it's a bit murky at this juncture.

“The idea off the top of my head would be to do a new one every season, similar to what we did now,” John said. “Maybe put a couple of pucks on the bottom and write on the side of them ‘2015-16’ and put his goals, almost to build on top of each season, kind of a Stanley Cup kind of thing. But I don’t know.”

There's also some talk of Eichel Tower t-shirts for charity, but nothing is set in stone.

At its core The Eichel Tower is John and C.J.’s way to bond over the Sabres. John loved watching Buffalo great Gilbert Perreault as a child and believes Eichel can help bring the same type of Sabres-related joy to his family after years of watching the team struggle.

“The Sabres are exactly as old as I am. I was born a month after the Sabres started playing in 1970. I grew up with Gilbert Perreault being the franchise guy on the Sabres and he was my favorite player growing up.” John said. “It’s kind of nice now if things work out and the Sabres keep getting better and Eichel sticks around and he looks like he’s going to – my son has that same thing as he grows up. I think that might be pretty cool.”

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper