Friday, January 25, 2008

Classy Ceremony for Classy Guy


Outstanding job by MSG and the Rangers on another jersey retirement ceremony. The event was filled with class, emotion and surprises. It was great to see players such as Beukeboom, Erixon and Domi at MSG again. The ceremony then got emotional, at least for me, when the family of John Murray, Leetch's old friend who died in the Sept.11 attacks, joined everyone at center ice. I thought that was a nice touch by the Rangers. Then the surprise of the evening, when Leetch announced that Adam Graves number would be retired. Leetch's speech was exactly what you would expect from him, giving thanks to everyone but himself. I also thought it was very notable that Leetch never mentioned the man who traded him from the Rangers, Glen Sather. Overall a great night for a man Messier called the greatest Ranger ever. Can't wait for Graves' ceremony next year.

Articles on the ceremony:

Daily News has two here and here.
Newsday
New York Post
New York Times

2 comments:

bpette02 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bpette02 said...

It was a great night. I was fortunate enough to be there and I thought the ceremony was perfect. A couple of surprise highlights for me:

-Domi and Langdon presenting Leetch with the motorcycle.

-The Graves announcement.

-Leetch mentioning the 1 game he played as a visitor was great. He got his point across to Sather that he was still upset about the trade.

-Rangers getting 2 points was a big surprise also.