HOCKEY TRAIN REFRAIN

After last night’s defeat at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one game from elimination, and New Jersey commuters may once again walk at ease through the halls of Penn Station without the crush of of red-white-and blue clad hockey fans, with booming echos of  “LETS GO RANGERS!” and “ICE THEM PENGUINS!”  wandering up and around the concourse.

Don’t get me wrong — I love hockey, and played it as a kid. My older brother even plays in a hockey league and admits to enjoy it, but when PLAYOFF FEVER strikes midtown, my sports-tracking device doesn’t “Catch it!”, and I quickly lose my gritty New York Spirit — in favor of a speedy ride home to Jersey, to avoid the soon-to-be pay-per-view games in peace.

My beef is with the incoming NJ Transit trains. Loaded with loaded pre-gaming Ranger fans (from Jersey, admittedly) – we are often treated to delayed departures, pre-read Star-Ledgers or (worse!) Bergen Records covering the seats, spilled Molson Ice tall-boys littered train cars –  for our Tuesday night commute back to the burbs. 

Last night’s 5:50 made it out from under the ice okay, but if all goes well for Pittsburgh on Thursday, the Garden will clear out, and I can rightfully move onto hating the Yankee fans. {^_^}

-jerseyjim

There was a surprisingly fascinating look at the Knicks and the Rangers and their commuting patterns in the NY Times yesterday. The crux of the article was, both teams have the same employer (Cablevision) and practice facility (Madison Square Garden Training Center on Old Saw Mill River Road on the Tarrytown/Hawthorne border). Beyond that, they have nothing in common: One is a losing team that’s in the papers all the time. The other is a winning team that could largely walk the streets of Manhattan unnoticed.

“Their worlds may sometimes bump into each other over lunch, but their conversations rarely go much deeper than wishing each other luck in their next game,” writes Lynn Zinser.

Zinser also notes that the Rangers mostly live in Manhattan, and several ride the subway to the Garden for games. The Knicks, meanwhile, largely live (and, presumably, live largely) in Westchester. It’s interesting to see that, if we can slip into broad cultural stereotypes for a moment, the guys who grew up in urban settings choose to settle in the country, while the farmers’ sons from eastern Edmonton live in the Big City.

Zinser also unearths the double standard involving parking at their joint Westchester practice facility. The Rangers drive Land Rovers and BMWs, the Knicks — Bentleys, Rolls Royces and “big trucks with nice tires and rims on them,” according to Ranger Ryan Hollweg.

Rangers forward Brendan Shanahan notes the difference in parking patterns: “We’re in parking spaces and they just park anywhere. We actually park in the lines. They just pull up to the door and get out of the car.”

Yet another reason to root for those Knickerbockers.