New York Rangers Matchbook Covers

Well, if everything has gone according to plan and Blogger is cooperating (harrumph) this will post as I'm inside Madison Square Garden in beautiful New York City. I'll be watching just my second Rangers home game since 1970. The last time I was in the Garden for a Rangers game was 2005 against the Sabres and I'm not ashamed to say I was very misty-eyed walking in after 35 years.

I'll try to hold it together this time.

In honor of that I'm posting my oldest Rangers memorabilia pieces, three matchbook covers featuring players my father saw as a kid in the 30s. The Rangers were the only team he and I 'shared' and I will always remember his rule on weekends when the Rangers were playing....'No TV or radio allowed'. Together we would watch the same-day taped game broadcast, usually on the basement TV. He didn't want the result known beforehand. I had usually snuck a listen to my transistor radio or learned the score from my friends on the block. I never told him though!

Ott Heller, Murray Murdoch and Butch Keeling played together in the old MSG for most of the 30s. The Blueshirts were a fairly successful franchise in those days. Between their joining the modern NHL in 1926 and 1941 they won three Stanley Cups and made the playoffs in all but one season.

Ott Heller's actual first name was 'Ehrhardt' and was known as 'Ott', never Otto, at least in every Rangers reference that I own. The matchbook cover is in error.

Heller, Murdoch and Keeling played together on one Cup-winning club...the 1932/33 Rangers. And no, I am not old enough to have seem them in person. I only go back to about 1958 as a fan.

I love the reference to a team nickname I've never heard, the Garden Horsemen, on Murdoch's cover. I don't know and can't find any backstory on that. But I like it.

As I type this early in the week the Rangers are looking even worse than I expected them to look so far. But win or lose the game I'm watching on Sunday this is my team, always and forever. #LGR

My Entire Star Wars Collection......

......in one post.

OK, I'll confess. It's the second most successful movie franchise in history. And the current one is about to become (or maybe already has become) the highest grossing movie of all time. And I don't follow it. I think my problem is that when I watched first one I didn't bother to read the crawl that rolled up the screen and explained the background. From that point on I was way behind the curve and I had no idea who was chasing who or why. So when it comes to the Star Wars chatter these days the whole world is a tuxedo and I'm a pair of brown shoes*.

Hey, that's enough negativity for one post. Let me feature some things I do like with some cards I have sitting on my desk that were waiting for a reason to be scanned.

Baseball. Maybe not like I did as a kid but I do like baseball.

I needed a Carlos Gomez card for my fantasy baseball binder this year. But when I picked up this one off eBay or COMC or wherever it came from I didn't know it was about as thick as a floor tile. No way it would fit in a regular nine pocket page. $0.99 wasted.

I really liked this Lindor card which I bought this summer for the same reason as the Gomez. But in the spirit of having a card of a player in his big league uni I replaced it recently. But I still think it's a cool card.

Hockey. I really really love hockey. I love it more when the Rangers win, like last night. But even when they don't I still love hockey.

Someone posted this Martin St. Louis card on their blog a few months ago and i knew I had to find one for myself. The Madison Square Garden ceiling visible in the background isn't as iconic as the Yankee Stadium stands that provide the backdrop for so many vintage baseball cards. But to me it means even more because the Rangers, unlike the Yanks, are my team. I love the Garden!

Football. My football 'interest index' follows the relative success of the Texans and Houston Cougars, and to some extent the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Right now the Cougars are riding as high as they have in many many years. The Texans, not so much.

Ameer Abdullah didn't have a bad rookie season but I bet he (and the Lions) expected more. He's got a ton of talent (and is a great guy as well) and I hope he has a big second season in Detroit next year.

I get asked a lot if we (Texans fans) will ever see Arian Foster on the field here in Houston again. I tend to doubt it. He hasn't been healthy for several seasons and I don't think the club is going to invest more money in a questionable running back, not even Foster.

And that's in for this edition of 'What's on Bob's Desk'.

*tip of the cap to George Gobel.

We have seen the enemy and it is us

When I left New Jersey in 1970 I did so with the knowledge that the Boston Bruins were the Devil's spawn and that no human could hate a team with the venom I did them. See, when I was growing up as a Rangers' fan there were no New Jersey Devils, or Long Island Islanders or whatever the hell they are and the Flyers were just barely the Flyers, the Broad Street Bullies hadn't been invented yet.

My hockey world was pretty much the Rangers, four teams that had kicked our ass ever since I knew a puck from a ball, six new teams out in the hinterlands that were harmless and then there were the f'ing Boston Bruins. Johnny Bucyk, Wayne Cashman, Derek Sandrerson, Ken Hodge and most of all, worst of all, Phil Esposito*.

But when I moved to Houston for college  it was difficult to keep track of all that. The NHL was on TV one year and then not the next. My Hockey News subscription became too expensive to continue, hockey became the WHA Aeros and following the Rangers through the newspaper standings, which the local papers sometimes printed, if I was lucky.

Fast forward three decades. Somewhere along the way stuff happened, much of it weird:

Like this:

and this:

and this...

...which has led to this:

And maybe worst of all there was this:

And yes, I know that in '79 this happened to keep the Rangers-Bruins rivalry alive:

And I know that there is a general New York versus Boston flame that is fanned by the Yanks and Red Sox history, but I get back to the Garden to watch the Rangers after 35 years and to a lot of folks the Bruins are just another team. Oh, sure they are rivals and all, but nobody seems on the verge of scaling to glass (in either direction) and people behind me are talking about the f'ing Devils, etc, etc.

The world has changed. But that's o.k. It's still hockey. It's still fun, I actually own Phil Esposito cards, and a Bobby Orr card, too. It's all good. But somewhere in the back of my mind I long for Derek Sanderson bending over and firing the bird at the Garden crowd from between his legs. Those were the days!

What inspired this was listening to Esposito this week on Sirius Radio's hockey channel. Espo has an afternoon gig and he's pretty outspoken. He's been discussing the NHL's involvement in the Olympics. And by gawd he was saying the same things I say! He wants amateur teams in the Olympics. See, I'm NOT the only curmudgeon around! You go, Espo!!!

*=there was also Bobby Orr and we hated him too but even us wild eyed Ranger idiots knew he was the greatest hockey player we had ever seen but I doubt any of us would have admitted it.

Let's Go Rangers!! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap

The NHL Playoffs began last night and my Rangers are taking on the Ottawa Senators tonite in the first round. That's one of my favorite cards of my favorite player. It's the 2007-08 Hot Prospects Henrik Lundqvist card. King Henrik had a great season. He'll need to continue to do so if the Rangers are going anyplace this playoff season. The grabbed the #1 seed in the East but their play down the stretch didn't do much to inspire my confidence. 

I've been a Ranger fan since... well, I can't remember NOT being a Ranger fan. I went to games with my father in the old Madison Square Garden fifty years or more ago. With there being only six teams back then the rivalries were very intense. And most of the teams only played one goalie all season so if felt almost like a 'club'. My friends and I knew every player. 

I'm very lucky. I've had a chance though the years to became acquainted with, or at least spoken to, nearly all my favorite sports figures. Except one, the great Eddie Giacomin. 

I cried when the Rangers traded him to Detroit. It was one of the most traumatic sports related experiences of my life. It's is right up there with the '69 World Series, Super Bowl III and the Colts leaving Baltimore.

I sure hope that  wearing my genuine Ryan Callahan jersey brings the Blueshirts luck. 

btw..... Potvin Sucks.