[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s long as I follow sports, I don’t think I’ll ever suffer another loss quite as painful Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. The storyline was about as rich as it gets in sports: My Red Sox, trying to end an 85-year curse, jumping out to an early lead against their bitterest rival in a do-or-die elimination game, only to be done in by a late collapse and an extra-innings homer by Aaron “Bleepin’” Boone.
For Red Sox fans, it was nearly nine decades of torment embodied in one singular game, the Boone homer serving as a gut-punch exclamation point on our franchise’s futility to that point.
The New York Rangers’ Eastern Conference semifinals loss to the Ottawa Senators this year would also rank high on my list of disappointing sports losses, but instead of having that one moment of heartbreak, it seemed more like a two-week-long root canal.
On Tuesday night, the Rangers dropped a disappointing Game 6 to the Sens 4-2. It was the kind of game where, right from the outset, it was clear to Ranger fans that it wasn’t going to be our night. Two quick goals from Ottawa put the Rangers in a hole they couldn’t climb out of, and despite a late game surge by the Blue Shirts to make it competitive, this one wasn’t ever really in doubt.
But what makes the loss sting in particular is the way that the Rangers had outplayed their opponents all series long, only to fumble away sure things and keep the Senators hanging around.
In both Game 2 and Game 5 overtime losses, the Rangers, by all accounts, had Ottawa dead to rights, only to see their leads evaporate in the waning minutes on a bunch of soft goals.
Even if the Rangers wouldn’t admit those losses were demoralizing, it most certainly had an effect on the fan base.
On Tuesday night, the crowd at Mickey Spillane’s in Eastchester was oddly uncomfortable from the opening face-off. All of the excitement, all of the enthusiasm I’d seen throughout the team’s playoff run, was replaced by an ominous sense of dread. When Ottawa’s Mike Hoffman beat Henrik Lundqivst for a goal just four minutes into the game, you could almost feel the fans quietly accepting their fate. Sure, there was a lot of game left, but the writing was on the wall; this wasn’t going to be the Rangers’ night.
So for the next 56 minutes, we sat and watched the Rangers cough up the puck and sputter out in the offensive zone without much sense of hope. When the final horn sounded, we were drained, but also relieved that the ordeal was over.
It wasn’t dissimilar from walking out during the credits of a Lars von Trier movie.
The great thing about sports is that, when your team finally wins, the ability to exorcise the demons of terrible past losses makes the victory even sweeter. In 2004, when the Red Sox came back in four straight games against the Yanks before going on to sweep the Cardinals in the World Series, it was losses like the ones in 1986 and 2003 that made the moment all the more special.
Maybe 2018 will be the Rangers’ year, maybe it won’t. But when, (if), they do hoist the Stanley Cup again, I’m certainly going to think back to this blown opportunity against the Senators.
Let’s just hope that payoff doesn’t take another 60 years.
