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It’s the middle of the summer and there’s not a lot going on, so naturally I’m missing hockey. The longing for our beloved sport has got me ruminating lately about favorite hockey memories, lessons learned from being a fan of this team, and what hockey means to me. Along those lines I’d like to share a story as a kind of conversation starter, and because I realize that while I do spend a lot of time reflecting on statistics there’s more to the game than just numbers.

I’ll start by providing some background – I’ve always been a fan of the Rangers but throughout my young life my interest waxed and waned. In high school I was so wrapped up in academics and my dedication at the time to music that I wasn’t always as dedicated of a fan as I should’ve been. That began to change in the latter days of high school as I began to move on from things that had previously taken up most of my time. This was also the start of the Torts era – it felt like the Rangers had turned a new leaf and that this was a team you could believe in.

My interest in hockey became more and more important to me when I went away to college. I had started attending school in Virginia, and had some trouble finding my place. The South felt like a foreign place to me, a world of frats and football that had no place for a nerd like me. During this time I clung to Rangers hockey as a way to remind me of home and it began to feel like a sort of refuge from a school that felt like a mistake I had made. I was often depressed, and one of the few things that lifted my spirits was watching the Rangers on my computer from the confines of my room. It didn’t hurt that the Rangers’ homegrown talent was really starting to shine, with guys like Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, and Derek Stepan all posting 20 goal seasons and Marc Staal and Dan Girardi (remember when they were good?) holding it down on the backend. The Rangers helped me get through a tough year, and it’s something I’m forever grateful for.

The following fall I switched schools but kept up with the Rangers just the same, watching almost every game and bonding over hockey with one of the guys down the hall. The previous couple of seasons had seen hockey move from the periphery to the center of my life, and I almost always found time for the Rangers. That question of “finding time” came up at a crucial point in the spring however, when I got a call from my brother.

The Rangers were in the midst of their annual playoff series with the Capitals at that point, it felt like they could really make a meaningful run at the Cup, and he and my dad had planned on going to one of the games. My dad suddenly couldn’t go, and so I was on deck to join my brother at the Garden for some playoff hockey. The only problem was that the game was on a Monday and it was almost exams, never mind the fact that I was in central Connecticut either. After some serious thought I made up my mind: this was the kind of thing I just couldn’t turn down.

I made it work – first I got myself to the New Haven Metro-North station 45 minutes away from my school, and then hopped on the train for two hours and change, pulling into Grand Central with just over an hour to go before game time. My brother met me at the station and handed me off my jersey, and we proceeded to the subway, where the car we rode in was decorated in garish Rangers posters with the slogan “BELIEVE”. Being the cynic that I am, I was a little turned off by the corny, overwrought advertisement but nonetheless acknowledged that this season did feel like something special (if I’m not mistaken they were one or two games out of winning the Presidents’ Trophy that year). We made our way to one of the pizza places in Penn Station for beer and slices, where we were heartily greeted by fellow fans basking in the glow of postseason hockey. Then it was game time.

What followed was, at first, not the most inspiring display of hockey I had ever seen in my life. The Capitals were as advertised, and the Rangers just didn’t seem to have it in them. I began to feel more than slightly dejected, as I had trekked around 3 hours to watch my favorite team lose, after what had seemed to be up to that point a promising run at the Cup. People in our section were feeling it too, and a palpable sense of dread began to fill the Blue Seats, even after Joel Ward took a double minor penalty on Carl Hagelin.

All of this changed of course with 6.6 seconds to go. After a faceoff win and a couple of outside shots, Ryan Callahan and Brad Richards went to work down in front of the net, with Richards finally jamming it in behind Holtby and sending the game to overtime. The Garden was positively ecstatic, and I found myself jumping for joy and hugging strangers. What followed next was what could only be termed positive tension, as fans waited for overtime to begin with a sense of nervousness but also a sense of joy and bravado. This was really happening, the Rangers could really do it. We all know what followed: the Rangers won a faceoff, sent the puck back to Marc Staal at the blue line and he wound up the shot. For a moment it felt like everything froze and the whole room went silent. The next thing I knew the puck was in the back of the net, the Rangers had won, and the place had exploded with joy.

After that I went home to New Jersey, woke up really early, and commuted back to school in time for my 1 o’ clock class on international relations, still wearing my Rangers jersey. The whole time, groggy as I was from spending six hours on mass transit in the span of such a short time, I was buzzing. The Rangers really won that game – I couldn’t believe it. Then I remembered the imperative in big blue lettering across the subway car from the night before: believe.

If you made it this far I’m immensely grateful, as this was a lot of words to recount events that are on youtube. My point in writing all this is two fold. First, to remind myself (and you all) that beyond all of the stats and analysis, beyond all the lively debate and intense scrutiny, hockey is about moments like those – moments that make you believe in something. The second is to start some conversation, because I’m betting that a lot of our readers and commenters have some great stories to tell. What’s your favorite hockey memory? What does the game mean to you? What have you learned from what’s otherwise just a bunch of mostly Canadian dudes slipping around on ice whacking a little piece of rubber with sticks? How do you put it all together and find meaning?

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