We’ve reached the end of the line, folks! It was a good run, working our way across the league and trashing, well, everyone. We’re closing things out today, and the last team we have to dunk on in the Rangers. This should be fun.
Drew: As Bill likes to say, they play in a Train Station. Despite the convenient location within Manhattan, their home is literally a means to escape New York, which is hilarious and anecdotal. The Flyers’ rivalry with the Rangers has subsided in recent years, but back in the early 2000’s, seeing Eric Lindros in that blue sweater really did a number on me. I can somewhat tolerate seeing him in a Maple Leafs or Stars sweater as he did very late in his career, but Eric Lindros on the Rangers is weird and I don’t like it one bit.
Ryan Q.: Rangers fans seem to think their team is just head and shoulders above the Flyers in every way possible and I don’t understand it. Like, the Rangers are an Original Six team, which is all well and good, but the Flyers have made their fair share of history too. Rangers fans just seem to be so adamant about being better than the Flyers and it’s weird.
Maddie: Rebuilding on the fly is bad and it doesn’t work. As Flyers fans, we’re painfully aware of how that’s true. And that’s what the Rangers are trying to do here and I hate that there are contingents that think that they should be exempt from the rule of it being bad and not working, and rather think they may be Actually Good. Just tear it all down and start over. You’re just like the rest of us, the rules apply to you too. Please stop pretending.
Kyle: Never forget Rangers fans laughed at us when AV was signed, and told us he’d never play the kids, and that he sucked. Then David Quinn proceeded to basically force Lias Andersson, one of their top prospects, into requesting a trade. They play in a train station, and literally the only reason they even made the qualifiers is because Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad dragged their lifeless corpse into it. This team is just so annoying and arrogant despite not winning shit of late.
Ryan G.: The other Ryan hit on my main point pretty well. Their fans act like they are one of the best teams in the league when they haven’t won the Stanley Cup in checks notes 26 years. Yes, 1994 was 26 years ago. It’s practically ancient history, yet they get on Flyers fans for our last Cup being in 1975. But I do have a funny Rangers fan story similar to Craig’s Islanders fan story.
During the 2013 lockout-shortened season, I went to a Flyers-Rangers game at The Train Station. It was early in the season and this was back when the Rangers owned the Flyers at MSG, so I was not hopeful to say the least. I wore my Wayne Simmonds jersey to the game, and was heckled non-stop all night by a Rangers fan. That’s all fine and good, but his heckles left me baffled. He repeatedly yelled things like “PUMPKIN PIE” and “HAPPY HALLOWEEN” and “WE’RE EATING PUMPKIN PIE TONIGHT SIMMONDS!” I get that the Flyers wear orange and black, which are also Halloween colors, but you typically eat pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, not Halloween. Nevertheless, the Rangers suck, Rangers fans suck, and Rangers fans’ heckles suck.
Craig: They have one Cup in the last 80 years and gave Real American Money to have Matthew Barnaby and Sean Avery be on their team. The Rangers are the most annoying team in New York because their fans have the confidence of arrogant Yankee fans with a team that’s about as successful in the postseason as the New York Knicks have been over the last few decades. Luckily for Rangers’ fans the same dude who runs the Knicks isn’t running the Rangers too. I’d hate to see that, as a Flyers’ fan.
Kelly: Because they play in New York, we all have to pretend they’re relevant and interesting. They are neither of these things. Also, it’s real friggin’ annoying that for the last like, 30 years they’ve lucked into a continuous succession of pretty-darn-good-to-great goaltenders. They do not deserve these gifts.
But maybe the gang has something nice to say about the Rangers? Maybe? What do we think?
Maddie: They had a team puppy too, right? That’s cool for them. I love pup content and I wish the Flyers had a puppy.
Kyle: I have nothing to add with liking anything about the Rangers, I just wanted to agree the Flyers really need a puppy because I need that content.
Craig: Nah
Kelly: you know Craig makes a really good point here.
