Holy Shit Buffalo’s Cold (HSBC nickname)

HSBC (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) is a global bank with many branches in New York City. Marine Midland Bank was based in Buffalo, New York; HSBC acquired full ownership of Marine Midland in 1987 and changed the name to HBSC in 1998. HSBC has a large presence in Buffalo with One HSBC Center and the HSBC Arena (where NHL’s Buffalo Sabres play professional hockey).
 
HSBC’s nickname of “Holy Shit/Smokes, Buffalo’s Cold” has been cited in print since at least 2002. The nickname is most popular in Buffalo and with hockey fans.
 
Similar HSBC nicknames include “Holy Shit my Bank’s Chinese” and “Holy Shit Bank’s Corrupt.” The HSBC nickname of “Hot Sauce Bleu/Blue Cheese” (cited in print since 1999) is a food tribute to the popular dish of Buffalo chicken wings.
 
     
Wikipedia: HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc (Chinese: 滙豐控股有限公司) is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom. As of 2010 it was the world’s sixth-largest banking and financial services group and eighth-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine. It has around 7,500 offices in 87 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America and around 100 million customers. As of 30 June 2010 it had total assets of $2.418 trillion, of which roughly half were in Europe, a quarter in the Americas and a quarter in Asia.
 
HSBC Holdings plc was founded in London in 1991 by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to act as a new group holding company and to enable the acquisition of UK-based Midland Bank. The origins of the bank lie in Hong Kong and Shanghai, where branches were first opened in 1865. Today HSBC remains the largest bank in Hong Kong, and recent expansion in mainland China, where it is now the largest international bank, has returned it to that part of its roots.

HSBC is a universal bank and is organised within four business groups: Commercial Banking; Global Banking and Markets (investment banking); Personal Financial Services (retail banking); and Private Banking.
 
Wikipedia: One HSBC Center
One HSBC Center is a skyscraper located in downtown Buffalo, New York. Formerly known as the Marine Midland Center, its name was changed when Marine Midland’s parent company HSBC rebranded the bank as HSBC Bank USA. It was constructed at a cost of $50 million between 1969 and 1972, and contains over 1,200,000 square feet (111,000 m2) of space. Today, the 40 story building still dominates the Buffalo skyline, at 529 feet (161 m), or 161 meters high. It is an example of modernist style architecture. One of the most interesting aspects of the building is that it spans the southern end of Main Street, under which the Buffalo Metro Rail passes.
 
It is the tallest building between Cleveland and Albany.
 
Wikipedia: HSBC Arena (Buffalo)
HSBC Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in downtown Buffalo, New York, USA.
 
History
HSBC Arena opened September 21, 1996, replacing the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. It was known during construction as Crossroads Arena. The construction cost was $127.5 million, (approximately $178 million in 2011 dollars).
 
Urban Dictionary
HSBC
Incorporated as Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation; also referred to as Holy Shit Buffalo’s Cold, Holy Shit the Bank’s Collapsing, Hot Sauce & Blue Cheese, and Home of the Sabres and Bills Clubs. Known for treating their employees like dirt; using kindergarten-inspired construction paper games to push employees to sell unnecessary products to people who call for an account balance; and use of pushy, threatening language to attempt to maintain a monthly goal of selling aforementioned unnecessary products.
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by BfloPolska Jun 26, 2007
 
Google Groups: demon.local
Newsgroups: demon.local
From: Keith
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 20:36:06 +0100
Local: Wed, Jul 24 2002 2:36 pm
Subject: Re: Cool job
 
>I was paying for my petrol yesterday at the local pumps and the local
>man looking after them married a girl from Buffalo and lived in New
>York State for some years before moving back here. He looked at my HSBC
>card and said that each time he sees those initials he is reminded of
>the saying:
>“Holy Shit Buffalo’s Cold”.
   
Google Books
Hard Freeze:
A Joe Kurtz Novel
By Dan Simmons
New York, NY: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
2003, ©2002
Pg. 70:
The new arena was called HSBC, which stood for some banking thing, but everyone in Buffalo knew that it meant either “Hot Sauce, Blue Cheese” or “Holy Shit, Buffalo’s Cold!”
     
Google Groups: alt.sports.hockey.nhl.phila-flyers
Newsgroups: alt.sports.hockey.nhl.phila-flyers
From: “edward webb”

Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 19:10:10 -0500
Local: Tues, Jan 13 2004 7:10 pm
Subject: Jim Jackson cracked a joke
 
HSBC
 
Holy
Smokes
Buffalo’s
Cold
 
HF Boards
Buffalo Stylee
07-27-2005, 09:56 PM
Chance of bad weather, eh? Isn’t that synonymous with Buffalo? I remember when we played you guys in the eastern semi’s, local penguins beat writer said “I now know what HSBC stands for—Holy Snowflake!! Buffalo’s Cold!!!”