Notable amongst Donnie's achievements was that he, at 92, was the last of the Montreal Canadians who were on the teams that won Stanley Cup 5 years in a row. No such achievement awaited Donnie as a New York Ranger.
Donnie's playing days straddled my watching the Rangers in high school at the Old Garden and then having season seats at the New Garden, in what started out as $5 a seat in Section 333, Row M, seats 5 & 6.
Truthfully, I never knew about Donnie playing for the Canadians. He never reached the Cup finals with the Rangers, playing on Ranger teams from 1963-1970. Hockey players of that era were not particularly big, or heavy. They were wiry, good stick handlers. As a frustrated Ranger fan when Donnie's line took to the ice we used to say, "here come the dancing girls."
The 1967-1968 season saw the Rangers meet the Black Hawks in the playoffs, finally qualifying after spending many years as the doormat in the 6-team league. The league had now expanded to 12 teams. The Rangers should have beaten the Chicago Black Hawks in the first round, but came up short. Someone close to the team told us all the Rangers did on the road was drink. Beer was a Canadian hockey player's breakfast of champions then.
The Ranger teams of the late '60s and early '70s were getting very good. In 1971 they advanced past the Maple Leafs and then lost to the Chicago Black Hawks in the semi-finals. That was the year the Rangers sent the series back to Chicago with Pete Stemkowski's triple overtime goal. The Garden had run out of beer by then. It was after midnight.
When the Rangers played a team in Utah last night, a team that moved from Phoenix and doesn't even have a nickname yet, you know the game of hockey has changed. Donnie Marshall at 92 must have easily outlived whatever money he made as a player. They didn't get much then relative to today's players.
I shake my head when I think of how we were shocked, shocked, that we could no longer get into the games at the new Madison Square Garden at the Old Garden prices, which were $1.50 for side balcony and $2.00 for end balcony. My $5 a seat season tickets in the green seats seemed like an extravagance.
Hearing about Donnie wasn't the first time this week that a blast from the Ranger past hit the news. One morning on the Good Day New York morning news show with Rosanna Scotto and Curt Menifee they had Chris Jericho on, a professional wrestler, rock band singer and actor in a horror film Terrifier 3, now out in theaters.
Chris Jericho's name meant nothing to me until they showed a picture of his dad in a New York Ranger uniform, Ted Irvine, No. 27. Irvine is still with us, and Chris reminisced about seeing his dad play at the Garden, and that now he wrestled in Garden wrestling shows.
Teddy Irvine was a good utility hockey player, left wing, who one year managed to score 26 goals, a career high and a significant benchmark in the era he played in. He was with the Rangers 6 years: 1970-1975.
I don't go to Ranger games anymore. I'm not interested. After last year's fold against the eventual Stanley Cup champions Florida Panthers, I'll save my NYR interest to games that get played starting in February. I'll follow scores, but there's no need to watch a team in October and expect it to be the team that contends in the playoffs.
The season is too long. Look at the New York Mets. Who wasn't ready to write them off this season with their new skipper Carlos Mendoza and a bullpen that couldn't get batters out if they made it two strikes and you're out and their sub-.500 record? And look at them now.
No, I'll take the pulse of the Rangers early next year and see if they're worth the effort to follow. They do have a habit of just not coming through.
I'm sure Donnie Marshall is missed. I miss my $5 a seat season tickets.
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