What a glorious time of year, the crisp fall weather can be felt in New York City as the smell of soggy pretzels permeate the air, it can only mean one thing..
Rangers hockey has returned to Madison Square Garden.
Although the Mouth will not be in attendance. most of the crazy people you see above will be.
Ranger fans after ONLY two games are once again questioning the sanity of their coach, targeting their new whipping boy on defense and ready to give rookie Derek Stepan the loudest welcome he has ever received in his hockey life.
For The Big Man all is right in the world.
To celebrate his good mood and to commemorate the seasons first home game, The Mouth presents his take on the home opener along with this fine 2010-2011 season preview video done by the great Ranger video editor LoFFen.
Two games into the season and the Mouth is already professing his prognostications for the Rangers season as well as his affections for err.. umm.. Derek Stepan's Mom !
It seems The Big Man is a smitten kitten with both Derek's play and his Mom's million dollar smile.
We think you will find The Mouth's forecast for the 2010-2011 season is somewhat on the cautious side this time around, compared to last years ambitious Kool-Aid gulping crystal gazing.
On the serious side of things, which is also covered in the clip below, The Big Man addresses the Sean Avery bias that every Ranger gets to see almost nightly at the hands of NHL officials.
The Mouth certainly knows that Sean is no angel and is an awful trash talker and most times when he is asked to drop gloves and throw the dukes more often than not skates the other way as fast as he can.
Sean Avery is not a dirty player. He doesn't stick swing, doesn't slew foot and doesn't deliver head shots.
Avery is merely a player who yaps unsportsmanlike things to the opposition whose main modus operandi is to goad opposing players into bad penalties while he skates away scott free.
Is it honorable ? Probably not, but is gamesmanship? Hell yes.
NHL referees for the most part have decided to have developed a different rule book where Avery is concerned.
The on ice officiating in Sean's case considers themselves a extension of the player rather than impartial judges, which is what they are paid to do.
They hear what Avery is saying during play and for the most part they think it's cheap and vulgar and his actions not honorable.
So they have taken it upon themselves to let opposing players take liberties with him to both Sean and the Rangers detriment.
A perfect example of this happened on October 13th at the Mausoleum when Islander assistant captain and blueline chucklehead James Wisniewski made an obscene gesture at Avery, right in front of referee Gord Dwyer's face.
The NHL did the right thing a day later and suspended the dopey Wisniewski for two games.
But at the time of the classless incident nothing was called not even a unsportsmanlike conduct penalty even though referee Gord Dwyer obviously saw it.
Well you have heard all the predictions from the so called "experts" online and in the papers, as well as all the vanilla talking baldies on MSG towing the corporate line predicting that all three teams the MSG network features will be making the playoffs.
They even scared Butch Goring so much that he had to stick to his prediction of the Islanders making the playoffs.
The reason I bring all this MSG tomfoolery up, is that most of you know there is a healthy and honest media alternative called Blueshirt Banter Radio available to you, the diehard Ranger fan.
Our show is the perfect antidote to successfully counter the happy shiny people prattle that MSG programming barrages us with at every turn.
Blueshirt Banter Radio is the one true voice of the New York Ranger fan, a place where you can talk plainly, uncensored and frankly as long as you want and most importantly have fun.
Tonight we celebrate the eve of the Rangers first regular season game by devoting a whole two hour internet program to Ranger team and player predictions by the most important and informed peeps in all sports: The New York Ranger Fan.
Hosted by myself and Jim Schmiedeberg begin_of_the_skype_highlighting "Rangers Rockin Eve 2010" begins at 8 PM EST.
We even have a live interactive Blueshirt Banter Chatroom that runs while the show streams live, where you can commiserate and talk Ranger puck with your fellow fans.
To listen to the show live or on podcast click below :
What a show it was as The Mouth and his partner Jim talked with other SB Nation blogger's about their feelings on their respective teams in the Atlantic Division.
The four guest that joined the guys live on air included representatives from the Penguins, Islanders, Devils. Flyers.
Things started off pretty amicable but The Mouth unable to contain himself prodded the guests into answering some questions that got the esteemed guests ire up.
The 2010-2011 Regular season is almost upon us, and it is in these times that The Mouth gets nostalgic about how many seasons he has actually followed this more than often than not heartbreaking hockey club.
The following clips hold a special meaning to The Big Man because it remind him of the day when the men were men and the women didn't mind being called broads.
These two Ranger tussles took place before The Mouth began following the Rangers which he started in 1975, so the footage is a great document of some of the tough guys the Rangers had before Nick Fotiu arrived on the scene in 1976.
The first fight features Rangers tough guy Teddy Irvine who took care of the nasty business for six years as a Blueshirt. You can be sure that while Ted Irivine patrolled the ice nobody was taking liberties with his teamates.
Ted Irivine by the way is the father of professional wrestler Chris Jericho.
The second fight features Steve "Sarge" Vickers in a game that took place during the 1972-73 season.
A season which Steve scored 30 goals as a rookie and netted him the Calder trophy.
Ranger Crisis is a video blog hosted by The Mouth. Established in February 2009 Ranger Crisis was created to discuss New York Ranger Hockey from the fans point view as well as explore the lighter side of being a Ranger fan through a satirical lens. However, in this case the lens is being wielded by a 48 yr old boccalone who has been following the Rangers since he was 10 like it was a religion.
The Mouth also has more Complete Ranger games and Ranger archival footage 1952-1985 than any other person on the planet. The big guy from time to time will crank up the time machine and share these video gems with his fellow Ranger fans with the intent to hearken them back to the simpler days before salary cap and Gary Bettman.
So sit back and enjoy Blue Shirt fans as it's all beamed right onto your computer desk for your enjoyment. We wholeheartedly thank you for stopping by and most importantly as always say...
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