Pucks Are Flying in New York • by Hugh Delano • The Hockey Spectator • September 1972 New York, New York, It's a heck of a town, The Bronx is up and the Battery's down. There also will be more flying pucks than the average Metropolitan New York hockey fan can shake a curved stick at, starting this month in and around the city athletes call the Big Apple and Mayor John Lindsay refers to as Fun City. As the beer commercial jingle goes, you've got to be good to make it in New York and if you make it, you're good, The Rangers have been making it in Manhattan since 1926, Now the NHL has placed a second franchise only a short slap away in Long Island. For the first time since the New York and Brooklyn Americans played in the city from 1926 through 1942, there are two NHL teams within the city or in its burgeoning area. Not to be outdone, the new World Hockey Association seeks a share of the New York hockey pie. The New York Raiders give the metropolis its third big league team — more than any other city. What it all comes down to is dollars and demand for major league hockey within the heavily populated Metropolitan New York area encompassing New Jersey to the West, Long Island to the East and portions of lower upstate New York and Connecticut to the North. New York always has had a loyal hockey following, but nothing in comparison to the lust for the sport in recent years, Hockey has become the 'in' sport within the area, particularly among the young and distaff fans who find its speed, color and violent aspects appealing. Youth hockey teams and clinics are sprouting throughout Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester. Department stores are selling hockey equipment, games and various paraphernalia as never before. High schools are taking up the sport, though rink time is scarce, and colleges are organiting club teams. Even roller hockey has been revived in the city. As the established team, the Rangers are in the most prestigous and advantageous position of the three teams. With the growth of their success and that of hockey, tickets have become virtually impossible to buy for Ranger games at Madison Square Garden. This is a situation that has made life considerably more bearable for the folks who run the Garden and the ticket scalpers whose profession allows them the pleasure of winter vacations in Florida. The Garden's hockey seating capacity is 17,250. Of this, approximately 14,000 are sold on a season ticket basis. It's not easy to get tickets for a Ranger game, obviously. The team favored to dethrone Boston as champion in 1972-73 has played before 91 consecutive sellouts and attracted almost 16,000 to its first exhibition game this season. How financially successful the expansion Islanders and WHA Raiders will be in their first season is almost as much an uncertainty as to where they will finish in their respective leagues. The belief is that they will prosper to some degree at the box office, partially because of the growing thirst for hockey in the area and the unavailability of Ranger tickets. The Long Island-based Islanders, who will play in the 14,500-seat Nassau Coliseum, figure to draw more spectators than the Raiders, who will share Madison Square Garden with the Rangers. The Islanders have sold approximately 7,000 season tickets and have the built-in advantage of playing in the established league in a booming population area which has shown remarkable support of the baseball Mets and football Jets at nearby Shea Stadium. The Raiders are creating greater intrigue than the Islanders, much of it based upon curiosity concerning success or failure of the new league. Season ticket sales are said to be slightly above 2,000 and team officials believe their projected breakeven attendance figure of 8,000 to 10,000 a game is within reach because of heavy promotional work and fan interest in the new team. Much of the Raiders' success at the gate, aside from its ability to win, depends upon the appearance of such NHL defectors as Bobby Hull and Derek Sanderson. There were rumblings last summer that the Rangers were entertaining thoughts of moving to the proposed $200-million sports complex scheduled to be built across the Hudson River in the New Jersey swamplands. This was viewed as a ploy to obtain better tax equity and there seems little chance that the Rangers or basketball Knicks will make New Jersey their home along with the football Giants. The New Jersey sports complex, which includes plans for a hockey arena, is involved in legal entanglements concerning environmental impact of its construction and, thus far, the first spadeful of earth has yet to be turned. The group heading the sports complex plan does not hide the fact that it would love to acquire both an NHL or NBA team. If any hockey team ends up at the New Jersey complex for its proposed 1975 opening, logic dictates that it would be the Raiders. The WHA team is cultivating strong New Jersey fan support with promotional work in the Garden State. Additionally, the new team has its training camp in New Jersey, will practice at a Jersey rink and most of its players are settling in the northern part of the state. For the present, though, the Raiders are the only Madison Square Garden hockey team with many tickets available. So a city area which claims the football Giants and Jets, the basketball Knicks and Nets, and the baseball Yankees and Mets, now has the Rangers, Islanders and Raiders to provide wall-to-wall hockey from October through May.

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