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Bathgate and Howell??


BobCorkum

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I understand that these guys had good careers in the 50's and 60's but I'm confused about something. If these 2 guys were so important to the Rangers organization why does it take them 40 years to finally retire their jersey? Could you imagine if the Devils retired Daneyko's number in the year 2040?

I couldn't make it through that ceremony tonight. The Garden was dead and the stories were boring. Then you had Sam Rosen screaming, "this is the moment you've been waiting for" when the banners went up. Really Sam? These guys haven't played a game in the NHL since the 70's, what a long wait. Also why was the 94 Cup team at a ceremony for guys that played in the 50's, 60's, and early 70's?

Everything the Rangers do bothers me mainly because they act like they have this amazing history when in reality they don't. All they have is 1994.

I have so many questions about this awful organization and the way they handle everything.

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Once again, if you take away the two Cups they had in their first 5 years of existence (back when you grabbed some guy off his roller skates on the street and gave him a jersey to play) they've got a grand total of two Cups in the last 75 years. Their greatest memories are of the Cook brothers from the 1930s and some guys who never sniffed at a Cup in the 50s and 60s. Ed Giacomin, Jean Ratele and Andy Bathgate. Thats all they could come up with in three quarters of a century? This compared to guys like Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull, Guy Lafleur, Jacques Plante, Terry Sawchuk, and Gordie Howe from the other five Original Six teams. No matter what any Ranger fan tries to tell you, of the Original Six teams, the Rangers are the second worst of those Six trailing only the Hawks for that ignominy and thats only because they finally managed to scrape together a Cup post-Expansion.

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And wouldn't you know it, Trautwig somehow manages to get a dig at the Devils and a 94 reference in all at once, when interviewing Leetch during one of the intermissions. Somehow Leetch's spinorama goal against the Devils in the playoffs in 94 had something to do with the ceremony tonight. My girlfriend says he reminds her of the meow game in Super Troopers, where Al has to figure out how to somehow mention 1994 and the Devils negatively as many times as he can in a night.

I also liked how Al described the atmosphere at MSG tonight as "warm". I guess warm means half empty and apathetic. The people in the stands who were there during the ceremony were more interested in making goofy faces and the "suck it" gesture behind Bathgate and Howell when they noticed themselves on camera.

Oh, and tonight wasn't sold out. They were pushing tickets to this game during last night's Ranger telecast.

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And wouldn't you know it, Trautwig somehow manages to get a dig at the Devils and a 94 reference in all at once, when interviewing Leetch during one of the intermissions. Somehow Leetch's spinorama goal against the Devils in the playoffs in 94 had something to do with the ceremony tonight. My girlfriend says he reminds her of the meow game in Super Troopers, where Al has to figure out how to somehow mention 1994 and the Devils negatively as many times as he can in a night.

I also liked how Al described the atmosphere at MSG tonight as "warm". I guess warm means half empty and apathetic. The people in the stands who were there during the ceremony were more interested in making goofy faces and the "suck it" gesture behind Bathgate and Howell when they noticed themselves on camera.

Oh, and tonight wasn't sold out. They were pushing tickets to this game during last night's Ranger telecast.

When overtime started the place was less than half full.. seriously.

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What is funny is that the Rangers have 2 SCC in the last 69 years (1940, 1994) and they say they have a lot of history? What history? Maybe a history of disappointments of losing in the decades of the 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 2000+. That is over 6-decades of disappointments and not history at all. Yet they continue to retire these playes numbers like they have won something and were these great Rangers teams. They were not. That organization will continue to feed off that 1994 SCC which "will have to last them a lifetime." It is a very sad organization especially to be one of the "original six" teams.

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When overtime started the place was less than half full.. seriously.

Well all those Fake Yorkers had to catch their trains back to Jersey or Long Island on a work night. They didn't want to get stuck there till 11:40. The place was half full for the ceremony before the game too.

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I also liked how Sam and Joe kept talking about what a magical night it was and it was a great moment when Roszival took off his jersey and gave it to Howell. It was just like the Bourque and Espo moment.

Messier cried. Graves mumbled. Richter came into the booth and said it was a good time for the Rangers to go through this slump. Better now than the playoffs he said. If they keep slumping in March they won't even make the playoffs. Richter said the Rangers are a great team going through a slump. The empty, quiet arena. The 94 Cup team. Joe repeating over and over about how well Gomez is playing. I was sickened by the whole game except the end.

Edited by BobCorkum
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I also liked how Sam and Joe kept talking about what a magical night it was and it was a great moment when Roszival took off his jersey and gave it to Howell. It was just like the Bourque and Espo moment.

Messier cried. Graves mumbled. Richter came into the booth and said it was a good time for the Rangers to go through this slump. Better now than the playoffs he said. If they keep slumping in March they won't even make the playoffs. Richter said the Rangers are a great team going through a slump. The empty, quiet arena. The 94 Cup team. Joe repeating over and over about how well Gomez is playing. I was sickened by the whole game except the end.

Yeah a great moment when Roszival gave his jersey to Howell drowned out by booing, followed by the booing of Gomez, Drury, and Naslund as they hooked the banners up. According to Al Trautwig, it was a throaty boo, something you can't get in Denver.

I think Richter is still feeling the effects of his concussion based on his time in the booth.

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Also why was the 94 Cup team at a ceremony for guys that played in the 50's, 60's, and early 70's?

Yep, saw the game tonight (skipped the ceremony, saw it in the highlights). Really thought it was stupid to have all the 94 guys there, Richter just talked about how good Messier would be as a coach or GM. They have no place there, they have no idea what they're talking about. I mean, honestly, I was reading through the histories of these guys (they had some really long timelines on the Ranger website the other night) because I was curious why, and they were some pretty illustrious careers. I mean, the Devils have (and probably will always) more discretion in their retirings (otherwise Johnny Mac would be retired), but Bathgate and Howell seemed deserving from their timelines. It's really a shame that the Rangers took 40 years to get their acts together and yet for someone like Graves, who is questionable at best to have his jersey retired, gets it 10 years later or whatever. I just really don't like a lot of things about how the Rangers are run.

I guess what it comes down to is that the Rangers, being an Original Six team, and MSG, being an old building, have supposed "history". But when all you talk about it 94, and to the random spectator who walks in and sees RICHTER, MESSIER, GRAVES, LEETCH, they think it could be an expansion franchise. If you're going to be consistent about retiring undeserving jerseys, the rafters at MSG should be falling off. But they're not. Whatever. I'm just glad Lou (and the rest of the front office) have some frickin brains.

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Neil Smith is going to be giving a talk at Rutgers about having a career in sport management on Tuesday night. Maybe this is your chance!

dfan26- interesting jersey collection, but paying homage to white castle in your avetar??...interesting

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What is funny is that the Rangers have 2 SCC in the last 69 years (1940, 1994) and they say they have a lot of history? What history? Maybe a history of disappointments of losing in the decades of the 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 2000+. That is over 6-decades of disappointments and not history at all. Yet they continue to retire these playes numbers like they have won something and were these great Rangers teams. They were not. That organization will continue to feed off that 1994 SCC which "will have to last them a lifetime." It is a very sad organization especially to be one of the "original six" teams.

I've echoed this sentiment on more than one occasion. For some reason the Ranger franchise equates playing in New York and being an Original Six team to being the Yankees of the NHL. And now that they've run out of jersey numbers to retire from the '94 team, it looks like they'll look ANYWHERE into their "storied and proud" history to find something for everyone to feel good about. Not even the RANGER fans were buying into it...lots of empty eats, and not much enthusiasm from those in attendance. It's quite pathetic.

Did anyone catch Rosival, Gomez, Drury, and Naslund getting booed as they participated in the ceremony? (I see that skeeter did!) And you gotta love the way the broadcasters couldn't even acknowledge that (although I guess Trautwig sort of did...when was that?)...heaven forbid there might have been a fleeting moment of honesty in Rangerland.

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The retirement of those 2 numbers should have been done long ago. The Rangers didn't want to acknowledge their history before 1994 (or after it either! :rolleyes: ). I think that when they retired Graves 9 they realized they had to retire Bathgate's 9. Now most organizations would have retired both on the same night. How could they relive 1994 again if Bathgate was there? So they probably decided they couldn't retire Bathgate with Graves but have a Bathgate number retiring with another great Ranger from the past. Thus they retired Howell's 3.

As I alluded to in the first sentence they finally did the right thing. I'm speculating on the reasons the Rangers did it.

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On a side note , are there going to be any numbers left for new rangers players to play in in a few years??

The seem to retire a number per week!

They will eventually have to resort to a Futurama type numbering system for the New New york Mets and play in fractions.

Mabey they could do it as each players cap hit and contract length.

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I've echoed this sentiment on more than one occasion. For some reason the Ranger franchise equates playing in New York and being an Original Six team to being the Yankees of the NHL.

Man, you just reminded me of a Ranger fan posting a message like this on one board I often visit: "I root for the Rangers, Knicks, Giants and Yankees. I love organisations with tremendous history, like the Yankees and the Rangers". I nearly threw up in my mouth when I read that (I actually root for the Yanks). :puke: If anything, the Yankees would be the Canadiens of baseball. But Rangers with their history of sucking? I just can't believe I didn't respond to that post.

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It's a shame they waited so long. These were great players who played on the worst team in the league, yet established themselves enormously every year. I remember watching them out on the ice. It was the only time you felt safe (that the other team wasn't going to score, I mean :rolleyes: ) and maybe even had a chance to score a goal. But it was bad planning to make a presentation at a time when the bulk of the crowd is out of demographic. Funny thing is: The same thing happened last night when they virtually ignored the movie Guilt because it happened in a Catholic school in 1959 Bronx. A diminished demographic (P.S. I was 1959 Brooklyn Catholic :pray: ). Anyway, at least they acknowledged these players. They were shining stars on a ship of wreks, cast-offs and has beens.

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