To all whom are interested and with a stick tap of appreciation to Marcel L. -
My new book "The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden" is now available on Amazon. The direct link to the book is here: Amazon.com
Here is the description of the book, from Amazon:
The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden is dedicated to honoring the biggest fan favorites and most influential figures in all of franchise history. Not only are players such as Wayne Gretzky, Jaromir Jagr, Martin St. Louis and others profiled, but men such as John Amirante, Steven McDonald, Christopher Reeve and others are also mentioned.
The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden features 93 names for a proposed "Rink of Honor" inside Madison Square Garden. Names such as Ron Duguay, Nick Fotiu, Alex Shibicky, Mats Zuccarello and others are all nominated for this distinction.
The second half of the book argues for eight men, including Frank Boucher, Bun Cook, Emile Francis, and Lester Patrick, to have their names adorned from the rafters of Madison Square Garden.
The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden takes you on a journey throughout every era of New York Rangers' hockey, including eras such as "The Original Rangers", "The 1940 Stanley Cup Champions", "The World War II", "Post World War II", "The Emile Francis", "The Dark Ages", "The Henrik Lundqvist" and other key eras of New York Rangers' history.
There are over one hundred legendary Rangers talked about throughout the book, while looking at nearly a hundred years of New York Rangers history. The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden is full of historical facts, ironies, testimonies from players and anecdotes.
The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden is your one-stop book for everything regarding the great (and sometimes not-so-great) history of the New York Rangers.
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The book is 540 pages and pretty much talks about every big name and every major era in all of New York Rangers history. The book also includes a foreword from Frankie Baird, the grand-daughter of Rangers legend and Hall of Famer Frank Boucher.
The book has been out for a week now, where one of the best reviews I've received so far is "this book is like the bible of all things Rangers history."
For more information on the book, including stuff on the writing process and an unedited sample chapter on Bill Cook, visit this link: The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden
If you check the back cover of the book, you can see all the names who are profiled. In the book itself, there is an omission section, which pretty much says it was impossible to cover everyone in one book. (102 men are directly profiled in the 540 pages and in stories full of history, anecdotes, quotes and facts.)
Here's the back cover:
This book was always a passion/bucket-list thing for me rather than a "get-rich" type of thing. With that in mind, I wanted the book to be the best it could be. The book is printed in 12pt Times Roman font and features cream paper. That might not sound like a big deal, but this means you won't have to squint while reading it, nor will your eyes go batty reading a lot of tiny black text on cheap white paper. I tried to write it and present this book as reader-friendly as possible, and based on the feedback I've received so far, I've accomplished that goal.
While I had a ton of previous knowledge before starting this book, if there are two lives and careers that fascinated me the most, it were the lives of Tex Rickard and Phil Watson. Before creating this post, I was asked to provide exclusive content for HF from the book, as I've previously released chapters on Bill Cook and Art Coulter on BlueCollarBlueShirts.com.
With that in mind, here is an excerpt from Tex Rickard's chapter, a Rickard who really led a "Forrest Gump" type of life, meaning that he crossed paths with many huge names from his era, including Teddy Roosevelt, Jesse James, WC Fields, Wyatt Earp, Jack Dempsey and others:
During the autumn of 1925, Rickard was offered a chance to purchase an NHL team for New York City. Rickard was quoted as saying something akin to, “I don’t see anyone interested in it, and I don’t see how it can make any money.” However, Rickard did install copper pipes into his new venue, which helped with freezing the ice.
Big Bill Dwyer, a famous New York City bootlegger in the days of American Prohibition, wound up purchasing the Hamilton Tigers out of Ontario, Canada. Tex Rickard would be the one to push Dwyer into the sale and for two reasons. The first reason was that Rickard didn't see any profits in hockey, but Rickard did have an arena where he could profit from someone renting his arena to promote hockey games. The second reason was that Dwyer, known as a criminal bootlegger, wanted a legit business, not only to help his reputation, but where Dwyer could also launder money, if necessary. As I said at the top of this, I told you a film or television series on Rickard's life would be interesting!
On December 15th, 1925, the New York Americans (or the Amerks, as they were known at the time) played the first-ever NHL game in NYC at MSG. As part of Dwyer's rental agreement with Tex Rickard, Rickard would rent out MSG to Dwyer, and in return, Rickard would not form his own team nor rent out MSG to a competing NHL club. Despite his reputation as an honest man, Rickard would soon put dollar signs above his word, as Rickard would go back on that promise in five months' time. This was totally out of character for Rickard, especially when one looks at how honest Rickard was during his days as a boxing promoter.
Of course, this is where it gets really interesting, especially for hockey fans.
Rickard had a pristine reputation throughout his life and was always known for being honest, too honest, if you will. Rickard, throughout his entire tenure as a boxing promoter, as a cost of doing business, would also make payoffs to mob figures, police officials and politicians to ensure his big boxing matches went off without a hitch. That is why it was so out of Rickard's character here to not only double-cross Bill Dwyer, but to stab a well-renowned criminal and bootlegger in the back - and without fear of any repercussions. Honestly, it's amazing that Rickard didn't lose his life over this double-crossing.
Seeing the success and well-attended houses for Dwyer’s Amerks, Rickard quickly reached out to the NHL and bought an expansion franchise. Due to his “Tex” nickname, the team was unofficially known as Tex’s Rangers, but officially, this new franchise was known as the New York Rangers. Obviously, Dwyer was livid and felt betrayed, but as time went on Dwyer would have bigger problems in life than ice hockey - the law.
According to all accounts, while Tex Rickard was proud of his hockey team, it was never the focus of his life. With a new young wife and child in tow (Rickard’s third wife, as his two previous wives and children had passed away), and Rickard's duties with running MSG and boxing - Rickard's hockey team was the equivalent of an impulse toy purchase.
Originally hiring Conn Smythe to run the team, Rickard and his staff at that time quickly pivoted to Lester Patrick to oversee the club. While it was Conn Smythe who assembled the original Rangers - it was Lester Patrick who made history with them.
While Dwyer and Rickard were never hockey men by trade, it not only burnt Dwyer that Rickard and MSG were profiting from Amerk games, but how the Amerk franchise was also a struggling one. After all, Dwyer was paying Rickard to rent MSG while Rickard had the better team. Burning Dwyer even more was the fact that “Tex's Rangers” played at MSG for free.
In fact, during the entire existence of the New York/Brooklyn Americans (with the franchise folding during World War II, which in turn, ushered in the Original Six Era) the Amerks would never win the Stanley Cup.
Making matters worse for Dwyer and even better for Rickard was that in the second New York Rangers season which was the 1927-28 season, the Rangers would win the 1928 Stanley Cup. One could argue here that Rickard hired better hockey men than Dwyer ever did, with Conn Smythe assembling the team and Lester Patrick then taking the franchise over from Smythe.
Hockey-wise, Rickard would go out a winner, as Rickard passed away on January 6th, 1929, due to complications from appendicitis at the young age of 59. Rickard's funeral became a sight to be marveled, as the funeral drew people from all over North America due to the way Rickard connected with people in every city that he worked in.
Granted, Rickard did not care about hockey, but due to Rickard's success in boxing and his ownership of Madison Square Garden, Rickard founded the New York Rangers. Without Rickard, who was beloved by everyone (with the exception of Bill Dwyer!), there wouldn't be a New York Rangers franchise today. After all, while an NHL team in New York City would have always been a possibility (maybe the Amerks would’ve survived the World War II era), due to Tex Rickard, the team became the “Rangers” - a name that this team wouldn't have had, had Rickard not existed.
For Ranger fans, Rickard's legacy will always be as the founder of the New York Rangers. However, Rickard founded the Rangers in the final 2 1/2 years of his life. Rickard admittedly also did not found the team for the love of the game, as other hockey owners of his time did. Instead, Rickard founded the Rangers for the pure profit of it all. That doesn't make Rickard a bad guy or anything like that, but romanticizing Rickard's legacy or impact with the Rangers would be a pure exaggeration. That said, without Rickard, the Rangers and perhaps Madison Square Garden wouldn't exist today.
In the present day, I feel that many Ranger fans don't know how their team was founded, nor know how Rickard was the driving force behind it. While Rickard's legacy is in boxing, Rickard's legacy lives with every game that the Rangers play.
In October of 2015, New York Rangers alumni, Adam Graves, Rod Gilbert and Ron Duguay, all joined the grandson of Tex Rickard and the Fordham Prep Hockey team at Tex Rickard's gravesite in Woodlawn, NY. In a special ceremony, 86 years after Rickard's passing, everyone paid tribute to the founding father of the New York Rangers.
Like others on this list, I would argue that Rickard deserves his own banner in the rafters of Madison Square Garden. After all, without Rickard, there would be no Rangers or Madison Square Garden today.
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Thanks for your interest and LGR!
