This offseason was a tragic one for the NHL, KHL, and global hockey. The tragic deaths of former Ranger Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien, Wade Belak, and the entire KHL Locomotiv squad –which included many former NHLers– have been acknowledged league wide with moments of silence and video tributes. However for MSG, the tragedies were only met with a TV timeout montage. This, in short, is an outrageous mistake by MSG brass.

To ignore tragedy across the sport is inexcusable. But to ignore the tragic deaths of current and former teammates goes beyond that. No matter what you thought about Derek Boogaard and Karel Rachunek, they were Rangers, and deserved to be honored as such by the fans, players, and management of this organization. The fact that there wasn’t even a moment of silence is complete disrespect.

Scotty Hockey and I rarely see eye to eye, but on this, we do, as he really put it best:

“How do you bury the obit for Boogaard, the lives lost in the Lokomotiv crash and other summer casualties in a bad montage during a tv timeout? People are talking, getting up, walking around … And then, on the big screen, to wipe away from the cheesy ‘we will never forget’ frame to a bunch of people waiting to cheer for their Chase-sponsored free tee shirt? Disgusts me. The team smartly skipped the pregame talent – no Blue Man Group, no Ace Frehley – and wonderfully had FDNY and NYPD hockey players as an honour guard during the player introductions but all of the goodwill earned from that was wasted away by the obit. They could have included #94 when individually naming the players and have a moment of silence then. But instead it was shoehorned in while MSG ran some commercials for crap you won’t buy. Original Six teams are supposed to be classy.”

I doubt I am alone when I say that the organization failed to properly honor those that lost their lives this summer. I hope that MSG does something to rectify this, because they dropped the ball, big time.

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