SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Nedicks, how can I forget Nedicks? It was the first stop for me and my young friends at one of the oldy but goldy Madison Square Gardens. This was the Meca of arenas where you would stop outside, pick up some Nedicks hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut piled on, grab some tasty, icy orangeades to quest your thirst, and head a few steps around the corner to the blue seats.
There we would walk around to the blue seat entrance on 54th Street, climb the few steps and show our higher and higher tickets to get punched, take our seats, and look down at the ice rink way below. We were high school kids from Brooklyn and the other boroughs, and we had no choice because the remaining seats at MSG were usually filled by game time.
No matter, we were there. We still had Nedicks that was on Seventh Avenue directly across from the Hotel Sheridan. We were spoiled anyway. We would quickly stop at Nedicks, grab some hot dogs covered by popular yellow mustard and sauerkraut, and some orangeades, and be off and climbing to our high seats.
No New York Islanders yet in Long Island, no New Jersey Devils in the Garden State, no sign of drugs, no
smelling of marijuana, no alcoholic drinks, just me and the boys. Girls? Well not yet in those early 1950 years when parents were stricter.
When the Garden installed its new venue further south on Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street, there were still blue seats, but only one entrance, and that was through the main doors that featured the new look of bright lights, fancier seats of mixed colors, and many more concessions but no more Nedicks, not there, but It did remain in the five boroughs and advertise on radio and TV with a new entertaining jingle.
But no longer was I in high school. I was going to enroll at Syracuse University on a cross country/track and field scholarship, but spent what would have been my freshmen year up at the cold, snowy upstate school working in the sports department of the Long Island Press, and It even assigned me to the hockey beat writer Bernie Beglane, and I would assist him with locker room notes.
I went on to compete for the then-Orangemen. After that I worked part-time for the Press, the last stop on the elevated train at 168th Street in Jamaica. In 1962, I interviewed for a full-time sports department position for the Jersey Journal in Jersey City, took two trains from Brooklyn there until I passed my driving test at Roosevelt Stadium and, after going on active duty as a US Navy Corpsman for almost three years in Vietnam, I returned to the JJ until I was hired in 1974 as sports editor of the Miami News, an afternoon daily based in the Miami Herald building.
Expect there was no hockey team yet down there, but when I returned to New Jersey I did cover some NHL games when the Devils emptied into the new Brendan Bryne Arena in East Rutherford.
But let’s all skip the rest to celebrate what these Rangers accomplished as they iced the puck into the Eastern Conference finals against the back-to-back Tampa Bay Lightning. Result in game one played at the same MSG on Seventh and 32nd Street — the Blueshirts dominating the defending champions 6-2. This followed after they rallied from a 3-1 gap versus the Pittsburgh Penguins to win that best-of-three series.
Next came what was expected to be a tough conference semis against the Carolina Hurricanes. But after the Rangers dropped the first two games in Raleigh, North Carolina, they responded by winning the next two at the Garden, and following the setback down south, they rewarded the home crowd by surviving and stunning the Canes 6-2, and sending them packing up for the campaign.
It was not only a remarkable result, but the first defeat in eight home games for Carolina. Now, after rolling past Tampa Bay, it was the seventh-straight home victory for the Rangers, and it was again welcomed by the full house at the rowdy Garden.
That’s where we stand now. I do like the Islanders and Devils after covering both of them through the years, but those old days in the old blue seats up on top have got me exited again at these recent happenings. I’m much older, but can hardly wait until Friday night‘s televised contest at the Meca of arenas versus the Lightning, and for whose who think game one was a fluke, well these Blueshirts are now 4-0 against Tampa Bay this season.
It’s been a long, long time, but the Rangers have only won a pair of NHL championships. Now they can earn another one if they get past the Lightning and take on the Western Conference champion, either the Colorado Avalanche of the Edmonton Oilers, with favorited Colorado winning game one 5-3.
These Avalanche, by the way, were the first team I covered when they left Colorado to become the NJ Devils. Could they meet up this time for the prestigious Cup against these Rangers, well, who knows, just follow the puck.
