“To be around it, to feel the buzz. That’s the best part of playoff hockey in New York. And everything was focused on hockey, on the ice and off, and people were so wrapped up in it. The good thing, for us, is we were able to focus, and it’s that time when you rely on your teammates, you spend so much time with them, and you avoid distractions. And we had to do that because Vancouver was very, very good. And we knew we had our hands full.”
—Adam Graves, New York Rangers (1991–2001)
The league gave the ecstatic, emotional Rangers a bit of a reprieve after The NHL’s Greatest Series Ever. Though they probably could have used a full week off after playing what amounted to nine games’ worth of hockey against the Devils, at least they were given three full days to regroup, rebound, recuperate, and ready themselves for a flash-and-dash Vancouver team that had already far outlived its No. 7 seed in the Western Conference.
“Pavel Bure was incredible in that playoff year,” Barry Melrose said. “Lot of people had the Rangers running right through that team. Bure and the Canucks were going to be ready.”
Bure was a 23-year-old Russian right wing who turned the West on its ear in 1994. In the regular season, he had 60 goals, 107 points, and took 374 shots. He was the driving force behind a team that had only three other 20-goal scorers—Trevor Linden, Geoff Courtnall, and Cliff Ronning—and he carried the Canucks on his back in the postseason, as they shook a mediocre 41–40–3 regular season and turned on the jets when it counted.
One by one, teams with better records and more depth fell before them as the Canucks kicked it into high gear. An emotional seven-game series against the rival Calgary Flames in the first round gave way to two thorough series victories in the next two rounds. In the West semifinals, they blasted the Dallas Stars 4–1. In the conference finals, while the Rangers swam through quicksand to eliminate the Devils, the Canucks cruised past the Toronto Maple Leafs, also in five games.
In other words, the Rangers needed to put the Devils series behind them, or else it’d be all for naught.
“As a general manager, I was not a participant, but I felt good about the series,” Neil Smith said. “Vancouver was good, and they were playing well, and we knew nothing was going to be easy. But Vancouver was not Detroit, and after everything we had just been through, I’ll admit I felt that it was a good team for us to play.”
Of course, if the last series proved nothing else, it was that the Rangers, when they wanted to be the best team on the ice, could do it…under any circumstance.
“We knew what was in front of us. But we knew, in the end, it was about us. It was just 23 guys, 24 guys coming together to do something that hadn’t happened in 54 years,” Nick Kypreos said. “It was a good bunch of guys, real character guys that knew how to come together and battle some adversity and do something that hadn’t been done in a long, long time.”
But, just like in the New Jersey series, things started ominously at the Garden on May 31. And those demons downstairs, right off the bat, reared their heads.
“No Cup run,” Mark Messier said, “none of them, are ever easy.”
If the Devils didn’t prove that, the Canucks sure did. In front of another frenzied Garden crowd, Vancouver rallied from a 2–1 deficit in Game 1. Martin Gelinas beat Mike Richter in the third period to tie it, and then Greg Adams—a former New Jersey Devil, of all things—scored 19:26 into the first overtime to end it. The Canucks skated off with a 3–2 win, took a 1–0 series lead, and immediately planted those doubts back in the heads of the Rangers and their faithful. Vancouver, in less than four periods of hockey, had already scored three times on Richter; remember, he only gave up one goal to New Jersey in the final seven periods of that series.
“Here we go again,” said WFAN’s Joe Benigno.
But it wasn’t time to jump ship. After all, it was understandable that any team coming off a series anything like the one the Rangers had just endured was going to be a little slow on the draw in Game 1 of the next series. And they did manage 54 shots on net—one for every year of The Curse—including 17 in overtime. It’s not as though New York played poorly; perhaps Vancouver goaltender Kirk McLean was just tired of hearing about this Richter character. So, he went out and made 52 saves, stole Game 1, and let all of New York know that this 1940 thing wasn’t over just yet.
The Rangers indeed bounced back, just as they had in the Devils series, with a Game 2 victory. The way was led by some unlikely faces, and that was a very good sign moving forward. Mike Keenan knew that if he was going to get goals from players like Doug Lidster, who didn’t even start the series against New Jersey, that his team would be okay. Glenn Anderson and Brian Leetch also scored, Richter made 28 saves, and the Rangers evened the series at 1–1 with a 3–1 victory on June 2.
“That’s kind of how we were,” said Lidster, a former Canuck. “Sometimes you played, sometimes you didn’t. We had incredible depth on that team, and you just had to be ready. The guys who came in on a given night did a great job. It was a very unique situation. I’ve never seen so much talent not get to dress every night. But everybody said okay, let’s grab the rope and pull. Do your part. I was happy to be doing mine.”
It must have been an incredible lift for the team to see Lidster bang in a goal against his former team. He impressed Keenan with his play in Game 6 of the Devils series, and the coach rewarded him for it. Lidster also made the lineup in Game 7 versus New Jersey, and now had a chance to stick it to a team that shipped him away.
There weren’t many natural storylines between these two teams, but Lidster made for a good one. These were, after all, two franchises separated by thousands of miles, from different conferences, and with different skill sets. But Lidster came to play against the Canucks, and clearly wanted to show them something.
Through two games, it was so far, so good.
“There were times when the stars took over on that team—Mess, Graves, Leetch, Kovalev, Zubov—but there were other times when some of the other guys would be the best player on the ice,” Lidster said. “I remember Nick Kypreos did that once, and Mike said, ‘He did what he needed to do.’ Mike played it like a baseball team: play your starters, but also know your pinch hitters, and when it’s time to go do your job and get a pinch hit, go in and do your job. That’s what I tried to do.”
Lidster stayed in the lineup as the series shifted to Vancouver on June 4 for Game 3. There must have been something in that cross-continent flight that got in the Rangers’ system. Maybe breaking out of the New York metropolitan area for the first time in a long time was the best thing for them. Maybe with so many Canadian players on the team, getting a chance to play in their home country also fueled the fire. Maybe they had just had enough of the back and forth, and knew it was time to turn it on for good.
“Let’s just go out,” Richter said, “and win.”
Whatever the case may be, the Rangers were all business in British Columbia on June 4 and 7. The Rangers outscored Vancouver 9–3 in Games 3 and 4, took a commanding 3–1 lead in the series, and once again gave their city championship fever.
The goals came in bunches, and from many of the same names. Leetch had two in Game 3, another in Game 4. Alexei Kovalev and Steve Larmer had one in each game, as the momentum continued to build. Larmer was having the time of his life. Rescued from the mediocrity and anonymity of the Hartford Whalers by New York’s Smith and Keenan, he was truly making the most of his chance at glory. He had given it a run with Keenan in Chicago back in 1992, but Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, and the high-flying Penguins were simply too strong.
“It was an incredible moment, and one I’ll never forget. Getting a chance to get to the Finals, I think, means different things for different players,” Larmer said. “For older players, you have more appreciation for it. When I got there in 1991–92 with Chicago, it was already my 10th year in the league. I remember saying to myself, ‘Shit, I may never get back here.’ So, to beat the Devils, and for me to get another chance in the Finals, and to be playing well in those Finals, well, it was a dream come true. To be able to have a second chance was an incredible experience. At the end of the day, that’s what you play for.”
Richter made 52 saves in those two games in Canada, none bigger than an acrobatic, highlight-reel, penalty-shot save on Bure in Game 4. Bure, also known as the Russian Rocket, had crashed to earth; as the series headed back to the Garden, he had scored one goal in four games, and was a prime reason the Canucks were suddenly facing elimination.
But as the teams flew back to the United States, Bure, who would later become a Ranger, was not the story. A chance to end The Curse on home ice, in Game 5 on June 9, was all that mattered. The Rangers had won three consecutive games, and five of their last six going back to the Devils series. The offense was rolling, the defense was stifling, and Richter was being Richter.
A title awaited…finally. Or so they all thought.
“Mark Messier talked about it, right from his first year in New York, and I spent a lot of time with him,” Leetch said. “We carpooled, and he was my roommate on the road. His focus was always on what do we need to do to be a Stanley Cup champion: back up your teammates. Don’t take bad penalties. It was always about preparing for the postseason. Everything we did, everything we talked about, was to become a champion. And, eventually, we had that chance in front of us. It was right there.”
At home, no less, with John Amirante on the microphone, past Rangers greats sitting in the front row, a fierce, frenzied crowd behind them, and an overgrown curse that was slowly sinking into the Hudson River, period by period. But as hockey purists like to say, the fourth win, the final win, is the toughest to get. And the Rangers learned that the hard way.
“Oh, yeah. I remember Game 5, in the Garden, and the dragon was going to be slayed on this historic night. You kidding me? Everyone thought it was over. It had to be over,” Benigno said. “And I remember saying to myself, when you slay curses, you have to suffer every ounce of pain possible before you get that euphoric moment. And then? Look what happens.”
Vancouver, a team that was trying to stay fresh and less fatigued through the postseason grind by using a hyperbaric chamber, somehow came out with more jump than the Rangers on that very memorable June night in 1994. Bure and Courtnall each scored two goals, and McLean made 35 saves as the Canucks shocked an entire city, putting the pride, the party, and the parade on hold.
“Typical Rangers,” Benigno said.
A 3,000-mile trip back to Western Canada probably wasn’t going to help matters either. Another long trip to look at each other and wonder what went wrong, all while preparing for another tilt less than 48 hours after Game 5? Couldn’t be a good thing for a team full of older veterans that was about to play its 106th game of the season.
And all those fears, all those strikes against the Rangers, played out on the ice in Vancouver on June 11. Hyperbaric chamber or not, the Canucks had found new life. Courtnall scored two more, Bure added an assist, and the home team, with its crowd feeding off every new inch of life the Canucks had, cruised past the Rangers 4–1, setting up the ultimate moment in hockey.
Game 7.
Again.
Just like that, Vancouver was on the verge of becoming the second consecutive Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup, after Montreal managed the feat in 1993. The seventh seed out of the West, the team that everyone said the Rangers—or the Devils, for that matter—would skate right on by, was on the doorstep of derailing destiny once and for all.
Who would have thunk it?
“Two Game 7s in two series with all that on the line,” Melrose said. “Not easy for the Rangers, or their fans. But it made for great hockey.”
But there’s something about playing a Game 7 at home. Sure, everything is on the line. Sure, a bounce of the puck can be the difference between going home a goat or becoming a legend. But the home team will always have the crowd on its side. And though there was plenty of pessimism in the stands, given the last two efforts from the Rangers, the New York crowd wrapped its arms around the moment and chose to ignore the recent past, for a change.
“You play all season for the right to play Game 7 at home,” Richter said. “And that meant everything to us.”
They played like it.
Leetch and Graves, scoring 3:43 apart in the first period, put a dagger into the Canucks early, ignited a surge from the crowd not seen since Matteau’s goal in Game 7 against the Devils, and made everyone relax just a little on such a big night. Even though Linden cut the lead in half in the second period with his 11th of the postseason, no one ever really had the feeling that the Rangers were going to lose this one.
There was an aura, an air of invincibility, in Manhattan on this night. Whatever it was—the extra day off between games, the fact that this was their final chance, the early lead, you name it—the Rangers just weren’t going to lose on home ice.
“It was just one of those situations,” Leetch said, “where you were so confident in your own team on each shift.”
That’s certainly how it looked this night in the Garden, as this postseason journey fit for a movie script slowly came to an end. Messier’s 12th at 13:29 of the second capped the Rangers’ scoring, and though Linden’s 12th at the 4:50 mark of the third made everyone grip their armrests just one more time, the countdown was on.
The crowd, fueled by the knowledge that a big silver chalice was sitting in the bowels of the Garden, was able to recover from its emotional strain long enough to stand in those final moments. Tears were already flowing, as were hugs borne out of anxiety and passion, as the fans lived out those final seconds of fury.
Below them, their heroes were calmly gutting it out. Clinging to a 3–2 lead, with 1.6 seconds left, there was one final faceoff to the right of Richter, not far from where Valeri Zelepukin tied Game 7 a series before. The Canucks had pulled McLean, and had six skaters on the ice. Craig MacTavish, still one of the best faceoff men in the league, lined up against Bure as destiny awaited.
In a postseason run of amazing broadcasters and even more amazing play-by-play calls, longtime Rangers television voice Sam Rosen ended it for everyone on the MSG Network:
One point six seconds. Here it is. (Pause) The waiting is over! The New York Rangers are the Stanley Cup champions! And this one will last…a lifetime!
The Curse was over.
The demons, the dragons, and all of the doubters who took up residence in that oft-talked-about Garden basement, as Messier put it, went with it. Indeed, as MacTavish swept the puck away to the far right boards, the clock ran down, and sticks and gloves flew all over the ice.
They had done it…finally.
A huddled mass collected in front of Richter, and at last, the party was on.
“No more curses! This is unbelievable,” said John Davidson, Rosen’s partner, as fireworks went off in the rafters of the Garden. “These people have waited a long time. Fans, players, coaches. Unbelievable!”
A drained, emotionally spent Vancouver team huddled in its own end, not unlike the Devils had two weeks before, waiting for a handshake that would end its misery once and for all. A skilled group that put together an impressive run of its own, the Canucks just couldn’t finish the deal, and were forced to watch a celebration that was 54 years in the making. Back in Canada, it wasn’t pretty either. A passionate fan base in its own right, Vancouver supporters took to the streets after the loss and rioted, a scene that would be played out again in 2011, when the Canucks again lost a Game 7 in the Finals, that time to the Boston Bruins.
But that was for another city to deal with. This night—June 14, 1994—was about New York and its Rangers.
“It was a huge victory for the New York Rangers, and probably a tremendous victory for the game of hockey because it was Gary Bettman’s first year as commissioner of the league, and it was in the biggest market in the league, and it was a very successful story, winning the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup,” Keenan said. “So, I think it really boosted hockey at that time. The city itself needed a boost, too. At that time, the city itself was a little bit downtrodden, and I think it boosted the emotional level and the psyche of the city itself. All around, it was very important.”
When the game ended, Keenan turned to Colin Campbell, his lead assistant, both with smiles and watery eyes, and they simply hugged. A playoff stretch that started out easy and ended anything but had finally reached its conclusion. And for a head coach who had tried with two other teams before—only to come up oh so short—this was the ultimate.
“When you coach in this game for a long time, there are memories that stick with you,” Keenan said. “Obviously, there are a lot from this group here. We had a successful run, and I’ll carry those memories forever.”
But as with any team that wins a championship after such a long drought—the Boston Red Sox come to mind, winning the World Series in 2004 for the first time in 86 years—this title was as much about the fans as it was the franchise. The people who endured the misery for so many years, those who lived and died with the slide of a puck, never wavering in their loyalty on even the darkest of nights, had been rewarded. One such fan, sitting in the lower level, held up a sign from one shoulder to the next that captured it all: “Now I can die in peace.”
Steve Somers has perhaps the best perspective of what that night meant to those fans. He worked the overnight shift for WFAN, and even now, nearly 20 years later, he remembers the callers as if he had talked to them yesterday.
“A number of them were in tears, yes,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever done a program, for sure, in the 25 years at WFAN, that was a more passionate, more emotional program. I’ve never done a program like that, and I doubt I ever will.”
That’s saying something. After all, the Yankees have won five World Series since that night, and the Giants have won two Super Bowls since. And though his schedule has changed, Somers is still there every night, taking your calls “on the FAN in New York City!”
“But this was 54 years in the making. And how important it was for them, I cannot tell you,” said Somers, who was emotional himself during our interview and spoke with a passion for the game and for the team that his listeners would find very familiar. “To the fans, this title was for their father, for their grandfather, who had been to the doorstep with this team before…only to fail and be disappointed. There was so much emotion. So much passion.”
Mike Francesa—like Somers, a longtime member of the FAN and a native New Yorker—remains thankful, to this day, that he was on site that night.
“All the Rangers fans who suffered through all the years of heartbreak, to see them reach the pinnacle, it was something to see,” he said. “You just knew those fans were in such a special place, you couldn’t help but get wrapped up in it. It was a spring that we will never ever see again. It was just so remarkable on so many levels.”
What was so incredible about the power of the Rangers that year was how much interest they garnered. With the blue-collar Knicks making a run of their own in a more popular sport, the Rangers still stole the show and truly changed the game in the metropolitan area forever.
“You knew what was happening. It was tough not to notice. We had plenty going on, and we weren’t always in the same town they were in. We were out a lot of the times they were in, and vice versa. But we watched when we could,” said Jeff Van Gundy, at the time an assistant coach with the Knicks, and later their head coach. “And to see what that meant to them was great. It was a pretty special time to be in New York.”
The Rangers’ reach went well beyond the five boroughs, too. Across the country, fans took pride in a title for the first time in a long time. In fact, considering all four of the major sports, this was the city’s first crown since the 1990 Giants won the Super Bowl.
“I will never forget that spring. Never,” said Joe Gannascoli, a native New Yorker and an actor whose career took new heights when he played Vito Spatafore on the HBO series, The Sopranos. “I was in L.A., trying to become an actor. Trying miserably. I was in a shitty apartment, trying to find my way, and I’ll never forget checking for scores, waiting for the updates, because I didn’t have a TV that could get the games. It was killing me. But when it was all over, what a feeling.”
Somers knows that feeling.
“What I do for a living, I consider myself to be very lucky. That kind of night, you’re talking to friends. It wasn’t a job. It was just a combination of work and personal feelings coming together,” he said. “Not when I was kid, starting out, not when I did TV work for 17 years, never a radio program, never was there anything like that. It was a combination of happiness and joy and passion and love and emotion. What I was able to hear was the heartbeat of the Rangers fan, and the heartbeat of the city to go along with it. I also felt the soul of the city.”
But that was just the beginning. As the night progressed, the party was just getting started. Minutes before the Stanley Cup was introduced, before it was walked out to center ice for Bettman by two league officials, the screams were deafening.
“Whether you’re a fan, four years old, 64 years old, 84 years old, no matter how long you’ve waited,” Rosen said on the MSG telecast, “this is something special.”
Bettman then took center stage.
“Well, New York, after 54 years, your long wait is over,” he said. “Congratulations to the Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks for a spectacular Finals.”
And then he uttered words the city had been waiting to hear for 54 years.
“Captain Mark Messier, come get the Stanley Cup.”
As a jubilant Messier left the players’ scrum and skated over toward Bettman, Tina Turner’s 1989 hit song, “Simply the Best,” blared on the Garden loudspeakers. The Rangers had listened to the same song before the game, in their own little world inside the locker room. Four hours later, everyone else heard it.
Messier greeted Bettman with a handshake, then caressed the Cup with a smile as wide as the trophy itself. When he took full possession of it, and Bettman tapped the Cup one last time, Messier, the ultimate captain, called his teammates over before raising it.
He wasn’t about to do this by himself.
The Rangers slowly skated over, Kypreos leaned over and kissed the Cup, and then Messier began to skate around with it, holding it high, as his mates followed along.
“How sweet it is,” Rosen said.
The streets filled with Rangers fans in Manhattan not long after. There was singing. There was dancing. There was euphoria.
“I remember saying to myself, ‘If this doesn’t do it for hockey in this town, nothing ever will,’” Chris Russo said.
But the celebration on that night paled in comparison to the parade down the city’s Canyon of Heroes on June 17. More than 1 million fans came out to salute the Rangers, further illustrating just how far hockey had come in New York.
One million fans. For a hockey team.
“I’ll never forget a poster that I saw that day at the parade. It said it all,” Kevin Lowe remembered. “It was held by a little boy, and it said, ‘I thank you.’ And ‘My father thanks you.’ And ‘His father thanks you.’ And I knew right then and there what it meant to so many families who have been following the Rangers through everything for all those years. When you’re playing the game, and the series go from one to the other, you’re focused on hockey, hockey, hockey. But when you get a chance to step back, after the fact, and see things like that, it just makes it so much more special.”
Van Gundy and the Knicks were preparing to play Game 5 of the NBA Finals the night of the parade. Clearly, they were focused on the task at hand, given they were tied with the Houston Rockets 2–2 headed into that game.
“But we still watched the parade, sure,” he said. “And I remember that day they were having their parade clearly, because we were having a shootaround before Game 5. And I still remember being in the assistant coaches’ office at the Garden. And [then–Knicks head coach Pat] Riley was in his office, and then we heard this incredible, loud noise. And we were all like, ‘What was that? We’re getting ready for this game, it’s a big game, and what’s going on out there?’ And, wouldn’t you know it, it was Mike Keenan driving 40 miles per hour, or it seemed like that at least, right down the hallway of the Garden…on a motorcycle. A motorcycle! And it was just incredible. He was in Madison Square Garden, in the hallways, and there he was, riding a motorcycle, riding around. He had his ways. But hats off to him.”
The Knicks were themselves playing with an ultimatum, a win-now-or-else team that also gripped New York in a way not seen in decades. They went 57–25, won the NBA Atlantic Division title, and defeated the New Jersey Nets, Chicago Bulls, and Indiana Pacers to get to the Finals. In the midst of the Rangers’ jubilation, the Knicks went out on the same Garden floor that night and extracted a 91–84 victory over the Rockets, gaining a 3–2 edge in a series that would shift to Houston for the rest of the way.
New York, New York.
The Knicks lost the next two games, though, and failed in their attempt to duplicate the Rangers’ feat. But, overall, it could not dampen what was clearly the most exciting spring in New York sports history.
“It embodied what New York was all about. I had the same experience in Chicago, when Michael Jordan was winning championships with Phil Jackson, and we had a Blackhawks team that was going to the Finals, and it was the same thing,” Keenan said. “Every other night was a huge sporting event. New York experienced the same with the Knicks and the Rangers. That was exciting because the city feeds off each team’s energy and success. And in many ways, we pushed each other til the end.”
The end came sooner for the Knicks than the Rangers, of course, but titles would soon go away for good for both teams. The memories would always be there, certainly, a banner was raised early the next season, and rings were distributed to the warriors.
But things weren’t the same for the Blueshirts. Campbell took over for Keenan in the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season. Content to go out on top, and knowing that a triumphant trifecta of himself, Smith, and Messier probably wouldn’t work long-term, Keenan left to become the head coach in St. Louis. He made the playoffs in two of three seasons with the Blues, but never took them to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Meanwhile, Campbell had success, but nothing that rivaled 1994. In 1995, New York discovered how difficult it is to repeat in the NHL. The Rangers limped to a 47-point finish that season and actually entered the playoffs with a losing record (22–23–3). They took fourth place in the Atlantic Division, and though they picked themselves off the mat and upset the Quebec Nordiques 4–2 in the first round, they were subsequently swept by the Philadelphia Flyers in the second round.
The run was officially over.
In the next two years, they would again make the playoffs, including a race to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1997 before again losing to the Flyers. But no one—not Keenan, not Smith, not Campbell, not Messier—could foresee what was coming next.
From 1998 to 2004, the Rangers did not make the playoffs…once. Including another lockout that scratched a full season for everyone, New York didn’t take the ice in a postseason game again until 2006.
“I knew, as a scout, the way I built the New York Rangers wasn’t the way I would have liked. But New York is such a special place, and things are just different,” Smith said. “I had to do what I had to do to break that 54-year curse, and get them a Stanley Cup. So, I did that. Trading new assets for old assets wasn’t the long-term solution, and that eventually showed.”
Smith left the organization following the 1999–2000 season. The Rangers had just 29 wins that campaign, to go along with two coaches, John Muckler and John Tortorella.
“And that’s New York for you. We’d sign players, we lost players, then we’d have to restock again,” Smith said. “At times, we’d have a decent run, and things were good, and then all of a sudden, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore, they said. But that’s New York.”
In good times and bad.