In the past four seasons since the lockout, I have had mostly nice things to say about how the organization has treated the subscribers. That ended today. I just found the renewal information in my mail box and to say I am angry would be an understatement.

It’s not so much the increase in the ticket prices that has me pissed off.  I do think they have a colossal nerve to ask us for more money to watch a team that barely made the playoffs (and yet again failed to make it past the second round). What really irks me is that fact that they want a commitment before June 22.  They want the subscribers to re-up before free agency on July 1. For a subscriber to commit before July 1 is like buying a pig in a poke.

They are asking the fans that support this team to pony up a lot cash on blind faith. How can the subscribers make a decision about renewing if we are unable to see what the Sather BrainTrust intends to do to rectify the piss poor product we watched last season? Yeah, that’s right. Piss poor. Drury and Gomez tank on Renney and get the rest of the team to buy into it. Now Sather and Dolan expect the fans to buy in to next season without finding out if we will still have to endure both these Skating Judases for another season.

Getting Avery on the cheap and hiring Tortorella are not the whole solution. In fact, it remains to be seen if they may yet become part of the problem, ie the Tortorella bottle throwing incident.  And then, there is the issue of Wade Redden. Like Ranger season ticketholders really want to shell out over 8% more to watch that inept excuse of an NHL defensemen get paid on average $7 million for the next 4 years.  Yeah, Glen, that’s what we want to spend our money on. Not.

And, to add insult to injury, we get a sweet little letter from Sather asking for our continued patience and support. For your reading enjoyment:

“Rangers Subscribers,

Five years ago, we made it our priority to build the New York Rangers team for long-term success by developing a core foundation of young players and adding key veterans as our youngsters matured. Our philosophy remains steadfast, and this past season, six young players whose NHL careers began here in New York played major roles in taking us to the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year.

Although we were not satisfied with this past season’s results, we believe we are on the right track. We continue to focus on the development of players and are excited about several talented prospects in our system. At the same time, we still have work to do as we strive toward our ultimate goal — to compete for the Stanley Cup each and every season.

Under the direction of our new Head Coach, John Tortorella, you will see a retooled Rangers team in 2009-10 that will feature a system that emphasizes aggressive forechecking and puck possession. This up-tempo approach has made John an accomplished winner in the NHL, earning a Jack Adams Award as Coach of the Year and delivering a Stanley Cup to Tampa Bay in 2004.

The key objective for this off-season is to complement our strong defensive play and league-leading penalty-kill with more goal-scoring, stemming from this aggressive system. We are determined to add players who make significant contributions in 2009-10, enabling us to dictate the pace of the game on a regular basis.

With an All-Star goaltender, and a mix of accomplished veterans and hungry youngsters, we expect to make our fans especially proud this season. Your loyalty and enthusiasm has always made The Garden a very intimidating place for visiting teams, and you will see a team whose style of play makes it even tougher.

We remain humbled and thankful for your energetic support and look forward to seeing you at The Garden for a great season of Rangers hockey.

Sincerely,

Glen Sather, President and General Manager, New York Rangers”

And, if that weren’t enough to make you sick, Dolan is rattling his sabre again about the renovations to the Garden. I’ll believe it when I see it. Many subscribers and fans know how little Dolan cares about the Rangers. The Rangers are  just a cash cow to keep his building and his programming schedule filled and to pay off the Knick lawsuits. 

The renovations are calling for a 5000 sq ft Super Suite that can hold 300 people. Obviously, Dolan hasn’t realized that this city and country are in the depths of a deep recession. MSG had a hard time selling the Luxury Suites this season, constantly bombarding the audience with in arena advertisements for them. Witness how the overpriced Yankee tickets went unsold. Hey Jim,  put the renovations on hold and stop sticking it to the subscribers. 

Many people have lost their jobs as companies have tightened their bottom lines. How has Sather retained his job after underperforming for the last 9 years? How does Jim Dolan keep his job? Oops. I forgot.  His Daddy owns the company!!!

The unkindest cut of all is that even if  subscribers renew, they will have a harder time getting rid of the games they can’t attend. Last season, many subscribers had a hard time selling their tickets for face value. And, Ranger TicketExchange still gets their cut regardless of the selling price.  

So, thanks Jim and Glen, for making the decision to renew harder then it has to be. You may not hear from this subscriber until 11:59 pm on June 21, the longest day of the year.

Posted under New York Rangers

What with the economy being the way it is and the team regressing, I am curious to know how many subscribers intend to renew their season tickets this August.

I will be polling those who read this sight three times, today, after the draft and again on July15th. I think that would present a fair picture of how readers here are feeling about future of the Rangers and current subscriber’s commitment to the team and the organization.  

If you are a subscriber, please respond to the poll below based on your feelings at this time. I realize that the readership here is small but I value your opinions.

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Posted under New York Rangers

Based upon my friend’s eyewitness testimony, the NHL may regret its suspension of John Tortorella. In fact, if the Rangers organization deposes the three “Ranger”  fan witnesses, they may have a very good assualt/wrongful behavior suit against The Washington Capitals organization, Ted Leonsis and the NHL.

My friend was sitting right behind Schoenfeld on the glass said he heard and saw the whole thing. (See man in blue and woman in white Ranger jerseys with the Let’s Go Rangers thunderstick.) he was 5 ft away from the abusive fan.

Schoenfeld and Tortorella had requested the Caps Arena security to speak to the abusive fan. Security did speak to the fan but they did not eject him. He was left there to continue the abuse. The incident that precipitated Tortorella’s outburst was the fan spilling something on Tortorella through a large separation in the glass.

The whole back of Tortorella’s suit was wet. It prompted Tortorella’s  verbal and then physical response by throwing the water bottle at the abusive fan. The bottle bounced off the abusive man and hit a nearby woman on the arm, not the head as claimed.

The onus is clearly on the Caps and Arena Security for their failure to correct the situation permanently and eject  the fan from the building before he doused liquid on Tortorella. Sadly, there was a little boy sitting with the abusive man. Wonderful example to set for your child.

If I were Dolan, I’d file an injunction against the league tomorrow morning. I would also threaten to revoke NBC’s broadcast rights to the game if the league doesn’t temporarily reverse the decision to suspend Tortorella. I wouldn’t let NBC in the building. I believe Dolan retains all broadcast rights. He could do it. If Soupy and Bettman want to play hardball, I’d throw it right back in their faces.

Even if it means forfeiting the game, someone must put a stop to the imperious Colin Campbell and the smug Gary Bettman. They are making a laughing stock of this league, not John Tortorella and not Sean Avery.

Posted under New York Rangers

Updated 3/30/09

The assist on Crosby’s game winning goal was from Fedetenko, not Talot, though I thought  that was what  I heard on the broadcast.

Unfortunately, I am old enough to remember this song by Leslie Gore. I even wore my hair in a flip back in the day, just like Leslie.

For the last month I have been loathe to criticize John Tortorella in any way lest I be accused of sour grapes because I was and am a Renney supporter. But this blog is my party and I’ll cry out if  I want  to.

As the last month has unfolded, I have seen John Tortorella  do some of the same things that got Tom Renney fired. Wasn’t the biggest indictment against Renney his failure to hold players accountable? Wasn’t lack of accountability one of the chief complaints of the Renney haters out there. Renney let the high priced, underachieving players continue to play big minutes. One Wade Redden comes immediately to mind.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not here to crucify Tortorella. I just find it a little ironic and unfair that Tortorella can make himself off limits to the press and doesn’t have to explain his decisions, good or ill. Accountability should start with Tortorella.

The fact is that there are soooo many sub-plots in Ranger hockey now that you may as well be watcing One Tree Hill. Dolan wants as much season subscription and playoff money as he can get. He pressures Sather to fill the seats and make the playoffs. In turn, Sather goes out and pulls the trigger on marque players and overpays them and hog ties the organization with long, no movement contracts.

Sather turned around and handed a stacked deck to Renney, who in his 3+ years as the head coach accomplished his mission. Renney was able to keep peace in the valley while juggling tempermental players, the press and the fan base. In order to do that, Renney had to be the ultimate diplomat. He couldn’t scapegoat players. He couldn’t tell the press to f*ck off and he couldn’t scream and curse at the officials.

Because Renney approached every aspect of his job in a calm, well prepared way he was accussed of being Coach Butterscotch. He was boring. His system was boring and both the players and the fan base wanted him out and to see run and gun, exciting hockey.

Unfortunately, you can’t play exciting hockey without a good defense to cover for the lack of defensive responsibilty by your forwards. Renney knew that. And despite the fact that there were 6 defensemen on his roster, he really had only 3.5 decent defensemen. He rolled four lines playing a boring, defensively conservative game for that reason. And, until the players bought out of that system, the Rangers were winning games 2-1 and in shoot outs. But, they did WIN.

Tortorella comes in and lets the team loose and they do score more goals. But instead of winning 2-1 or in shootouts, they lose 4-3 and in shootouts. Tortorella says he doesn’t need to roll four line like Renney did but he does anyway. And, for some inexplicable reason, he doesn’t use one of his best players in the shoot out. He is also shortening his bench to four defensemen. In my opinion, that’s a prescription for disaster.

If you look at Crosby’s goal yesterday in microcosim, you see why having all three forwards down low on that play lead to disaster. Renney’s five in the frame might have helped there. Avery was being tied up by Orpik, who hooked Avery in the corner. Zherdev plays the puck around the boards to Dubinsky who gets beat by Talbot. Talbot passes to Crosby at center ice who then splits the defense. Unfortunately, two of Rangers slower defenseman were at the points. Redden should have used his head and tripped or grabbed Crosby and taken a good penalty for a change.

Maybe if Sauer was on the ice instead of Redden, he might have been able to catch Cindy. We’ll never know because Tortorella only played the kid for two minutes for the entire game. But God forbid giving Redden fewer minutes.

I’m telling ya, the more things change the more they remain the same.

Posted under New York Rangers

For what it is worth a trusted friend told me, and he got it from an insider, that getting rid of Renney was a calculated plan.

Just after the Dallas game, when the Avery speculation started to surface (when Sather agreed to let him recondition in Hartford), the “leaders” went to Sather and told him that the team was unanimously against taking Avery back. In addition, they told him that the players were tuning out Renney, felt stifled by the defensive system and wanted a change.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like heresay but this  just makes sense. I was told this information 3 weeks ago when everyone thought that Sather was going to fire Tom. More players then seemed to phone in periods and tank games. It was all very subtley done. Players totally disappeared. Go back and watch the games. The record stands for itself.

After the second post lockout season, I wanted to see Sather fore go signing big contracts for “marque” names and just bring up all the kids. So the Rangers don’t make the playoffs for a couple of years. They would have  gotten higher picks and stacked their deck like Pittsburgh and Washington had done. They would have had more time to mold their youth into better players.

We know this could never have happened because Sather was always under pressure from Dolan to put asses in seats. Sather needed to bring in money from Ranger playoff games to pay off  Dolan’s Knick debts. So Tom Renney continued the big contract juggling act. He got the team to the playoffs for three consecutive seasons when none of the media hockey minds expected him too.

At the end of the day, Dolan is really the one to blame. He has no interest in hockey other then to make money. Unfortunately, the Rangers are part of his Cablevision empire. Nothing will change because, in Sather, Dolan has found someone who puts asses in seats by hiring name players and causing controversy. Sather knows it’s all about the money.

Ron Greschner once gave me a piece of advise. When I asked him what he thought about the over-commercialization of hockey, he told me it’s all about the money. That being the case, the only way anything will ever change is if people stop giving Dolan their money. There was a backlash against Sather after he dealt Brian Leetch. Angry and bitter fans swore they wouldn’t give Dolan another dime as long as Sather was GM.

After the pre-lockout house cleaning, new subscribers came in because they wanted to be on the ground floor of the rebuild. Guess what? With Don Maloney and Tom Renney now gone, that rebuild is over. Those angry about what transpired this week may not re-up their subscriptions.  But, another group will replace them like heads cut off a Medusa.

That’s why I have followed Detroit. Sure Ilitch wants to make money. But that organization has something the Rangers will never have until Dolan and Sather are gone. The Red Wings have integrity and loyalty. They are loyal to their management and their players. In turn, their players do things like deferring salary to bring in other players to make the team better.

Players like Osgood put aside their pride to come back and play there. They reclaim guys like Darren McCarty, who was about as down and out as a hockey player can go. Too bad the Red Wings may founder because of the economic crisis in Michigan. They deserve better.

What options do Ranger fans have? In this day and age, it seems our only recourse is to blog, post on message boards and hope somehow our voices get heard. Chanting Fire Sather at games certainly hasn’t worked.

I am a Ranger season subscriber. Unfortunately, I still have to go to games and watch the Judases on this team continue to play. They turn my stomach. The only redeeming thing to watch is the kids. Hopefully they haven’t been too infected by the bad example that has been recently set for them.

Many may read this and write it off as the ravings of a bitter old woman. I have always trusted and followed my instincts about people and I usually haven’t gone too far wrong.

Posted under New York Rangers

Nine years of incompetence is long enough. How much longer is Dolan going to allow this over-the-hill fraud to continue to screw up this franchise with his lousy signings and poor draft picks?

The wrong man was fired today. Until Sather goes, and his bad contracts are bought out or traded if possible, nothing is going to change. Right now the Rangers are in the playoffs. If the Rangers fail to make the playoffs, Dolan must fire Sather.

The Isiah situation with the Knicks was allowed to fester for far too long. When is Dolan going to wake up and smell the coffee with Sather?  I’ll bet it won’t be before Sather costs the Dolans millions more by signing John Tortorella as his new head coach.

Posted under New York Rangers