Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Garden Faithful: Realism & Optimism

Darren Eliot at SI.com reports on the atmosphere at four Eastern Conference Quarterfinal games...

"By the time I got to New York City the Rangers already had a 2-0 lead on their cross-bridge rivals, the New Jersey Devils. The denizens of MSG did what they typically do: collectively wear their hearts on their sleeves. Every twist and turn of Sunday night's Game 3 was accompanied by boos, cheers, cat calls, moans, groans -- whatever the gathering felt as it pertained to their beloved Blueshirts. When the Devils' John Madden bounced one in off defenseman Marc Staalin in overtime, the entire group fell silent. Tough luck met with a heartfelt tough love response.

Filing out, one guy turned to his buddy and said, "It's a series now," to which his buddy replied, "It's all right, we weren't going to sweep anyway. We'll get 'em Wednesday." That sentiment summed up New York City's patented energy source -- realism and optimism -- constantly on display at the same time."

...I actually read on a couple of message boards that the Garden crowd wasn't as charged as usual. Maybe the Sunday night crowd was tired from a long weekend. I'm sure with the whole Avery vs. Brodeur situation tomorrow's crowd will be fired up. I especially hope so because I'll be there.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

This is all I have to say about the Avery Vs. Brodeur nonsense.
http://www.fandome.com/watch/100001/Sean_Avery_has_some_kind_words_about_Martin_Brodeur_/

Anonymous said...

the garden was absolutely rocking Sunday Night(i was there), not sure where you read that it wasnt....on an unrelated note, thanks for all the updates, its much easier to find links to all articles in one place than scouring around all the newspapers websites and such to find them.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what usual is, but of the games I've attended this year it was an absolute mad house. I was behind Brodeur in the 100s for the Period 1 and 3, and it was a very vocal section. If the usual refers to playoffs, I can't attest to that as I wasn't in attendance last year.

Kevin DeLury said...

Thanks for the personal accounts of Sunday's game. I read about the crowd at Sunday's game on the NYR website message board. The guy who posted was probably a Devils fan. I was at two playoff games last year and usual to me is what you guys are discribing.