(Editor’s note: Be aware, or beware, that our very special guest blogger is known for his creative negativity, and the colorful vocabulary with which he describes his beloved Rangers … you know, “bush-league” and ...
(Editor’s note: Be aware, or beware, that our very special guest blogger is known for his creative negativity, and the colorful vocabulary with which he describes his beloved Rangers … you know, “bush-league” and “amateur-hour” and “clowns” etc.)
“It Doesn’t Matter What Path”
By Paulo Molina, aka “Miami Pimp”
It was about a year ago that my masterpiece (
Well, toss me a beret and call me Nostradamus.
The 2012-13 version of your heroes sharpened their blades, tightened their helmets, and draped their capes … but predictably managed to undermine their foreskaters.
It did all start with a lot of promise, as clueless no-talents like Dubinsky, Anisimov, and Erixon were tossed aside for the second-coming-of-the-savior Nash. But like all promises with this team, the result was a broken dream.
The squad sleepwalked through the season, often looking slow and disjointed as they littered the ice with giveaways, missed shots, and overall play so poor it warranted arrests for misdemeanor. Typical words like “amateur hour”, “bush league”, and “Mickey Mouse” grew stale fast as it became far too easy to attach the proverbial adjectives to underperforming clowns like the forgot-how-to-play Richards, the can’t-win-a-faceoff Stepan, and the overhyped-and-utterly-inadequate Boyle.
They somehow managed to wake themselves and their legion of hopeless followers with tolerable play throughout the latter half of the season and in a torturous seven-game grind against the Ovechkin-abandoned Capitals. Lundqvist displayed his mettle by single-glovedly winning the first round, but eventually the dogs-breakfast-of-a-team ended the tease and was rightly mauled by the Bruins in what should have been a 3-and-out.
The result was Sather doing what any logical GM would have in his position. Faced with either keeping a divisive brute or delving into coaching free agency, he lit up a stogie, sided with the always-en-vouge Avery, and “fired this CLOWN!”
Now Croc Monsieur Alain Vigneault takes the helm. A man who has won exactly one fewer Cup than his predecessor, but who’ll be expected to reach the promise land before the biscuit even hits the ice. From day one, he’ll operate beneath the shadows of the Messiah, with every fan probing his every move … hopeful the players love him, perform for him, and play for his BS.
Truth is, does any of it really matter? Tortorella or Vigneault. Richards or no Richards. The Kreider or regular Kreider. We shall toil with wishes and visions of a Cup-go-round at MSG, but know full well that no matter what path they take, these AHLers will assuredly underdeliver. It’s just a matter of when, not if, the team’s struck with the emblematic coup de grâce that arrives every spring.
Which is why though we can’t be certain our friend Robert Frost ever sported a Rangers jersey, his infamous words resonate well:
Two paths diverged over a frozen lake,
And sorry they could not skate both
And be one skater, long the New York Rangers stood
And looked down one as far as they could
To where it bent on the icy plane;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it wasn’t as abrasive and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that moment equally lay
On surface no blade had hollowed thin.
Oh, the New York Rangers tossed the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
They doubted if they should ever come back.
So it stands to reason that I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere about a year hence;
Two paths diverged over a lake, and the New York Rangers,
They took the one less skated on,
And that hasn’t made a heck of a difference.
From the gateway to Cuban sandwiches, shark-infested beaches, and abysmal drivers &
