LET'S GO RANGERS

My throat hurts, there’s beer in my hair and my ears are ringing and I couldn’t be happier. Nothing compares to 20,000 people cheering and yelling as loud as they can all wanting the same thing. When they sang the National Anthem, the crowd was so loud you could only hear about the first 5 words. Then red, white and blue balloons were released and it was like a big celebration of New Yorkers. It looks so cool when a sell-out crowd is waving those white towels in glee. It’s incredible to hear 20,000 people hold their breathe right before King Henrik makes a save and then explode when he comes up with it 5 seconds later. I’ve been to the Garden when it’s loud, but that was usually for a special occasion, like the night they retired Richter’s number or Messier’s last game. They’ve been so dismal the last couple of years that the actual games haven’t been anything to get excited about. Now that it’s the playoffs, the crowd reacts to every single play. At the end of the second period when the Rangers were killing off a power play and they cleared it to end the period, the crowd went so nuts you would’ve thought they won the Cup. It was incredible. They’ve been playing really smart hockey. Avery, Tyutin and Ortmeyer have been playing really well defensively with their back-checking. Before I was just worried about them not getting swept, now I think they might actually have a chance at beating these guys. For some reason the Sabres can’t seem to get anything going offensively, and God knows the Rangers have given them plenty of chances to. Ryan Miller, the Sabres’ goalie, has been incredible, but Lundqvist has been just a little bit better, which is all the Rangers have needed.

On Thursday I’m going to Florida with the fam until Tuesday night. Which means they better be playing the games down there or I’m going to flip a shit. If the series goes to 7 games, we might be taking a later flight home, because we’ll be flying right when the game is starting. That is the definition of a true fan.

And now I can fall asleep to the soothing sounds of the thunderstorm!