The pandemic has forced the NHL to end its season at two centers in Canada, Edmonton and Toronto.
For the Rangers, spending a long period in Canada will be something of a return in the late 1960s when the team regularly headed there for training, setting up camp in Kitchener, Ontario, an hour from Toronto.
Back then, the team and the league were much more Canadian. Everyone in the Rangers was Canadian; in fact, there were years in the 1960s when everyone in the league was, too.
The competition was fierce. Only 18 players formed the club: 16 “skaters” and two goalkeepers. Now, a team can have up to 23 players on the roster, and must carry at least 20. There were only six teams in the league, compared to 31 now, so fewer than 120 players from across Canada could be called big-players. league
Those Rangers brought 70 – count, 70 – players, which included the minor league players, to camp. Today? Half of that. The minimum wage for those Rangers was $ 10,000. Today it costs $ 700,000, 70 times more.
The Rangers practiced in the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, a 5,000-seat amphitheater-shaped band box for cockfighting. Upon their return to Canada this month, they will stay in Toronto and train on local tracks, but not at Maple Leafs Scotiabank Arena.
In Kitchener, they stayed at the local Holiday Inn, two per room. But the players were comfortable there. They enjoyed dinner at Pig’s Tail. They had come from places like Kapuskasing or Moose Jaw, playing in youth clubs in arenas like Kitchener’s. In fact, Ontario still has dozens of these tracks. When the Rangers practiced, the old men appeared in the hockey jackets of their youth, with the names “Krauts” or “Tigers” sewn on the back.
Hockey is not just Canada’s sport, it is his passion.
As the millennium loomed more than 20 years ago, the Dominion Institute surveyed Canadians about what they considered to be the most important event in its history. First came the Confederacy, and sixth was Canada’s participation in World War II. Fifth? It was the ice defeat of the Soviet Union in the so-called “Summit Series” of 1972.
As I reflect on those camps in Kitchener, I think about how he shaped these young people into a team. After all, there is nothing natural about being a New Yorker. Just because they move you there or the team signs you up doesn’t mean you have to love the place.
In fact, when Bob Nevin was traded to the Rangers from Toronto, he thought, “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.” Nevin adapted. A two-way right wing, he went on to a solid career and became the team captain, and one of the few players to actually own an apartment in Manhattan.
But when the players entered the arena at Kitchener, there was at one end a 15-foot portrait of Queen Elizabeth. On the other was a sign: “Bingo on Friday nights.” Just like home.
The 2020 Rangers come from Canada, all right, as well as Boxford, Massachusetts, Cherepovets in Russia, and, of course, Huddinge, Sweden.
I suspect that living in a country crazy for hockey, even for a short time, will affect these 2020 Rangers in a way that practice in Westchester cannot.
Where hockey players in New York would be happy has always been problematic.
Born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Francis wanted them out of New York City, with his temptations, during the regular season. He liked the quiet town of Long Beach, New York, on Long Island, not only as a place to live, but also as a place to train. It is a spa, with many houses available once the summer ended. In 1975, he finished training for the Rangers in Canada and took them to Long Beach, where most of the players lived during the season.
But when Broadway and Hollywood agent David A. (Sonny) Werblin took over the Garden, that changed dramatically. Werblin had been Elizabeth Taylor’s agent, for example. He was a guy who valued stardom. When Werblin was president of the Jets, he was obsessed with the image of Joe Namath; in fact, it helped nurture him.
“I want my boys to live in New York,” said Werblin, taking over the Garden. “I want hockey players to mingle with fans. I want them to see each other. “
He pulled them out of Long Beach and encouraged them to move into town. In 1978, she obtained a training center in Rye, New York, in Westchester County, where they continue to train. Many players moved to Manhattan or Westchester.
In the eight years Francis had led them to train at Kitchener, the Rangers won 55 percent of their games. In the following eight years, training at Long Beach and Rye, they captured just 45 percent of their games. Was that a cause and effect, personnel changes, training changes? Canadian air?
And now, for the moment, they will be installed in Canada. Of course, they will remain the New York Rangers. And for many of them, Canada will be an unknown country. How will these New Yorkers fare there?
