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Losing the Edge: The Rise and Fall of the Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers
Losing the Edge The Rise and Fall of the Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers Author:Barry Meisel For 53 years, the New York Rangers had labored under the most famous curse in sports. Fans everywhere knew how to get under the team's skin: chant, "Nineteen-forty! Nineteen-forty!" in memory of the club's last Stanley Cup Championship. General manager Neil Smith had signed free agents, made big trades, even brought in five-tim... more »e Cup winner Mark Messier from the Edmonton Oilers to break the famous jinx. As the Rangers headed into the 1993-94 season, Smith realized they needed one more big addition to make their Cup dreams come true: they needed the best coach available, former Philadelphia and Chicago coach, Mike Keenan.
Keenan's dictatorial ways had created conflict as he built winners at his two previous stops. But nothing prepared Smith and the Rangers for the tumultuous season they were about to embark on, a year that saw Keenan belittle and degrade his players, undercut his boss, demand trades, seek another job in the midst of the playoffs, and make life so miserable for so many that on the verge of the ultimate triumph, the question in the organization was, how could they possibly make it through another season with "that madman?"
Keenan's pit-bull style was based in an old-fashioned coaching philosophy: create a constant atmosphere of fear, and make the players so angry with you that they'll run through walls to prove you're wrong about them. At the same time, Keenan's all-out attacking style on the ice transformed the Rangers into an exciting unit that was ready to withstand the demands of the two-month playoff marathon.
Losing the Edge is the story of how the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, and how they fell apart in the aftermath of the summer of celebration. Barry Meisel takes us behind the scenes in a way that's unprecedented in the literature of hockey. He puts us out on the ice, behind the bench, in the locker room, and in the coaches' and general manager's offices as the team is built, shaped, prodded--and then as it falls apart in the wake of its coach's controversial departure from the scene.« less