Quote:
Originally Posted by saffronleaf
New York? You really have to live there for a little while to realize how little hockey matters. They never talk about the Rangers, Islanders or Devils on the sports radio channels. The old joke in NYC is that there are 18,000 hockey fans in Manhattan -- i.e., the ones that are in MSG.
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I agree completely. In my travels to NYC it is clear that the local teams that are topics of water-cooler conversation are the Giants and Yankees, followed closely by the Jets, Mets and Knicks. The Rangers and the Nets are in the middle, followed by the teams on the periphery that barely register in the mainstream consciousness like the Islanders, the Devils, Red Bull and St. John's.
Even though it's an original 6 market, hockey is just not a big deal in NYC. In some ways it's a crazy fluke that they even ended up with 3 NHL teams. I know the Islanders exist only because the NHL wanted to keep the WHA out of the then-new Nassau Coliseum in the 70s.