Celebrating 15 Years Later

15 years ago yesterday, the New York Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in 54 years. As a young kid who was really getting into hockey, this was awesome to see, especially watching an older generation who had waited so long to see a Cup in their lifetime. The phrase "Now I Can Die In Peace" was coined from a sign held up by a fan in Madison Square Garden after the New York Rangers won.

The Rangers would return to the Eastern Conference finals a few years later, but never could duplicate the success of that season. Part of that lack of success was the enormous strain the trades made to capture the cup had on the team for years to come. They traded away Todd Marchant, Tony Amonte and Doug Weight and came home a Stanley Cup winner so who could argue in 1994?

I will forever remember that team, not only for it's top 4 of Brian Leetch, Mark Messier, Mike Richter, and, my favorite, Adam Graves, who all now have their numbers hanging from the rafters. But we will remember veteran names like (helmetless) Craig McTavish, Esa Tikkanen, Steve Larmer, Glenn Anderson, and, of course, Stephane Matteau and young players on that team like Alexei Kovalev, Sergei Zubov, and Eddie Olczyk (part of the "Black Aces").

The Rangers had a sweep in the first round and dominated the second round in 5...and then played two of the most intense, most back-and-forth, and most gut wrenching 7 game series to close it out. The series against New Jersey may have take a year off my dad's life, especially with the New York Rangers down in a must-win, Messier-guaranteed Game 6 which he showed his true leadership and led them back from the brink and the New Jersey Devils finding a way to tie Game 7 with seconds to go and hitting multiple posts and crossbars in OT and double OT, only to lose on the second Matteau double OT goal of the series (people forget there were two, but I was at the first one in NJ).

It was the first time I had truly rooted for a team from start to finish and they had finished with a championship (although I enjoyed the Giants football wins years before, I had not been into football as much at the time and only really watched the Super Bowl). I was elated and had this feeling that I was a part of their win. I had even gone to Madison Square Garden to watch a game of that Stanley Cup Finals when the Rangers played in Vancouver.

They would break up some of that team the next few seasons. Mike Keenan, the fiery coach who brought them together, would leave for St. Louis in the offseason. Many other players would leave as free agents or retire. The New Jersey Devils team they played that year was backed by a young goaltender named Martin Brodeur and he's been leading them to championships ever since. And when Mark Messier left to join the same Vancouver Canucks he helped bury, it changed things for New York Rangers hockey. They haven't been back to a Conference Finals since and they haven't come close to duplicating the magic they had that awesome spring and summer of 1994. 

That team taught me a lot: what great leadership was (as I watched, at the same time, the Knicks fall apart in the 1994 Finals behind a lack of leadership), how goaltending wins championships (Richter was great those playoffs), the importance of putting the puck towards the net (the two Matteau game-winning goals were shots from a very bad angle) and, mostly, how great it felt for my team to win it all. I'm hoping it won't be 54 years until the next championship, but for one day in 1994, as a ten-year-old kid, I felt there could be nothing better.