Celebrating the Rangers' 20th Anniversary of their 1994 Stanley Cup victory

"The Wait is Over" / sportspubbooks.com

For New Yorkers, the Rangers are a big part of their sports world with a following that spans multiple generations. With the Stanley Cup playoffs still in progress, they are glad to see that the New York Rangers have made it so far. The last time the Rangers won the Stanley Cup was in 1994, making this year the 20th anniversary of their title. That championship ended a 54 year championship drought.

John Kreiser’s book, "The Wait is Over," tells the tale of the Rangers team that battled all season long to ultimately win the championship in 1994. Prior to that year, the Rangers suffered a disappointing season in 1992-1993 by not making the playoffs. What made it even worse was the fact that their 1991-1992 season was successful. They placed first in the Patrick division holding 50 wins and 25 losses. It was devastating to go from a top tier team, to a team that could not even qualify to play for the Stanley Cup.

John Krieser opens with those contrasting seasons and then moves on to the rebuilding process after the 1992-1993 season. The Rangers had a lot question marks and wondered who would be their key pieces on the team. They knew that they had to qualify for the playoffs this season. These questions resulted in answers in the form of future Hall of Famers like Brian Leetch, Mike Richter, and Steve Larmer. Mike Keenan became the head coach and the team looked ready to make a playoff run.

With the team built, Kreiser shifted the focus to the regular season. With a good mix of storytelling and dialogue from the players, people can relive the entire 1993-1994 year starting from the Ranger's Mustard Cup run in London, to the dramatic weeks before the trade deadline, and the race for the President’s Trophy. Every highlight of every game is mentioned and it feels like reading the game recap on the actual National Hockey League (NHL) website; however, this may be a negative for casual fans or readers. People may be looking for the highlights of the season rather than every single game played by the Rangers.

The Stanley Cup playoffs is a better part of the book. John Kreiser gave breakdowns of the statistics of the teams that the Rangers faced. He answered questions like, “Why will this team make this series easy or hard?”, and “Which player or players should the Rangers look out for?”, while describing every game of each series in high detail similar to the regular season games. Since it was the playoffs for the championship, reading the recap of the games was not as tedious as reading the regular season games.

A positive aspect about Kreiser’s writing in this book is that he portrays the emotions of the players during and after each game. The dialogue by the former players that are incorporated into the book depicts the intensity of each game, the players' determination to win, and happiness that came with winning. It helps put life to the games and players.

"The Wait is Over" provides great insight on the minds, effort, and management of the Rangers team that won the Stanley Cup in 1993-1994. Kreiser delves deep into the regular season and some readers may probably only want the highlights of what happened during each month rather than every game. Dialogue from the players on the Rangers brings life to this work. The playoff run for the Stanley Cup is probably the best part of the book. Neil Smith believes that this work brings back old memories for fans and helps younger generations of fans envision themselves as being there to watch the game. "The Wait is Over" is a worthy pick up for anybody who is a fan of the Rangers or wants to read about a championship in New York.

San Jose Sharks: No chance at all!

The San Jose Sharks started out with a high chance of winning against the St.Louis Blues. They had the first win in the series and led 1-0. Maybe they were just lucky because in the next game the Blues tied the series at 1-1. As the series, went on any chance of winning for the Sharks perished.

In Game 3 at the Compaq Center at San Jose, the Blues won with a score of 4-3 and took the lead at 2-1. The Sharks, at this point in the series, still had a likely chance to catch up with the Blues and win. A few days later, they lost another home game to the Blues.

A loss is a loss, but the most humiliating thing for any team in sports is to lose when they are playing home. This was humiliating for the Sharks because out of the five games they played with the Blues, two were home games and they had lost in both.

At this point in the series the Blues were leading at 3-1 and they only needed one more win to move to the next round. The Sharks just simply had no chance. The Blues went to take the win at the last game in the Scottrade stadium.

The Sharks were dominated and slaughtered by the Blues and lost the series at 4-1. A few reasons why they lost is the poor offense and lack of teamwork. They had a good defense over the St.Louis Blues and did not allow them to score that many points, but they lacked offense and were not able to penetrate the Blues defense and score points. The main reason why the Sharks lost was because they traded Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi in separate off-season deals to Minnesota. Too bad for the Sharks, but there's always next year.

Philly's Flyers soaring to the top

=

Danny Briere #48- flickr.com- Rhys Asplundh

With a fantastic win over their cross town rivals the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers are moving quickly to the Stanley Cup finals. The Flyers won the series 4-2. After winning three straight, they lost two and won their last game to move on to the Conference Semi-finals. Their key players have been playing well and their postseason success looks bright.

The Penguins led the season in most points scored and are widely known for their fantastic goal scoring and offensive prowess; they entered the playoffs at a record of 51-25-6. Sidney Crosby, a Penguin center, led the league in assists and is fifth in goals scored. The Flyers are known to have goal tending difficulties which was their downfall after three games. They finished the season at 47-26-9.

The Penguins got out to a great start in game one with a score of 2-0 at the end of the first period. The Flyers came out blazing on the ice and scored three goals to tie it up and send the game to overtime. During overtime, the Flyers scored a goal and won the game 4-3. In game two, the Penguins once again came out the locker rooms to gain an early advantage. At the end of the first period, the Penguins were up 3-1, but by the end of the second, the Flyers tied up the game at four. The third period is where the Flyers rallied and dominated the game. They scored four goals in the third period while the Penguins only scored one. The final score was 8-5 and the Flyers won their second game where the Penguins scored the first goals. At the end of the first two games, the Flyers scored 20 goals, more than enough to cancel out the 12 goals that goalie Ilya Bryzgalov gave up.

Game three was a game of penalties because there was 38 penalties that added up to 158 penalty minutes. Jordan Staal scored almost four minutes into the first period but the Flyers responded and had a 4-2 lead after the first period and a 6-4 advantage after the second. it took Claude Giroux all of 27 seconds to score and give the Flyers a 7-4 lead. Giroux's goal gave him a Gordie Howe hat trick in Game 3 after he had six points in Game 2. Maxime Talbot scored the final goal in the game and the Flyers went on to lead the series 3-0.

Games four and five were both similar in the fact that the Flyers defense did not show up. The defense wasn't there and the high scoring Penguins took advantage of the goalies. In game four, the Penguins outscored the Flyers 10-3, and game five they did it 3-2. The series was tied up 3-2 and the Penguins had a chance to make an upset victory, but the Flyers held out and won the game 5-1 and the series 4-2.

The Flyers are one of three teams to make it to the semifinals so far. They took down the giant Penguins and are on a roll going into the next round. The Flyers were doubted because of their bipolar goal tending abilities. Although they lack defense, they have a lot of offensive weapons that could step up, especially Giroux. "When the best player in the world comes up to you and says, 'I don't know who you plan on starting tonight, but I want that first shift,'" Peter Laviolette, head coach of the Flyers, said, "that says everything you need to know about Claude Giroux." As long as the Flyers can stay away from a lot of penalties, they can make it to the Stanley Cup finals and win the coveted trophy.