Game 2 - Canadiens 4 Rangers 3 (OT)

Record – 1-0-0-1, 3 pts.
Last Year – 0-0-0-0, no pts.
Watched From – Section 422/Row D/ Seat 7
Days in First Place – 2
Points out of 8th – N/A
Islanders – Idle, winless, tied for worst goals-against average in the league. Islander fans returning from nighttime botox appointments curse under their breaths when they see the ‘OT’ designation following the score of the Rangers’ game, but assure themselves that they have a game in hand.

- I hadn’t picked up my tickets until tonight, as I skipped all the preseason games. Actually, there’s no longer a need for the tickets at all. You can just email them to yourself or anyone else. You print out a barcode that’s scanned at the gate, and the real tickets are voided. Soon they’ll probably have an EZ Pass system in place; you can get a chip in the shape of the Rangers insignia implanted into your butt. But then I would have missed the silver paint can that the tickets come in, with the greeting We are honored to welcome you home. Of course, it also meant that I had to walk around the rest of the night with a silver paint can filled with tickets, confetti, jellybeans, and a T-shirt compressed into the shape of a puck (I kid you not).

Ah, the sight of the Rangers’ blue uniforms. For many years it was a rare sight to see in person, as teams wore their dark jerseys on the road. It used to be a special feeling at the Spectrum or the Mauseleum when the Broadway Blueshirts took the ice. Now, they wear them at home, but I for one never tire of seeing them. I walked down to the ice to get a closer look during the warmups, and when I did, I discovered to my horror that instead of the diagonal R A N G E R S the jerseys instead read T H A N K Y O U.

I could no longer concentrate on the players and the drills, as I was fixated on the ridiculous sight of grown men wearing sports jerseys that say THANK YOU. And while I’m at it, why don’t they cut out the ‘thank you’ bullshit. We’re hockey fans – you play the games, and we’re going to come. If racetracks closed down due to, say, insolvency, and they reopened a year later – would you have to thank the people for coming back?

I was becoming concerned that they would wear the jerseys in the game, but thankfully they didn’t. Instead they gave them away, autographed, to some lucky fans that, as usual, didn’t include me. So if you’re on Ebay, and see blue hockey jerseys with THANK YOU written diagonally down the front, you’ll know what it is.

- Big plays: Teams that are short on talent as the Rangers are presumed to be must at least play smart to stay in games, and being shorthanded 21 times in two games does not qualify. Down 3-2 late in the second period, the home team found themselves two men down for 1:08, and whereas in past years that might produce a potential Hall of Fame threesome of Bobby Holik, Mark Messier and Brian Leetch, instead we saw Blair Betts, Marek Malik, and Michael Rozsival. The trio performed superbly, with Malik and Rozsival blocking the passing lanes with their long reach and keeping the unguarded Canadiens at the side of the net too deep to be effective (it helped that Alexei Kovalev was one of them.)

Midway through the 3rd, with the score still 3-2, once again the Rangers were two men short, this time for 1:05. Again, Tom Renney rolled out the three and again they kept the team in the game. I don’t really recall Weekes making any particularly spectacular stops (and that goes for the entire game). The penalty-killing heroics allowed the home team to tie the game on a power play of their own and earn a point before an enthusiastic crowd with just over 2 1/2 minutes remaining. It was a well-executed play starting from their own zone with a neat outlet from Rozsival that allowed Kasparaitis to enter the attacking zone with speed, backing up the defense, allowing Rucchin to nudge the puck back to Tyutin, whose low shot was deflected in by Dominic Moore, who was going to the net. Perfect.

- Rozsival led the team with 22:34 of ice time, while Jamie Lundmark took two penalties and skated for only 8:16.