Every so often I get mail from some avid Ranger fans who have tried to express their thoughts on the team to various media people. Some get no response and feel as though the work they put in on composing their letter or e-mail is wasted. That's where I come in. Since I have this column space and rarely have anything important to say....why not lend it out to someone who does ? James and I traded e-mail recently and in one of his e-mails, he sent me this, "I sent this to Bergen Record Hockey writer Tom Gulitti who is a Devil writer but knows his hockey and writes on the Rangers at times as well. As you can tell I'm very frustrated. I was hoping one day it would get posted but it hasn't."
Well James...now it has been posted, right here at Hockeybird.
----}- Bird
Voice Of Ranger Fans
Nothing will change in Ranger country until the entire makeup of this franchise is changed. So many fans talk about the power play being ineffective, this player being too old, this coach not being hard enough or effective enough. Sure they all make sense in some regard but it is the way this franchise and the MSG organization does business that is the problem. It all trickles down and has an effect on the players from head billionaire James Dolan down to Jim Ramsey one way or another. Just look at the contrast here.
In NJ you have two franchises that committed to making themselves winners, making themselves champions or at least very close to it, while it seems at MSG all they worry about is market share value, marketing and all the other non hockey and basketball garbage. So while the Nets and Devils enjoy another year of playoffs and a chance to bring it all home, the two teams from the countries biggest and most influential city sit it out again. There is no reason for this. Why must Ranger fans have to endure this? Why should we have thick skin to root for a team that we love and could be so good? We have the most money of any hockey franchise, we have the most backing of any team, and yet we have no idea what to do with it.
Where this philosophy that stars only will fill the seats came up is absolutely ludicrous. You put the hard working, no name Devils in Ranger uniforms and play them at the Garden and that building is sold out to the brim with passionate loyal hockey fans every game. It wouldn't matter how boring or what flash they lacked, they would be WINNERS and isn't winning what it's all about? Just the makeup of the Rangers is flawed to begin with. If you pay attention even a sliver to hockey you will soon notice that their is one common thread to all teams that have been a success over the last eight to ten years. It is that they stick to a system, a system of defense. Not all teams trap and stifle like the Devils or Senators, but they are committed to making sure the most important part of the ice is taken care of, THEIR END.
If you watch one Ranger game over the last 6 years you will see that the Rangers have foolishly chosen another route, the route used by teams like the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980's, one of constant puck pursuit and forcing the play through quick transition from defense to offense. That just doesn't fly in today's hockey where the players are bigger and the skaters are better. Why do you think the Rangers get caught on so many odd man rushes, why do you think Mike Richter, Mike Dunham, and Dan Blackburn get peppered with 40 shots a night? It's because not one forward plays in a system that makes them defensively consciences. No wonder our goalies can't stop goals, the odds are simply stacked against them.
Basically the Rangers have no idea about today's hockey, or they do and refuse to change. Glen Sather who mastered those teams from the 1980's Oiler dynasty has refused to change the system on his team. He still believes that puck pursuit and speed will win out over patient tough neutral zone ice play. Hockey games get won in the trenches but even more importantly between blue lines. If you own the center of the rink you own the other team and you dictate how the game is going to be played.
Cablevision billionaire owner James Dolan, a man who knows all about money and shareholder value and zero about hockey and winning in hockey has no business owning an original 6 team. If he does know about the sport he sure doesn't do a good job in showing it. A fine example of that can be said for the way Glen Sather was hired. After Dolan and his sporting geniuses fired Neil Smith and John Muckler after an awful 2000 season he had to go to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman himself for advice on replacing them. Mr. Bettman of coarse recommended Glen who already was looking to leave Edmonton and a new nest to settle his ego. That right there tells you all you need to know about the Rangers organization. Most owners would either know who they want or have people around them who know whom the right person for the job is. At the time there wasn't allot of general manager material available, but in typical NY fashion of coarse they chose the one with name and maybe the same baggage as well.
I'm not saying that this is all Glens fault but again this shows you why this franchise is what it is. Glen has done some good things here and has made some steal type trades and brought in a star studded cast but no deals he has made have resulted in us playing one playoff game. In 1994 when we did win the cup we were built on star power. Mark Messier, Brian Leetch, and Adam Graves were no slouches, but they were young, they were hungry, and they wanted to win. They were also supported by a cast of players that may or may had not won before but knew it could be done. How soon we forget about players like Jay Wells, Craig Mactavish, Brian Noonan, or Stephane Matteau just to name a few. Without those players we would still be hearing chants of 1940.
That team was on the verge of greatness after a horrible 1993 and was a coach and some moves away from the dream. At that time were owned by a cooperation, but by one that let the sports do it's thing and the cooperate people do their thing. Not that they were without their flaws but they had more to boast about then James Dolan and company do now. We have committed ourselves now with players who are either well past their prime or who do not know how to check their egos at the door. Even so you have amassed a group of good talented players on a team that does not play a true system. They are like chickens running free in the coop. Coaching seems to not hold it's players that accountable either because they are too afraid to speak out on their billionaire friends or they are not allowed to by James Dolan.
Whatever it may be it does not work and it must be changed. If it is changed do most Ranger fans expect it to change overnight? Of coarse not. Nothing like this does. It will take time, patience and more setback. Instead of trying to buy our way out in an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle year after year, we need to finally let go of this idea that we must bring in names to fill the seats. I don't know about you but I sure as heck could care less how brilliant Pavel Bure may look streaking down the right wing when we lose a game 5 to 3 because our defense let up. And if star power is what they want over winning then Mr. Dolan should take a look around his building once in a blue moon and he may notice that a lot of his cooperate seats are empty, and even in the blues. It may say sell out but believe me it's not.
I never thought the Garden could sound like Continental Airlines Arena on most nights now but it does now. The only thing that Ranger fans can do right now is take it. Signing Bobby Holik last summer was fine and he is the kind of player we have been dying for on this team for a long time, but he will never work here when his role is never defined. He thrived as a smart forward in a system of defense, hard neutral zone work, and shutting down opposing lines. As we saw he also failed when thrown out on the ice expected to score 20 goals, a player which he is not and never will be. When those contracts end we must simply let these guys go, continue to build through a draft, attempt and I mean attempt in the lightest way to move some of these big names to contenders that might want them. Sure we can still sign the occasional free agent, but one who is willing to build for something right and good.
When traded to Long Island Mike Peca at least knew that something good was being built. Sure they have lost two years in a row now in the first round but that is what a growing team does, it has setbacks and failures but in time overcomes those and contends. In a few years with some more improvements and luck the Islanders could be fighting for a cup. Same thing in Minnesota. It may have taken them slightly less time to build but they have made it in a big way this year because the franchise committed itself to building a tough young team from the ground up and got the right people to do it. Luck may have been on their side but luck always follows something good. What hope do we have? What are we waiting for Brendan Shanahan or John Leclair to decide it's time to retire and join our team? Where is our future? What is the goal here, what are we trying to achieve? We may have young developing players like Dan Blackburn and Garth Murray but it's going to take more then just those kids to turn this organization around.
We will need to finally get with the times and develop a system that preaches defense first. We will need to develop a farm system that is a feeder to the big club. A fine example of that is the Devils. One player goes down with injury and they always have someone in Albany ready to plug in that role. Their farm system is on the same page as the big club. Glen Sather has said this is his goal and maybe it is, but last time I looked I didn't see much in our system to make me think they were going to be solid NHL players. And even if they do develop, they only do so after we have traded them away to a team that will know how to utilize them. They never see time here because the Lindros and Bures of this team are taking that spot.
Trust me I'm upset that a player like Mattias Norstrom is now a captain of a decent team and we traded for garbage in Marty McSorley, but at least that was at a time when we were still contenders. 1994 was only 2 years removed and if anyone remembers that awful trade the best player we got in return was not Marty McSorley or Jari Kurri, but Shane Churla who was another hard nosed around the block player unlike a well over the hill superstar like Kurri, and ironically Churla didn't put on a Ranger uniform until the following season. But that is all water under the bridge and history, and the only thing Ranger fans have right now is history.
Tell me your excited about next season and I'll show you some nice shorefront property in Oklahoma. Oh I forgot we will have Pavel Bure and his bum knees, a healthy Bobby Holik, Alexei Kovalev, Anson Carter, a timid Eric Lindros. Excited yet? Nope me neither. They may have showed us something by not dying until the second to last game of the season, but fighting for 8th place is an absolute disgrace, especially with the money and resources this franchise has.
Maybe if Glen Sather wasn't worried about what coach might step on his toes and worried about the future of this organization he would have gotten a Pat Burns or Ken Hitchcock in here and let that coach develop and dictate a defensive system. Then maybe we would have made the playoffs, but somehow Glen will always find a way to have his absolute power on his team enforced. And don't tell me that our personnel isn't made for that. A good coach who has control of his locker room and makes believers of his players could get it to work. But then again this mish mash of players from so many places and system may never buy into any coach.
Nothing will change, the awful stench of losing will not leave the air until someone upstairs in the high offices of MSG decides that it's time to change. Until then get used to watching us lift pens in the off season while the Devils and Islanders do their lifting of metal in June!
James
Posted by Bird at June 04, 2003 12:33 PMeMail this entry!
Nice rant, even if I disagree with just about every single thing that you wrote. I know where you're coming from, and most of us are Rangers fan here so there's no need to dissect and criticize every single line. Heck, I've written the same basic things many times before, only I use the word "assclown" more often.
After six years without the playoffs, two GMs, dozens of office-types, about seven coaches, and literally hundreds of players with varying degrees of dedication and ability, I think the only conclusion that can be reached about the problems of the Rangers is that no one has any straightforward cure-all answer to fix things. And it's pretty arrogant for a fan such as you or I to suggest that we do, where people that have played, coached, and studied the game for their entire lives are completely clueless as to what is going on around them. And it only helps to contextualize our frustration when we give it neat and convenient names, such as for example "Eric Lindros", when in reality it wouldn't (and hasn't) made much difference when it was given other names such as "Jan Hlavac, Kim Johnsson and Pavel Brendl." Complain all you want about the lack of systems, whatever these magical phantoms may be, but realize that they only make you feel comfortable about a phenomenon that both you, I, and Glen Sather are at a complete loss to explain.
Personally I think you'll be better off enjoying all the irony in our problems. And if you have such a problem with the actions and attitudes of the billionaires that run and play for the team, stop giving them your money, or at least be a little more shrewd with it. Seriously. That's what I'm doing. That's probably the most effective way to instigate change.
Posted by: Leedsy99 on June 5, 2003 10:37 AMHey Leedsy. I wrote that and I know alot of people may not agree with I wrote. That is fine and if I had all the answers I wouldn't be here but would be helping starving kids around the world and all that good stuff, but I don't so that's why I'm here. Thank you for being honest.
If these people have been around the game for so long, how come so many other people whether they are fans, analysts, or people very close to hockey and our organization say the Rangers are doing it wrong? Usually when that many people say the same thing that is the case. And I didn't come up with these things from my head or thin air, they are just facts and opinions that so many other have spoken on the last 6 or 7 years, I just said them again. Wouldn't you agree defense is a problem on this team? Wouldn't you agree that by signing players like Lindros, Bure, and Holik, all players who developed under other systems, you take away that position from a player working his way through our system to get to the big club? Other then Lundmark, Blackburn, and Purinton, name a Ranger that we have developed that has stayed up or has not been traded. Why was he traded? 1 because he lacked the skills to play on the NHL level or just didn't show signs of improving due to what would seem poor assimiliation from the AHL to the NHL level, or simply did not have much of a chance to play simply because the team already had that position filled by a veteran player. Again it may be easy to talk about nj now since they are in the finals for the 4th time in 8 years, but really look at them. Gomez, Madden, Bicek, Gionta, Pandolfo, Elias, all players that you know if they were in Hartford, would not see the Garden ice like they would in NJ. The Devils give them a chance, they develop there players. Sure guys like Friesen, Marshall, and Langenbrunner have been the difference, but the Devils are not where they are today without homegrown players like Madden, Brodeur, just to name a few. And being in the finals 4 of 8 says alot about the organization and the way they run it.
Again these are my opinions and mine only. Am I right? In my opinion yes but to many other maybe not so and I understand that. And hey anyone can rant, for HockeyBird to post this I think it has some legitimate content and it speaks out for many frustrated Ranger fans out there. Maybe not yourself, but these are certainly the things I have been hearing around Ranger country the last 7 years! What else can we do? Not say anything and watch another season slip away next year and the year after? Sure I can tune out or not go, but cmon, what kind of thing is that? Just give up on my team? Something has to be said for the way things have gone around here.
Anyway I ranted again.....ahhhhhhh.
Later
Jim
Posted by: Jim on June 5, 2003 12:13 PMHey Leedsy. I wrote that and I know alot of people may not agree with I wrote. That is fine and if I had all the answers I wouldn't be here but would be helping starving kids around the world and all that good stuff, but I don't so that's why I'm here. Thank you for being honest.
If these people have been around the game for so long, how come so many other people whether they are fans, analysts, or people very close to hockey and our organization say the Rangers are doing it wrong? Usually when that many people say the same thing that is the case. And I didn't come up with these things from my head or thin air, they are just facts and opinions that so many other have spoken on the last 6 or 7 years, I just said them again. Wouldn't you agree defense is a problem on this team? Wouldn't you agree that by signing players like Lindros, Bure, and Holik, all players who developed under other systems, you take away that position from a player working his way through our system to get to the big club? Other then Lundmark, Blackburn, and Purinton, name a Ranger that we have developed that has stayed up or has not been traded. Why was he traded? 1 because he lacked the skills to play on the NHL level or just didn't show signs of improving due to what would seem poor assimiliation from the AHL to the NHL level, or simply did not have much of a chance to play simply because the team already had that position filled by a veteran player. Again it may be easy to talk about nj now since they are in the finals for the 4th time in 8 years, but really look at them. Gomez, Madden, Bicek, Gionta, Pandolfo, Elias, all players that you know if they were in Hartford, would not see the Garden ice like they would in NJ. The Devils give them a chance, they develop there players. Sure guys like Friesen, Marshall, and Langenbrunner have been the difference, but the Devils are not where they are today without homegrown players like Madden, Brodeur, just to name a few. And being in the finals 4 of 8 says alot about the organization and the way they run it.
Again these are my opinions and mine only. Am I right? In my opinion yes but to many other maybe not so and I understand that. And hey anyone can rant, for HockeyBird to post this I think it has some legitimate content and it speaks out for many frustrated Ranger fans out there. Maybe not yourself, but these are certainly the things I have been hearing around Ranger country the last 7 years! What else can we do? Not say anything and watch another season slip away next year and the year after? Sure I can tune out or not go, but cmon, what kind of thing is that? Just give up on my team? Something has to be said for the way things have gone around here.
Anyway I ranted again.....ahhhhhhh.
Later
Jim
Posted by: JIm on June 5, 2003 12:25 PMHey Leedsy. I wrote that and I know alot of people may not agree with I wrote. That is fine and if I had all the answers I wouldn't be here but would be helping starving kids around the world and all that good stuff, but I don't so that's why I'm here. Thank you for being honest.
If these people have been around the game for so long, how come so many other people whether they are fans, analysts, or people very close to hockey and our organization say the Rangers are doing it wrong? Usually when that many people say the same thing that is the case. And I didn't come up with these things from my head or thin air, they are just facts and opinions that so many other have spoken on the last 6 or 7 years, I just said them again. Wouldn't you agree defense is a problem on this team? Wouldn't you agree that by signing players like Lindros, Bure, and Holik, all players who developed under other systems, you take away that position from a player working his way through our system to get to the big club? Other then Lundmark, Blackburn, and Purinton, name a Ranger that we have developed that has stayed up or has not been traded. Why was he traded? 1 because he lacked the skills to play on the NHL level or just didn't show signs of improving due to what would seem poor assimiliation from the AHL to the NHL level, or simply did not have much of a chance to play simply because the team already had that position filled by a veteran player. Again it may be easy to talk about nj now since they are in the finals for the 4th time in 8 years, but really look at them. Gomez, Madden, Bicek, Gionta, Pandolfo, Elias, all players that you know if they were in Hartford, would not see the Garden ice like they would in NJ. The Devils give them a chance, they develop there players. Sure guys like Friesen, Marshall, and Langenbrunner have been the difference, but the Devils are not where they are today without homegrown players like Madden, Brodeur, just to name a few. And being in the finals 4 of 8 says alot about the organization and the way they run it.
Again these are my opinions and mine only. Am I right? In my opinion yes but to many other maybe not so and I understand that. And hey anyone can rant, for HockeyBird to post this I think it has some legitimate content and it speaks out for many frustrated Ranger fans out there. Maybe not yourself, but these are certainly the things I have been hearing around Ranger country the last 7 years! What else can we do? Not say anything and watch another season slip away next year and the year after? Sure I can tune out or not go, but cmon, what kind of thing is that? Just give up on my team? Something has to be said for the way things have gone around here.
Anyway I ranted again.....ahhhhhhh.
Later
Jim
Posted by: jim on June 5, 2003 12:29 PMHey Leedsy. I wrote that and I know alot of people may not agree with I wrote. That is fine and if I had all the answers I wouldn't be here but would be helping starving kids around the world and all that good stuff, but I don't so that's why I'm here. Thank you for being honest.
If these people have been around the game for so long, how come so many other people whether they are fans, analysts, or people very close to hockey and our organization say the Rangers are doing it wrong? Usually when that many people say the same thing that is the case. And I didn't come up with these things from my head or thin air, they are just facts and opinions that so many other have spoken on the last 6 or 7 years, I just said them again. Wouldn't you agree defense is a problem on this team? Wouldn't you agree that by signing players like Lindros, Bure, and Holik, all players who developed under other systems, you take away that position from a player working his way through our system to get to the big club? Other then Lundmark, Blackburn, and Purinton, name a Ranger that we have developed that has stayed up or has not been traded. Why was he traded? 1 because he lacked the skills to play on the NHL level or just didn't show signs of improving due to what would seem poor assimiliation from the AHL to the NHL level, or simply did not have much of a chance to play simply because the team already had that position filled by a veteran player. Again it may be easy to talk about nj now since they are in the finals for the 4th time in 8 years, but really look at them. Gomez, Madden, Bicek, Gionta, Pandolfo, Elias, all players that you know if they were in Hartford, would not see the Garden ice like they would in NJ. The Devils give them a chance, they develop there players. Sure guys like Friesen, Marshall, and Langenbrunner have been the difference, but the Devils are not where they are today without homegrown players like Madden, Brodeur, just to name a few. And being in the finals 4 of 8 says alot about the organization and the way they run it.
Again these are my opinions and mine only. Am I right? In my opinion yes but to many other maybe not so and I understand that. And hey anyone can rant, for HockeyBird to post this I think it has some legitimate content and it speaks out for many frustrated Ranger fans out there. Maybe not yourself, but these are certainly the things I have been hearing around Ranger country the last 7 years! What else can we do? Not say anything and watch another season slip away next year and the year after? Sure I can tune out or not go, but cmon, what kind of thing is that? Just give up on my team? Something has to be said for the way things have gone around here.
Anyway I ranted again.....ahhhhhhh.
Later
Jim
Posted by: jim on June 5, 2003 12:31 PM
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