The ticket was a Christmas present, and put the elder member in the garden for a Ranger game for the first time since the latest renovation to the league's oldest arena, while at the same time the newest arena. The class of the Garden still holds.
I laugh at the architectural reporter for the NYT who every now and then suggests the Garden should move further west, and allow the train station below to restore the grandeur of the old Penn Station. I'm sure the Dolan family after spending $500 million on a two-year renovation, with $70 going to just the planning, that they're eager to move. The Times is on crack sometimes.
The elder spent ten years as season ticket holder, starting in the late 60s. His attendance at Ranger games started at the Old Garden in 1959, when Montreal's goaltender Jacques Plante wore a mask for the first time. There is depth to these Ranger memories.
Perhaps ironically enough, there was a ceremony recognizing the season tickets who've had tickets for 50 years. There must have been 15 people, all male, who were brought out onto the rubber, flanked by former Rangers Rod Gilbert and Adam Graves, to receive congratulations for their tenure as fans.
Quite honestly, not all the folks they introduced looked old enough to have been holding tickets for 50 years. One nonagenarian in a wheelchair, pushed out by his son was legit, but surely some of the others were in seats first purchased by the parents; the tickets stayed in the family.
One thing all the honorees had in common was that the 50 years of being associated with the Rangers has cost all of them their shirt. Every honoree was wearing a Ranger jersey. Whether this was their own, or provided by management, is not knows, but believe me, you would lose your shirt paying for attendance at 50 years' worth of games. Also, the management provided jerseys might have also covered up stray tattoos that had Potvin's name stenciled inside a heart. Not a night to remember the Islanders.
Our seats were at the same level my original season seats were at, Section 333, Row M, seats 5&6. We were on the other side of the ice, but still nearest the goal the Rangers would attack twice. The blue line, if it were to have been continued up through the stands, would have come between myself and my daughter Susan.
I had been to few home games years ago, so I knew the place would turn into a thumping rock concert. Attendance at some baseball games has given me a flavor of what the fan experience is like these days; what goes into entertaining.
What I wasn't ready for were the T-shirt throws during intermission. The strong arm throws from young male and female heavers, as well as the air pumped bazooka launches that made that looked like Ghostbusters had invaded the arena.
Okay, I've seen this at ball games, but what I had never seen were the four large rocket launchers arranged at center ice that fired a fusillade of T-shirts into the crowd from four directions. The place was being carpet bombed with T-shirts.
My hope is no one suffered PTSD over the military-style promotion, but when the white balloon, looking like a weather balloon drifted over the crowd powered by drone propellers, my thoughts were that either Google Earth was taking a survey, or we really were under attack. The place starts to resemble a military exercise. To think the crowd once entertained itself by batting latex party balloons and sometimes beach balls back and forth is to realize how far the need to keep people entertained has come.
And of course since I have watched some telecasts at home, I was in no way ready for the commercial breaks. There were always breaks for commercials, but they usually involved a prolonged wait at a face off circle for the puck to be dropped.
Now, the players head over to their benches and 10 guys in blue outfits come streaking out onto the ice pushing scrapers as they collect loose shavings and push it to either end where two other guys shovel the shaved ice into buckets. They they all scoot off as fast they came, and the puck gets dropped. It is a commando raid on the ice.
Of course there was a featured fan who danced. And he was in my section, who within 20 seconds of the opening face off was trying to get the crowd to chant "Let's Go Rangers." He was perhaps near 50, wearing a Kreider Ranger jersey, looking like an iron worker. During one break he was spotlighted at an entrance portal busting moves that could put him on a show, all to the thundering music and strobe lighting that was just for him. He used the aisle handrail like a stripper would a pole. A different gender and outfit, and he would have had U.S. currency tucked into his clothing when he was done.
The sound and light show between periods has the ice looking as it it is breaking up, global warming at its worst. The only thing you don't get a suggestion of is stranded polar bears. Simulated subways stream from one end to the other. Sensory overload. Oh, they play a game as well.
And it was a good game that the Rangers were lucky to tie with 12 seconds remaining, with the usual pull-the-goaltender tactic. This time it worked, sending the game into a four-on-four five minute overtime, that ended with no one scoring, despite a two-on-none Ranger breakaway. Now the shootout. Rangers lose, but still come away with a tie and a point in the standings.
My steadfast attendance did not coincide with seeing Wayne Gretsky play. I know he later played for the Rangers, but I never saw him play in person. But, Sidney Crosby is a new generation's Gretsky and I got to see Mr. C. make a ridiculous shot from the goal line, a 180 shot that he really had no business taking, let alone making by banking it in off the Lundqvist, who was otherwise sensational in goal and kept the Rangers in the game,
Bobby Orr of the Bruins changed the game for defencemen, and Wayne Gretsky changed the game for forwards, making seeing-eye passes and shots from completely unlikely angles--and scoring.
My guess is years and years ago coaches would have benched a player who shot at the net from a 180 degree goal line angle, or attempted to score while behind the net. But Gretsky showed how that could be done, and now Sidney Crosby is at it.
Crosby also scored a shootout goal that helped give the Penguins the 2-0 shootout victory. He's a league-leading scorer and earns the crowd's disdain. He's replaced Potvin, the derisive chant for whom was very hard to get started with a crowd that has little connection to the embarrassment years when the the Islanders humiliated the Rangers with their four Stanley Cups.
So, lucky to tie with 12 seconds left. Kissing your sister? Not really, with the overtime period and shootout opportunities that come after a tie. One year of my perpetual attendance the Philadelphia Flyers finished the season with 24 ties. They were known as the Philadelphia Tires.
Rangers tie. Pittsburgh wins. We'll be back.
Maybe I'll get a T-shirt
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