Well, Looky What We Have Here

Well, what do we have here? Why, it’s a New York Rangers blog, joining the blogging fray. It will be dedicated to the New York Rangers and their pursuit of that elusive Stanley Cup.

Well, no, wait, it won’t be dedicated to them… that’s kind of weird. It will actually just cover some of the things they do and how the team, the players, the fans, the management, the broadcasters and the opponents act, talk, perform and think. We’ll talk fawningly about the team on an intermittent basis while also talking in negative, snarky tones about the team. It’ll be a site where you’ll want to come to see what’s being said about the Rangers by people who know what they’re talking about.

Who am I? Glad you (didn’t actually) ask. I am a guy who grew up in the NYC suburbs out in NJ and has been to more Rangers games than I care to count. I began going in the very early 1980s and had season tickets with my dad starting in 1983. We kept those for a dozen years, culminating with the ’94 season and the Stanley Cup memories. Then I went off to college (where my love of Purdue was cultivated) and we only went to games we scored off of business contacts or friends. Then after college, well, the Rangers sucked. They went through that listless period of non-playoff appearances, yet we were there, taking it all in and reminiscing about how, except for a few brief seasons, we had seen a lot of lousy hockey.

And then, suddenly, after the lockout, our boys were good again. They were worth cheering for. They made you proud to be a Rangers fan. It didn’t matter that they weren’t going to win the Cup – they were hard-working, hustling and driven, and that’s all anybody in New York wanted. People always thought New York fans were all like Yankee fans – demanding nothing less than a champion and only wanting mega-stars. The Rangers fans proved this wasn’t true by supporting that ’05-’06 team as much or more than any I’d seen in my 20+ years of fandom. We simply wanted to have a team worth rooting for. And we had it.

I remember writing to Tom Renney after the Rangers ridiculous 15-round shootout win over the Caps in November of 2005. I was there for the game and it was the most excited that building had been since the ’97 playoffs. Without question. I thanked Renney simply for giving us that kind of a team that worked so hard and gave the fans their money’s worth. He wrote me an email thanking ME and referring to them as my Rangers and that “we will lift the Cup again.”

So I’m a passionate guy about this team and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. However, the upcoming ’08-’09 season will again have me giving up my season tickets due to location reasons. My job has taken me to Houston, TX for the time being and so I will be connected to my Rangers via the Center Ice package and video highlights. I still hate you, Versus, but we can continue our uneasy alliance of convenience.

So yeah, I’m not there anymore, but it’s all the more reason to write about them in this way. We can all stay connected and you can tell me all about them and relay your thoughts and feelings and opinions. Keep me posted. And I’ll post for keeps.