At 6-1 and 185 pounds, Cal Gardner did not shy away from the physical side of the game and in 1947 he became embroiled in what was then described as the biggest, longest brawl in NHL history. Cal Pearly Gardner signed as a free agent with the Rangers in 1945 following...
Tim Ryan graduated from Notre Dame University in 1960 with a journalism degree, in hope of becoming a newspaper reporter. He began working at the Toronto Star but was intrigued when he heard that a new commercial television network called CTV was coming to Canada....
Edgar Laprade was considered by many to be the best senior hockey player in Canada during the early 1940s. Laprade began playing junior hockey with his hometown Port Arthur, Ontario, Bruins at the age of 16 in 1935. Three years later he moved up to senior hockey and...
Do the names Hub Anslow, Ron Rowe, Herb Foster, Huddy Bell, Jean-Paul Denis or Alex Ritson, ring a bell? How about Len Wharton, Henry Dyck, Max Labovitch or Art Strobel? Unless you’re a true student of the game and the Rangers of the 1940s and 50s, most of those names...
In February 1980, Mark Pavelich was sitting on top of the world as a key member of the US Hockey team that won the Gold Medal in the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. He then went on to be an unlikely star for the New York Rangers before walking away from the...
During the NHL’s early years, teams were only required to dress one goaltender. If that netminder was injured he either had to play through the pain and return to the game after being repaired or his team had to scramble for a replacement. Sometimes that meant a...
At 6-foot-2, 205 pounds Czechoslovakian Vaclav Nedomansky was everything Emile Francis, as well as most of the other GM’s in the league, was looking for in a center during the 1970s. He was big and strong, could skate and possessed a wrist shot that was once clocked...
Defenseman Arnie Brown came to the Rangers along with Bob Nevin, Dick Duff, Rod Seiling and Billy Collins in the blockbuster February 22, 1964 deal that sent Blueshirt captain Andy Bathgate and Don McKenney to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Brown had played his junior...
Gene Carr could have been a huge star in New York. He had long blonde hair and blazing speed but he had trouble putting the puck in the net and suffered a pair of serious injuries and so his time with the Rangers though eventful was relatively brief. Carr recorded 58...
I’ll get right to the point, Emile “The Cat” Francis deserves a banner with his name on it up in the rafters at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers have already retired the numbers of five of his former players so why not honor the man who put those teams together, and...
Harry Howell was a product of the Rangers Guelph Junior A team that also produced Andy Bathgate, Dean Prentice, Lou Fontinato and Ron Murphy who later became Harry’s brother-in-law. Following two seasons in Guelph, the six-foot-one, 195-pound native of Hamilton...
Since their inception in 1926, 88 men have tended goal for the New York Rangers. Some went on to become Franchise Goaltenders like Davey Kerr, Chuck Rayner, Gump Worsley, Ed Giacomin, John Davidson, John Vanbiesbrouck, Mike Richter and Henrik Lundqvist, who were each...
In the summer of 1978, Fred Shero finally got a chance to coach the Rangers. Shero was a former Rangers defenseman who had been coaching in the Blueshirts minor league system for many years during the Emile Francis era. However despite leading his teams to four first...
New York Ranger fans are very lucky, regardless of the current plight of the Blueshirts, a veritable All-Star cast of broadcasters and journalists cover every aspect of their seasonal roller-coaster ride. They are the best in the business and although we hear and read...
It is a universally accepted truth among Ranger fans that the worst trade in team history was made on May 26, 1976 when GM John Ferguson sent 23-year-old Rick Middleton to the Boston Bruins for Ken Hodge, who was 9 years his senior. So when the Bruins announced that...
John Arthur Davidson was the St. Louis Blues’ first round pick (fifth overall) in the 1973 amateur draft following four strong seasons with Calgary of the WCJHL which included being named league MVP in his final season in 1972-73. The son of a Canadian Mounted...
Back in the early 1950s when there were six teams in the NHL and about ninety jobs available, only a few young players were able to break into the league and even fewer who walked away from the game once they got there. Defenseman Bob Chrystal was one of those...
At the end of World War II, nearly 50 players returned to their respective NHL teams including key Rangers such as Muzz and Lynn Patrick, Alex Shibicky, Alf Pike, and Mac Colville, whose brother Neil had returned during the previous season. Unfortunately after three...
Gilles Villemure was born on May 30, 1940 and grew up in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec where the local hockey rink was right next to the fairgrounds race track, and so his two passions became hockey and horse racing. Luckily for him he was able to pursue both of these...
Prior to the 1965-66 season when the NHL ruled that teams must dress two netminders for games, many teams often employed amateurs and low minor leaguers to serve as practice and emergency goaltenders. These men were happy to share the ice with the pros and make a few...
Before there was a Chuck Rayner, a Gump Worsley, an Ed Giacomin, Mike Richter or Henrik Lundqvist there was Davey Kerr. Kerr was the Rangers’ original “Franchise” goaltender, the guy who set the standard for all future Blueshirt netminders to aspire to. David...
Uniform numbers have long been an important part of sports lore and serve multiple purposes. First and foremost, they identify the players, but they also allow fans to identify with those players by wearing those numbers on their own jerseys. Many players have also...
In the hierarchy of sports franchises, a team’s general manager is the second most powerful person in the organization, right behind the owner, yet precious little has been written about the great GM’s in any sport, let alone hockey. That void has now been filled by...
Gilles Gratton was one of the most colorful characters to ever tend goal for the New York Rangers. Unfortunately “Gratoony the Loony” was known more for his eccentric behavior, claims of past lives and Lion’s goaltenders mask than actually stopping pucks. After three...
Gilles Gratton is a character, that fact has been well established in stories that have been passed down over the 40 years since his retirement in 1977. But now Gratton has produced an autobiography called Gratoony the Loony, co-written by veteran sportswriter Greg...
Lorne “Gump” Worsley was one of the most beloved characters to ever don a Rangers sweater. The Hall of Fame goaltender began his hockey journey in 1946 with the Ranger-sponsored Verdun Cyclones of the QJHL, playing against the likes of Jacques Plante, the goaltender...
Rangers’ patriarch Lester Patrick cemented his place in Blueshirt lore on the evening of April 7th 1928. After eliminating both the Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Bruins, the Rangers were playing the second game of the Stanley Cup finals against the Montreal Maroons...
The perception of the New York Rangers around the NHL during the late 1950’s to early 60’s was that the franchise wasn’t serious about improving. For many years it seemed that there was no real commitment to winning or to acquiring the kind of players that could take...
Less than a month after the New Madison Square Garden opened in February of 1968 the building was the site of the rarest of rarities; a National Hockey League double header. The twin bill was made necessary when high winds blew part of the roof off of the Spectrum in...
Bob Froese began his hockey journey on the frozen ponds and rinks of St. Catharines Ontario where he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a goaltender. Bob Froese; ‘It’s funny when I was a kid I would put catalogs on my legs for pads and stuff like that but...
