NYR 2013

The FUN In DysFUNctional

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There’s this great saying, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

There’s also another great saying.  That the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.

And there you can interchange “Glen Sather” with “insanity.”

Yes, this is in response to the firing of John Tortorella as head coach of the New York Rangers.  I guess like many, it came as a surprise but it was not exactly shocking.  One cannot fire a whole team, so you fire the coaches.  And unfortunately, with Torts, the buck stopped with him many time.

Most notably, now, with the recent ousting of the Rangers in the Eastern semis to the Boston Bruins.

Well here is a novel thought, Slats…GET BETTER PLAYERS YOU FUCKING MORON!

I haven’t yet finished my Rangers season wrap-up (and it’s coming, don’t you worry), yet, I’m already getting agita from this bullshit going on into 2013-14.

Yes, this was a shortened season.  Yes, I wasn’t crazy about the prospect of the whole “half a cup” thing. But goddammit, if I didn’t get excited about the playoffs this year.

Yet, I don’t think it’s Torts who failed his team.  Rather, the team failed Torts.

Give the guy some credit.  In a big media market, Torts took the pressure off his team and put it on himself.  Never a media darling, the fans loved him because he could separate the emotional from the professional.  Or at least the fans who liked him.

The fact is, whatever gave him his relationship with the players was his folly this year.

Dan Rosen of NHL.com wrote about the Seven Reasons Why the Rangers Fired Tortorella, and one of the reasons was that his top guys underperformed in the playoffs.

Yeah, no SHIT.  But here’s a swell idea: How about we actually BLAME the players?

What a novel fucking idea.  Instead of playing to win, they figure skated their way through round one, only to realize they can’t do that when the stakes are higher.  Right?

What’s more, is Torts had every right to scratch Brad Richards during the playoffs.  This is the same guy who underperformed ALL season…and he actually has a GOOD relationship with Tortorella! This is also the same guy who dormant during the lockout.

Sure, he may have kept in shape elsewhere.  But the reality is, he underperformed the entire season.

Not to fucking mention, there was a BIG spot missed without Marc Staal healthy.  Add that to the rising shit, and the Rangers were fucking lucky they made it TO the playoffs, let alone make it out of the first fucking round.

Yet, I have to ask, besides Sather basically solidifying future Stanley Cup runs in Columbus, what has he done that has made him so untouchable?  James Dolan has been in rehab: clearly, there must be some kind of damning evidence that Sather has on him that warrants him to be the GM forever and ever.

Could it have been a fluke that the guys he got in the Marian Gaborik trade were hurt? And where the hell was Rick Nash?  Did he NOT realize that yes, your goals count just as much in the playoffs as they do in regular season?

At the end of the day, Torts wasn’t out there NOT scoring on the power play.  Torts didn’t tell Brad Richards – hey, put your job AND mine in jeopardy by forgetting how to play.

To get canned after a half season when it seemed like the team ran on its moxie and mojo from the year prior is an insult.

 

I’ve only been a Ranger fan since 1989. I’m one of the lucky ones, that I only had to wait five years to see my team win a championship.  Like my dad and Kranepool Society, many other fans have been through some dysfunctional times.  To see the team get so far and to fall short.

I’m not sure if Sather, like many people, expected John Tortorella to turn water into wine, or turn the shit that Sather throws to the wall and see if it sticks.

I can only hope that next season the Rangers make it TO the playoffs.  Because Tortorella’s tenure brought back a legitimacy that hasn’t been seen since 1993-94 season.  And remember how Mike Keenan left, and subsequently, cursed the team.

As long as Glen Sather is in charge, we’ll have fun watching these teams, but we’ll be watching a shitload of dysfunction too.

The Lido Shuffle

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“He said one more job ought to get it/One last shot ‘fore we quit it/One more for the road”
– Boz Scaggs

Chris Kreider As usual, I found myself ready to hang up my skates, hang up my Ranger jersey until the start of the 2013-14 season. I found it difficult to believe that a team that has seriously looked overmatched and borderline unprofessional would ever come back to tie a 3-game deficit, let alone come back at all.

I only had one wish: that the Garden Faithful would give the boys in blue a send off in a loss.

I had a discussion with a friend about it.  He had mixed feelings about the idea (and he’s not a Ranger fan at all).  He wasn’t sure if he could take another team celebrating on his team’s home ice. I guess I could understand that one.  But it’s not a Cup game.  It’s not like the Bruins would have paraded the cup up and down the ice.

I felt cheated last year because we couldn’t give the Rangers a send off in their season last year.

So last night, I had a few posts in my head, mostly about what went wrong, about Brad Richards’ healthy scratch, about how Rick Nash was “supposed” to be the difference maker (clearly there is an operative term in there), etc etc.  But I also wanted to talk about how the shortened season was doomed from the get go.  Nobody on the team seemed to get in a groove.  And how Henrik Lundqvist managed to nab a Vezina nomination, because I didn’t think he had as close to a dominating season as usual.

Just found themselves behind the 8-ball quite a bit.

I’ve been saying all along that I was comfortable with how this series ended. Win or lose, I had an eerie calm that the chips may fall where they will, and I’d be okay with it.  I don’t have an emotional dislike of Boston, after what they’ve been through this year as a city, it might be nice to see the Bruins give them a feel-good story.  But as far as a rivalry, Original Six or no, I continue to be fine with however the series goes.

Yet, like another Boston/New York series, oh about nine years ago in the fall, when a certain team came from three games down, and managed to win a game in extra innings when the odds were against them.  Then went on a roll to win the ultimate championship.

Of course that was baseball, and Boston Red Sox coming from behind, but it was against the Yankees, so it was all good in my book (apologies to any Yankee fans reading this right now).

The Rangers could very well be ousted in the next game.  Yet, the fact they went out with a fight, and not a whimper, is what the fans needed.  Not some kind of moral victory, that “Well, they made it this far with a shitty ass power play, and with Brad Richards sucking and Rick Nash underperforming and Henrik not having some of his best moments, let’s cheer! YAY!”

No.  I was sorely mistaken.  That crowd needed a home game win.  Something to give them hope that this team was everything they thought last year, and more.

I’ll say that an overtime win was something that I needed to see.  For once, I got to see an overtime work in MY team’s favor.

The New York Rangers gave us something last night, they gave us one more for the road.

 

Gung Ho

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And away we go, away we go to Game Seven.

And the Rangers are fuckin lucky they’re there.

But as my friend Glenn says above, better to play 7 than be out in 6. (And he speaks from experience, being an Isles fan).

I guess.

We didn’t just go through a full 82 games last year, but I went through two seven game series PLUS a disastrous ECF.  The way the Rangers played in the first two games, I didn’t think we’d see a game five, let alone seven.

Forgive me for sounding like the hockey version of the fan played by Randy Quaid in Major League II, but I do not have a good feeling about this game.

But that could work to my advantage.  It must mean that I don’t give a shit about the outcome.

Here’s the deal:  The Rangers have scored less than one goal in four of their games played.  Three of those games were losses (especially the game they scored zero, haha).  This leads me to believe that Henrik Lundqvist is otherworldly…but also that he cannot do it all on his own, contrary to popular belief.

We need to have some guys remember they were brought in to come through with the offense (see: Richards, Bradley; Nash, Rick).

We need to remember that having a man advantage is generally a GOOD thing for most teams.

But most of all, game seven need to be a regulation game, a regulation victory.  There needs to be no bullshit allowed.  And even if there is, who gives a shit, because I don’t have a good feeling about it anyway.  So there.

Perhaps I need to bring back this video from last year.

Perhaps my friend Metstradamus said it best today:
“While I hope for a few more weeks of this, I’m prepared for whatever happens.”

That about says it.

Family Ties

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I went to my first ever Ranger game in 1989.  It was a Sunday afternoon game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.  I went with my dad.

Five years later, the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in 54 years.

The year after that, I met my friend Rob, who posts as @NotGlenSather on Twitter.  Sometimes, it seems like yesterday that I bummed a cigarette off him at the grease trucks at Rutgers.  But it was 18 friggin years ago.

We lost touch for a few years.  But it was only telling that when we did reconnect, it was at Rangers Opening Night in 2000.

We managed, since 2000, to go to a game or run into each at a game once a year.  Then after 2011, I sat in his seats, but didn’t see him.  We also never attended a playoff game together.

That changed Monday.

I get a message from him this morning: I have an extra ticket to the game tonight.

I was hesitant.  In fact, when he did his playoff “lottery” for his tickets (where those of us who buy tickets from him during the season get playoff “rights” in a sense), I was secretly glad that I missed the first round.

Not because I don’t appreciate the first round.  It’s just that I have a HELLACIOUS record against the Capitals.  Not just any games, but specifically playoff games.  I’ve been two Rangers playoff games in my lifetime prior to Monday night – both losses to the team from our nation’s capitol.

I was apprehensive.  I don’t consider myself the most superstitious person, but when it comes to playoff hockey, I’ll do what I have to do in order to ensure a win.  If that means I have to sit in the bathroom and follow the game on Twitter, I’ll do it.  And NotGlen and I usually have a ritual to meet at Cafe 31 before every game we attend together.  But even NotGlen wanted to change things up.

Anything, I suppose, to ensure a win.

He asked me to pick the meeting place.  Foley’s on 33rd St was my first guess.  After splitting some nachos and beers, we headed to the Garden.

Funny thing was, NotGlen started to number what he did differently that day.  Instead of Cafe 31, he went to Foley’s.  Instead of carrying his jersey with him, he had it on when we met.  He even admitted to taking a different set of stairs at the train station.  I don’t have a ritual for games.  I just go.

So off we went.

The playoffs are really a night for star sighting.  It was also high comedy from two friends who have known each other forever.

NotGlen and I met after I bummed a cigarette off him.  I was a teenager.  I’m a firm believer in the family we choose.  We’re children of the ’80s.  We’re like brother and sister.

We grew up with ’80s icons like Michael J Fox, John McEnroe and even Tom Hanks.  They were all in attendance at the game.  Matt Harvey from the Mets was born in 1989.  I guess that technically makes him a child of the ’80s.

I don’t remember a lot of the game.  That’s because it was mostly a blur.  I also probably screamed some obscenities, but I also hid for the last 1:40 or so of the game.

I guess the superstitions started in the ’80s, when I became a Rangers fan.  Back then I was only going to about one game a year.  I would do things on game days, wear certain shirts or clothes.  I would always be disappointed if the Rangers lost.

The stakes are higher.  They went into Monday’s game down 2-0 in the series.  They are now tied 2-2, winning two critical home games.  Both not without its hiccups.

Since I had attended two losses in the playoffs, I didn’t want to see what would happen if I went.  NotGlen, well, his superstitions certainly surpass mine.  And I guess he wanted to throw caution to the wind, getting some good karma in the Garden once again.

And I’m so glad I went.

Every now and then, say, what the fuck. What the fuck brings you freedom. Opportunity makes your future.

The Rangers need a little bit of “what the fuck” on their team right now. Maybe, just maybe, our familial tie got us to that point.

Here We Go Again

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It’s hard to believe that we’re at the cusp of playoff time, as NotGlen Sather calls it, “The Second Season.”  Again. Heck, wasn’t it just like three days ago that the L.A. Kings were celebrating their Cup victory?  Okay, fine, it was almost 10 months ago, but still.  Is it me, or does time go by way too quickly?  Yes, I’m old.  Deal with it.

Yet this hockey season was curious.  The Flyers and Devils are out (and let me take this time to remind you that every single Devils fan I know gave us SHIT about the Rangers losing the first three of four games this shortened season…hope you’re all enjoying your tee times), and as death, taxes and the power play sucking, the Rangers are facing the Washington Capitals in the postseason.  (See my video from the first round last year below)

And I’m not sure how to feel about this.  It was tough for me to get excited about this season, be the prolonged start, and abbreviated season it was.  Talking to fellow Ranger fan, KB, the other day, she was kind of nonplussed about the team making the playoffs.  I can see that, but I can basically say one thing.  That once they start to win, or advance out of the first round, we’ll start to get the bug, the itch that it may OUR year.  Even if we have given SOME OTHER teams grief over winning “half a cup.”

(And yeah, if it comes to that this year, I’m not sure how to resolve my feelings either on that one.)

Of course, this means another sport will be neglected, and that will be baseball.  With good reason too.  To say the Mets have been lackluster is an understatement.  I keep telling my husband, “IT’S ONLY APRIL.”  Yet, by their effort this month, it’s evident that it will be a LONG ASS season.  Until, of course, Zack Wheeler is called up.  And who knows, his start has been below par too out in Vegas.

But it makes me happy that I can shy away from baseball, though it is my favorite sport, I don’t feel bad about not giving it as much attention as I do the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Now, if you want a good laugh or be entertained while watching hockey, be sure to follow my sports tweets @Coopz22.  I have a heart attack with every pass, every shot on goal, every Henrik save or close call, and every goal scored by the Rangers is the BEST GOAL EVAR.   Or I threaten myself with bodily harm.  Just myself.  You don’t have to worry about yourselves.

It’s a do or die situation.  Whether we’ll be invincible or not, remains to be seen.

Trust me, I operate on a different plane during this time of the year.  Apologies in advance.

Down Cycle

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One of my favorite movies is She’s the One, starring Edward Burns and a cast of stars like Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston.  A line that keeps repeating is the idea of a “down cycle,” during a relationship, where one doesn’t have “relations” for a block of time.  The idea is that we all have them, we can’t perform at a totally up-up-up level 100% of the time.

I guess we can say that Brad Richards is in what we call a “down cycle” in his playing.

Well, technically, it’s a Ranger problem, but it’s basically an epidemic that’s stemmed out from Bradley.

“I’ve never been through anything like this in my career,” the 12-year-veteran said. “I’m trying to cope with it, I’m trying to learn from it but I’ve never experienced anything like this.  When you’re an offensive guy, you have to produce.” (From today’s NY Post article by Larry Brooks).

Some athletes go through a down cycle.  Remember when, as an example, Jason Bay hit one for like THREE SEASONS?  Sorry for the exclamation, but I mean, I’m a Mets fan, so I’m used to hoping for best, but expecting worst.

My Rangers and friend-in-real-life @NotGlenSather warned us last year that Richards, the big free agent signing, could be a blessing or a bust.  Considering Ranger history, and length of the contract, we kind of figured he could go either way, but mostly hoped for the best case scenario: that he’d give us a few good years, then fizzle out on the back end.

Fizzle isn’t even the word to describe him now.  Ranger Nation had a fair assessment of Richards today, mostly a glass half-full post:

I guess I should address the elephant in the room: the comparisons of Brad Richards to Chris Drury. It’s amazing what a difference a year makes. One year ago Brad Richards was one of the best free agent signings in franchise history, yet today Rangers fans think of Richards as being just as big of a bust as Chris Drury. (Adam Garabedian, Brad Richards Struggles Doesn’t Mean He’s In Decline)

Valid point.  I mean, with the passion surrounding the fan base, and the crazy reactionaries there are in ALL teams, it’s easy to think of Richards as a drain on the team.  Heck, Richards is even cognizant and acknowledged it in the Larry Brooks piece. Yet, something else that the Ranger Nation piece actually acknowledged is that Richards did not keep current during the lockout, didn’t actively play.  That’s a big red flag, to me, that one of the best offensive guys wasn’t working on that very aspect.

You’d think one of two things would happen during a long layoff: that he works out and crafts his game and gets better; or sits and gets stagnant.  Guess which happened to Richards?

The worst case scenario is that he gets in his own head.  Athletes are famous for doing that.  The weight of the world is on their shoulders, and by pressuring themselves when they can’t perform, leads them to more underperforming.  Then it can go one or two ways from there.  It either gets into their head for season after, or they make themselves better.

On the Mets, David Wright was having trouble “performing,” and led to a down cycle for a few years where he struck out routinely with men on base. Yet, when he got out of his own head, and started to concentrate on hitting, period, again rather than hitting home runs, he had a resurgence.

Yet we’ve seen this story before with the Rangers.  Perhaps the Ranger Nation post made a decent comparison with Drury, but I have another one that hits closer to home: Marian Gaborik.  In 2010-11, Gaborik had a noticeable decline, though he missed several games, yet that didn’t quite account for his fall off the cliff.  Certainly didn’t show up during the postseason either, when the Rangers got eliminated all too quickly that year.

Gaborik had a bounce back year in 2011-12, but is having a similar decline to Richards this year.  Which kind of sucks because one of them on a down cycle is bad enough. Yet you’d have someone else to pick up the slack.  At least Gaborik had a somewhat valid excuse for his slow play: he was hurt and wasn’t projected to come back midseason anyway in a regular scheduled year.  So Gabby couldn’t play if he wanted to.

Richards is a curious case. He seems to have enough of a cerebral type of play that he can bounceback.  He’s aware of his down cycle, and wants it to change.  Yet the time to change already took place: during the lockout.  Now we’re into the season, and it’s not getting any better.

Mostly, I’ve been nonplussed about the Rangers play this season.  A couple of wins that are close, with a smattering of close losses or playing a game of catch-up, like they did over the weekend.

Without a full effort from the two top offensive guys, it won’t matter that Rick Nash is owning the city.  They won’t make the playoffs after a season that they should have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, and it won’t even matter about who gets hot at the right time. Without the help of Brad Richards, this team will have far worse problems than worrying about playoffs: it will be for him to get out of his down cycle.

Death, Taxes, Rangers Power Play Sucks

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Why is it that the Rangers just can’t click on all cylinders?

Like last season, Marian Gaborik couldn’t really play his way out of a paper bag.  Yet Brad Richards’ first season was decidedly a good one.

It was critical during the playoffs last year, as we saw other teams’ forwards come through, and the Rangers did not.

So now that the “missing piece” in the name of Rick Nash is around, guess what?  Brad Richards is sucking wind.

But hey, Gaborik is doing well, right?

Then there’s the Power Play.  Or as my husband likes to call it, the Power-LESS Play.  I disagree.  The suckage continues.

You would think with the strong forwards the Rangers are sporting that the PP would at least be a tad better.  Feh.  It still sucks, and even in Tuesday night’s game, when John Tortorella decided to make it interesting and make a routine 5-on-4 power play a SIX-on-4, with an empty net.  This is what I said.

And guess what???

We can wax intellectual about the last streak, and even the strong games against the Lightning and Islanders (of course, their win, and not the shootout ugly loss), but the reality is they blew two critical leads, especially a three goal lead against the Bruins a few weeks back.

I’m sorry, but I’m not buying this shit show.

And then the cherry on top?  They can’t score on a fucking power play.  When you can’t score, you can’t score.

Hmmm.  Sounds like the coach in American Pie.

As with everything Rangers, if they can’t score on the power play, they can’t expect to win.  That’s what doomed them last year, and that’s what’s dooming them this year.  They better fucking figure it out before it’s too late.

P.S. Rick Nash sat Tuesday night with an undisclosed injury.  Of course he did.

HNIC: Hockey (Date) Night In (New York) City

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What a difference a week and change makes.

A little over a week ago, I remember people were calling for Glen Sather’s head, to void the “big trade” with Columbus Blue Jackets.  That Torts has lost control over the team.  That Henrik has lost an edge.  I had fans from other teams trolling me (and other Ranger fans).  And even tried to discount the win against the Leafs last week.  Which, I mean, a win is a win is a win, right?

Then there was the game against the Flyers in Philadelphia last week, which was a close, hard-fought and super-intense game in the last two minutes especially.  Like many teams down in the count in a very close game, the Rangers had an empty net to get an extra man on the ice.  The intensity was in ten cities, but they fell short of tying the game.

Not to worry, they made up for that last night in the Garden, winning 2-1 against Philly with another super-intense ending with crowding this time at the Rangers’ net and suspense to the last second.

And boy, was it fun.

About a year ago, I became twitter buddies with Miss J To The K.  She was a Jets and Rangers fans like me, but we differ on baseball teams.  That’s cool.  We got involved, inadvertently, in an Islanders argument, about the origins of “Potvin sucks.”  Then we realized we were on the same team.  It was all good.

Not Glen Sather sold me three tickets during this shortened season.  I asked J to come with.  She accepted.

So it was Date Night in the City.  A Hockey Date Night.  I was psyched.

It’s different going to an event like this with my husband.  He’s not as into hockey as I am (though he did admit to not being able to pay attention to much else while the game was transpiring).

It was my first game of the 2013 shortened season, also my first time at the Garden since the playoffs.  When I attended the playoffs in 2011, construction started, and it was unbearable walking around.  Like death heat due to the construction.  Then in 2012, I sat in the 400s and loved the Skybar.  I knew more renovations were upcoming.   Now the 200 level stretches up to basically where the 400s used to be.  The old “Blue Seats” are no more.  Though they haven’t been the “Blue Seats” truly in some time.  The Dancin’ Larry does his dances now in the aisle at Section 224ish, right by where Not Glen’s seats are.

The sections are steeper.  But I had a great experience with the seats.  Center ice, great view.  No complaints from this hockey chick.

Sec225

The food at MSG has changed, too, and not for the better I’m afraid.  Everything is now overpriced shee-shee food, and how can a Carnegie Deli stand NOT have their blintzes? (Maybe not the hockey friendliest food…but still…make Coopie happy).  And how do you upgrade food and not bring back easily the best thing sold at MSG…the delicious waffle fries???? Dang.  They were really really good.

I will miss them.  But I do love the new set up.

We sat in the middle of the 20th row.  J struck up a conversation with the women next to us…actually, a mother and daughter team.  Turns out, they knew their shit about hockey, the teenager even had a fantasy hockey team.  I’ve done fantasy baseball before, but I generally lose interest by the end of the season.  Fantasy hockey, though, is a whole ‘nother level.

Not much to tell.  We were still waiting to get to our seats when the first goal was scored by Michael Del Zotto.  We were in our seats for the second goal, and it was fabulous.  The Garden still can rock.

I also saw that the team seemed to play more together, if that makes sense.  Any rust they may have had prior to Tuesday’s game seems to be all but gone.  Henrik was back to being Henrik, but Ryan Callahan looks to be out 10-14 days due to a stupid and unfortunate shoulder injury.

What was fun though, was the bonding.  I have many friends who happen to be guys, and I can go to a game with them.  But I dunno, I think girls have more fun, and the fun is brought to an entirely new level when we go to games together, like when I go with KB or any of the others I have met via Facebook.

“I’m glad we did this,” said J.  “I know we’ve been buddies for awhile, but I really feel like we’re friends now.”

I often say that I hold my “real and in person” friends behavior to a higher standard on social media.  What I mean by that is I expect more from the people I had established relationships with prior to the whole social networking component.

Yet when J said she felt like we were “really” friends after we parted at the trains, I felt truly fortunate to have my life enriched by so many people via social networks.  I hold them in a different standard, perhaps for better or worse, but those who I have had the opportunity to meet in person I connect with on a different level.   And I understood what she meant.

It’s tough enough to be a hockey fan in this town, let alone a female hockey fan.  To find a kinship with not just one, but many is a real gift.  One that you cannot quantify.

It’s easy to get carried away with a win this early in the season, but the game had a playoff vibe to it for sure.  It’s easy to get verklempt too when you make a friend for life.

How great sports can be!

Rusty

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Working in the health and wellness field, we often hear the catch phrases “oxidative stress” or “inflammation.”  Yet if you ask someone what they mean, they kind of look at you like a deer caught in the headlights.  Yet, we know, it’s not a **good** thing.  The literal meaning of oxidation is rusting.  When our bodies experience oxidative stress, internally we are rusting, which causes a flurry of other bad things.

Looking at the Rangers style of play in their first two games of the shortened 2013 season, it seems like the whole team are oxidating, or rusting.

Yep, rusty.  That’s how they looked.

I’m not one to jump off a cliff about their way of play.  Two shitty games over the course of a season does not a sample set make.

But the amount of sky is falling tweets are annoying.  Just stop.  They had a slow start last season, and went on an amazing run.

I admit, it was annoying to watch.  Especially when they added a guy like Rick Nash, who is supposed to make them more of a threat.  Yet, all I see if more of a skating Smurfs on Ice rendition, more so than before.

No one gets more than I do that we’ve got some unsettled business to take care of.  A longer than usual offseason, coupled with holding our dicks after the dismal end to the last postseason.  But let’s allow the season to unfold.  With some new blood means a period of adjustment, and with that means they are going to have some rust.  They won’t lose forever.  Despite the best efforts of some fans from other teams.