And playoff games are what I mostly watch these days. Complete games. Throughout the season I might tune in a bit to watch the artistry of the play, and catch up on the names of the players, but it's the playoffs that gain my full game watching attention.
I go back. Way back to the Old Garden on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets where my father took me to my first Ranger game in the late 50s, the game Jacques Plante the Montreal goalie went off for stitches and came back wearing a goaltender's mask, the first player to do so. The game was delayed a good bit because in that era they didn't dress two goaltenders. Times change.
Coaches in that era were also the general managers, and there were only six teams in the league: Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Detroit, Rangers and Chicago. Rangers and Boston were door mats, and there was only two rounds for the playoffs.
You didn't have three assistant coaches behind the bench, and you didn't draw up plays on a white board. Over the boards like pirates and score.
The old garden was built for boxing, with perfect views from any seat of a boxing ring, not a hockey rink. In the side balcony, the visibility of the ice dropped as soon as you were seated in anything other than row A. Side balcony was $1.50, and end balcony was $2; fifty cents if you were a high school student with a GO card.
When the proposed new garden was unveiled it was said there would be no obstructed seating. You'd see the whole ice. The new garden of course had no steel girders in the way, but the promised perfect views weren't a reality. Corners were obstructed. There was a lot of criticism of the new garden, but being on top of Penn Station was a planning coup.
Until there were a few revisions to the new Garden which opened in 1968 and is now the oldest arena in the NHL—but hardly shows its age—getting in and out of bathrooms was like getting on and off a crowded subway car when only half the door opens. There was only one entrance, so exiting and entering was only through one doorway. Talk about congestion.
One year in order to get playoff tickets a friend of mine and I slept outside with hundreds of others to get to the box office when it opened. We did, but after that I decided to go for two season seats, Section 333, Row M, seats 5 and 6 that went for $5 a game. You were guaranteed playoff tickets being a season ticket holder. A king.
I think I held the season seats for 11 years, eventually moving down a bit into what were called the Yellow seats. In that era, the seats were color coded based on their proximity to the ice. Red were the lowest, then orange, yellow, green and blue, the so-called mezzanine, but really the balcony. Way up.
The Ranger teams of the 70s were great teams, and I saw the Stanley Cup paraded around the Garden ice in 1972. Unfortunately, it was being held aloft by the Boston Bruins who the Rangers played well enough against, but who had the league's best player in Bobby Orr, and a roster full of others who were also great.
One year the Rangers only lost two home games at the Garden. There was no five minute overtime/shootout format then, so many games could end in a tie. One year the Philadelphia Flyers tied 24 times, earning the title The Philadelphia Tires.
Friends of mine from work, usually Andy, or my father accompanied me. One pivotal playoff game against the Chicago Black Hawks went three overtimes, with the Rangers prevailing on an OT goal by Pete Stemkowski. That was a raucous evening. The Garden sold out of beer.
In that era, as the Billy Joel song goes, I drank a lot of beer, and spent "a lot of take-home pay." Eventually I sublet my seats to someone from work who went religiously. I had gotten married, and our first born came in 1978. Going to games twice a week was not in the cards.
In the middle 70s that Ranger General Manager engineered a trade with Boston that still hurts. Jean Ratelle, the smooth skating and shooting center of the Goal-a-Game (GAG) of Vic Hadfield and Rob Gilbert was traded to the boston Bruins for Phil Esposito, the prickly center. The defenseman Brad Park was gone and Ken Hodge came to the Rangers. Neither team prospered as a result of the trade.
From there, the Rangers drifted into mediocrity, but made the finals in 1979, losing to Montreal in 5 games. By then I wasn't going to games, having sublet my seats.
I've never been other than a Ranger fan, although my ardor became more reasonable. In those years of constant disappointment, it was impossible not to take the losses and lack of playoff advancement seriously, personally in fact. Losing created moods.
Hockey in the New York area has never suffered from unpopularity. New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and Ranger games are all on cable stations and the teams play to sold out crowds.
Watching the Rangers play the Carolina Hurricanes in game six, being ahead in the quarter final round 3 to 2 was starting to look like all the years of disappointment were set to repeat.
The Rangers won the first three games of the round, two by overtime, but had lost the next two games to bring Carolina back into the picture. Game 6 was in Carolina, and behind 3-1 going into the third period brought back all the feelings of disappointment.
Sure, if the Rangers lost, there would be Game 7 on Garden ice, but that didn't make any fan feel better. The Rangers squandered their advantage against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994 and had to prevail in a Game 7 at home. They did, and that time, from my living room with my family and far removed from my boast that if the Rangers won he Cup I'm buying the bar drinks, I got to see the Rangers hoist the Cup on Garden ice. Sam Rosen said, "the waiting is over." Left unsaid was that another wait had begun.
It was great to hear Kenny Albert do the play-by-play on TNT the other night. He sounds like his father Marv, who I used to listen to on radio do the Ranger broadcasts in the '60s, advertising Devoe paint. In that era, pre-cable, you got a Ranger away game on a Saturday night on Channel 9 with Win Elliot.
With the Rangers behind 3-1 in the third period in Game 6, I felt my posture go into a sullen pose. My shoulders slumped. It reminded me of watching the 1986 Mets with 2 outs against the Red Sox in Game 6. The end is near.
The Mets of course won that game and went on to win Game 7 at Shea for their last World Series win after a day's rain out. Game 6 for the Rangers turned into a handshake lineup in front of stunned Carolina fans. The Rangers were possessed in the third period. I like to think the Ranger Coach. Pete Laviolette. told the Rangers during the second intermission they would have to walk back to New York from Raleigh if they didn't win. Maybe he did.
Chris Kreider's natural hat trick made him Mark Messier. Almost unfairly there's more to go. It's hard to believe he's 33 now, remembering him when he started and showed the promise he has delivered. The playoffs are only half over. The Florida Panthers are the next opponents, having knocked out Boston Bruins 4 games to 2.
There are 4 layers of playoffs to pass through before winning the Cup. If all series go the distance, there can be 28 games played before someone gets to hoist the cup. No wonder it's Flag Day when it happens, June 14th.
Hockey remains my favorite sport. I'll watch baseball and football, and now even soccer because it reminds me of hockey. It's a simple game to watch, and the announcers are not yet encumbered with inane statistics like "velo" for velocity off the bat, bat speed, rotation spin on pitches, pitch location, and all the new Metric statistics like OPS. You would think the game is played in an M.I.T. physics lab.
In hockey, you shoot, miss the net, hit the post, or score. Your team is a good penalty killing team, or a good power play team, or hopefully both, but generally that's it. You win, or you lose.
At 75, will I see the Rangers win a second Stanley Cup in my lifetime? It takes a lifetime to get there.
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