9401210932
DETROIT FREE PRESS
940615
Wednesday, June 15, 1994
METRO FINAL
1C
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO METRO FINAL CHASER EDITION, Page 1C
Copyright (c) 1994, Detroit Free Press
RANGERS 3, CANUCKS 2
FINALLY!
NEW YORK (AND NHL) NEEDED THIS
NEW YORK NEEDED THIS
NEW YORK -- A bead of sweat was working its way down Jon's forehead,
dripping from his thick, sprayed hair and toward his cheekbone. He tried to
ignore it and held his microphone straight, but man, it was hot, damn hot.
The heat seemed to burst from the subway grates and the restaurant fans and
the exhaust pipes of buses that rolled past Madison Square Garden, past the
rows of blue-uniformed riot police, hundreds of them, just waiting, leaning
on their barricades, wiping their foreheads. It was June 14, the latest day in
hockey history, and the fever was on 33rd Street.
"What TV station is this guy on?" a fan asked, pointing at Jon, even as he
tried to slide in behind him.
"I have no bleepin' idea," said his buddy.
"Let's get in his shot."
There were already at least 50 people in Jon's shot, hoisting their
Rangers jerseys, waving their caps. Up and down the block they had marched,
for the last hour, TV camera to TV camera, screaming, "This is the year!"
howling like beasts, trying, in that very New York way, to steal a moment of
fame and pull it on like a costume. One guy held a miniature Stanley Cup, and
pretended to guzzle beer.
"Yo, TV guy! Yo! Here's what da Rain-jahs gonna do tonight aftah they win.
Yo, TV guy!"
The Rain-jahs. It was all about the Rain-jahs, now. There are Yankees
nights in New York City, and Mets nights, Knicks nights, baseball nights,
basketball nights, but now, finally, here was a hockey night, The Night of The
Rain-jahs, a night for all the guys named Sal, Nick, Lenny, Duke, the lunatics
who have been coming to the Garden forever, sitting in the blue seats,
raining down their noise in the many, many years this team didn't have a
chance and worse, in the few years it did and still couldn't win.
Five-and-a-half decades the Rangers had gone without a Stanley Cup,
longest drought in the league. This was bad for the Apple. It was bad for the
game. All U.S. sports leagues need New York teams to win now and then, if only
to ignite hatred -- and thus, interest -- across the rest of the country.
The Long Wait was supposed to end Tuesday, Game 7, Stanley Cup finals,
Rangers against the upstart Vancouver Canucks, on the biggest single night the
NHL has ever seen. The press coverage was massive. The TV audience was
worldwide, North America, Europe, Russia. They were all gawkers, however, for
this was a New York party. Along Eighth Avenue and down Broadway they came,
fans in T-shirts, in black dresses, in seersucker suits, celebrities, dock
workers. The Rain-jahs! The Rain-jahs!
"Well, the players aren't the only ones who have waited a long time for a
a Stanley Cup . . . " Jon began, TV camera humming, the bead of sweat dripping
into his sport coat collar. The crowd surged to get into the picture. "LET'S
GO, RAIN- JAHS! LET'S GO RAIN-JAHS!"
A few feet away, two middle-aged guys watched the bedlam, half-dazed. They
wore T-shirts that read "New York Rangers, 1994 Stanley Cup Champions."
"They don't win tonight, I'm just gonna kill myself," one of them, a guy
called Wolf, said. "They lose tonight, I kill myself and die."
His friend, taller, with glasses, looked at him blankly.
"Good," he said.
It was that kind of New York night, the heat, the noise, the police, the
attitude, all swirled into this hurricane that exploded when the players burst
from the tunnels to flashing lasers and deafening applause. So bright was
this focus, you expected the ice to melt, until they were skating in a big
pond.
Not that it would have mattered. On Tuesday night, the Rangers might have
walked on water. Oh, they made their fans suffer. Put them through 60 minutes
of nail-biting hell, in which a 2-0 lead was cut to 2-1, and a 3-1 lead cut to
3-2. In the final grueling period, they survived more close calls than "The
Perils Of Pauline." With 6:36 left in the game, Vancouver's Martin Gelinas
fired a shot that slapped off goalie Mike Richter's glove, and skipped toward
an open net, and the whole Garden inhaled as Kevin Lowe swooped in and plucked
it out just before disaster. And even in the closing seconds, the Canucks were
battling in front of the Rangers' net with the tenacity of a trapped animal.
It was that kind of night. But what did you expect? How else could the
Rangers win? No other team has ever had the black cloud that followed this
team. Not a single player on this year's roster was alive the last time the
Cup came to the Apple. Some of their fathers weren't even alive. The curse!
The curse! That's all they talked about here.
Until Tuesday. When the final horn sounded, fireworks exploded inside the
Garden, and the players threw their gloves and sticks into the air, as if
graduating the hardest college of their lives.
Curses, foiled.
True, it would have been fitting if this series had been won by Vancouver
-- a team that was two games away from a losing record this season -- because
this was the year the playoffs saw the San Jose Sharks, eighth seed, knock
out the Red Wings, first seed, and the Washington Capitals, seventh seed, beat
the Pittsburgh Penguins, second seed, and the Canucks, of course, beat
Calgary, Dallas and Toronto, all higher seeds.
But Vancouver did enough just getting this far. It surprised the hockey
world, and justified the patience it has shown both coach/GM Pat Quinn and
goaltender Kirk McLean -- both of whom the fans wanted hung in the regular
season.
The Canucks never quit, and were never intimidated, not even in the final
minutes, as the Rangers' fans tried to scream their team to a victory. The
truth is, the Canucks gave the NHL the best show of any team in the playoffs,
seven overtime games, six victories, and a comeback in the finals that defied
logic, including two wins in the Garden.
But on Tuesday, the Garden had the last laugh. They buried 1979, and 1972,
and 1950, and if there's a broken heart for every light on Broadway, then
Tuesday, they shut the lights and started over. Captain Mark Messier was
hugging coach Mike Keenan and, moments later, skating around the Garden ice
with the Cup that had become a Holy Grail.
"STANLEY CUP! STANLEY CUP!" the fans shouted.
The truth is, hockey needed this. The last time a Stanley Cup final went
to a seventh game, 1987, it was played in Edmonton, and won by Edmonton, which
meant the joyous celebration took place in a city most Americans couldn't find
if you gave them a map and directions. It was good for western Canada; it did
little to enlarge the game. The truth is, for hockey to jump to the next
level, it needs a champion in a major market, New York, LA.
This will enlarge the game. As soon as this place calms down. The
basketball nights will return, the baseball nights will never go away, but
Tuesday, the longest wait of any team and any season came to an end, with the
biggest city in this country finally giving itself over to hockey. The
Rain-jahs! The Rain-Jahs! The Night of The Rain-Jahs! What an interesting
picture. New York City, in the heat of summer, covered in ice.
STANLEY CUP; WINNER