Adam Graves Number Going To The Rafters, But Wait, There's More!

We all learned that Adam Graves was getting his number 9 retired this season back during Brian Leetch's number retirement ceremony.... but what we (or at least I) didn't realize, was that the Rangers weren't stopping there.

No, just a couple weeks after Gravy's number is raised to the rafters on Feb 3, 2009, two more guys will be so honored by the Rangers on Feb 22, 2009: Andy Bathgate and Harry Howell.

Interestingly, Bathgate also wore number 9 so the Rangers will be like the Knicks, who have two number 15s retired (Earl Monroe and Dick McGuire) and the Yankees, who have two number 8s retired (Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra).

What's also interesting to me is that the Rangers waited this long to honor outstanding players like Bathgate and Howell.

Perhaps Bathgate having worn number 9 was an issue -- deciding to retire it for Graves opens up a (legit) discussion that might ask, why wasn't this done for Bathgate? He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978 and Howell, a defenseman was inducted in 1979.

Maybe because these guys didn't win Cups for this team, they never thought to honor them. For the longest time, it was just Eddie Giocoman's number 1 and Rod Gilbert's number 7 up there... and now it's growing rapidly. I used to think the only ones left would be the ones we all expected -- Mess, Graves, Leetch and Richter, the cornerstones of the '94 team. But now that we've opened the gates up, why not some others from the solid '60s teams?

Gilles Villemure's number 30? Steve Vickers' number 8? Jean Ratelle's number 19?

And hey, Brad Park wore number 2... Nicky Fotiu wore 22.... Bob Froese wore number 33!

We could fill those rafters in no time.