It seems like there are going to be a few pounds of Ranger articles today seeing as there are four alone in the NY Times (a paper that rarely gives the Rangers any more than one per day), so I'm going to start listing the articles now (1:30 am) and add to this page as they come in. No comments from me on the articles as we'll both end up staring at this page a lot longer than we want to.

NY Times, Diamos: Sather, 60, took a combative posture at times in announcing his decision, but he vowed to remain as the team's president and general manager for the remaining three years of his contract.

NY Times, Lapointe: Having turned the coaching over to Tom Renney, Sather will presumably finish the season and the next three years of his contract trying to learn how to build a winner in a different era in a different city, a long way from Alberta during the 1980's.

NY Times, Sandomir: David Carter, a sports industry analyst and principal of the Sports Business Group in Los Angeles, said that media companies like Cablevision, the Walt Disney Company and Fox have struggled to understand how to run sports teams. Disney has sold the Anaheim Angels and is trying to sell its Mighty Ducks, and Fox recently sold the Los Angeles Dodgers to Frank McCourt.

NY Times, Rhoden: Sather announced that he was stepping down as coach but staying on as general manager and president. Unfortunately for Rangers fans, Sather will still be judge and executioner: he sentences your Stanley Cup dreams to death, then carries out the sentence.
(Note: I browsed through the NY Times' archives and the most recent mention I see of ANY hockey in William C. Rhoden's columns is a piece he did on Michael Jordan, Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier on March 2, 2002! And he comes on with this kind of hyperbole and brimstone?! Thanks, Bill, but no thanks. Stick to your other sports.)

ESPN, Kelley: The team that Sather built -- some say bought -- is heading for a seventh consecutive playoff miss. It plays like a team that doesn't care about that or pretty much anything else, and in New York, that won't play. It's not just the media that are clamoring for change; the fans want it too. And when those two align with the demand of advertisers, sponsors and the needs of the monster cable network that is MSG, Sather can only hope he's not out the door come season's end or sooner.

NY Post, Brooks: This isn't so much about Glen Sather's failure as head coach as it is about the unique corporate culture in which he works at the Garden, the one in which no demands are made of the hired help, no accountability is required of the names on the marquee, and results are secondary to making nice with the sponsors and looking good on TV.

NY Post, Forde: "The players have to take responsibility," Bobby Holik said. "Everybody has a hand in this. It's a nice gesture to take the blame off the players. The way he is, he's protecting the players from the negative spotlight. But there's a big mirror there, and we have to look at that mirror."

Newsday, Price-Brown: Though no player interviewed agreed he had gripped his stick tighter with every call for his coach's head, the Rangers said they were disappointed Sather had to stoop to firing himself as a last resort.

Newsday, Price-Brown #2: Sather has given him and assistants Ted Green and Terry O'Reilly "carte blanche" to create line combinations and game plans. The team president and GM also said he would suspend a coaching search until the end of the season to show his support of Renney.

Newsday, Herrmann: Madison Square Garden executives, though, are too caught up in the theory that says, "This is New York! We need a big name!" Oh really. The only Rangers general manager to win a Stanley Cup in the past 64 years was someone who had come through the ranks as an Islanders scout (the problem with Neil Smith was that he ultimately became a star in his own right). Brian Cashman, Jeff Van Gundy and Lawrence Frank have done well in the big market without looking as if they had just stepped off Mount Rushmore.

Star-Ledger, Wentworth: The Rangers never responded to Sather's coaching after he fired Bryan Trottier in January 2003. Sather wonders what he could have done to prevent the losing. He has talked about a rash of injuries, especially to defensemen, as the leading cause of the struggle, but that's not all of it. "I don't think I've gotten any dumber over the years since I last coached, but for some reason, I couldn't get this team all going every night," he said. "I don't think you can blame anybody but the head coach in this situation. You should be able to find a way to get the players to perform to the best of their abilities.

Star-Ledger, Wentworh #2: Renney was coaching the Vancouver Canucks in 1997 when Messier signed there following a falling out with the Rangers, and Renney was out by November. During the last days of Renney's tenure, former NHL tough guy Gino Odjick was traded, and he accused Messier of failing to support Renney in order to get Mike Keenan a job.

Star-Ledger, Wentworth #3: Tom Renney is the interim coach for the final 20 games. But Mike Keenan surely will try to get his name into the mix once again and yesterday Sather brought up Joel Quenneville, who was fired by St. Louis on Tuesday after six mostly successful seasons. Phoenix coach Bob Francis was fired Tuesday also, and could be a candidate, and Larry Robinson's name will surely come up again. He turned Sather down once already.

Daily News, Journal News and whatever else to be added later.

- Rocha

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