WHAT A WASTE
Neil Smith and the Rangers just didn't know what they had when
they signed the greatest player of all time. To them he was just
a show piece, someone to parade around to the league as if to say
"Look! We have Wayne Gretzky on our team! YEE-HAW!" Instead of
building around him, they took away talent.
After a bitter feud, Mark Messier left. They traded Ulf
Samuelsson this year. What's worse is that they did absolutely
nothing to improve during the season. Pavel Bure, Theo Fleury,
and Mark Recchi, all went to elsewhere. When that happened, it
was over for #99. Why go through another year of the grind only
to come up short again? On the ice he was left unprotected. He
got checked like never before. The wingers he was asked to play
with were second line wingers at best on a contender.
The problem with Wayne is that he's too classy of an individual
to say "The reason I'm retiring is because the Rangers made no
effort to better themselves this year and I see no light at the
end of the tunnel." But you know that's what he's thinking. Why
else would he leave six goals short of 900, 37 assists shy of
2000? Because he'd rather leave the game he loves than train all
summer, play the season, get knocked around, lose, and fail to
make the playoffs for a third straight year.
The Rangers not only lost a great player, but they lost their
identity. Who are the fans paying $100.00 a seat going to pay to
see now? Brian Leetch? Hardly, they haven't even signed him.
He becomes unrestricted on July 1st. Say bye bye to Brian. With
the way this team looks now, it may be another 54 years before
the sip from the Cup again. I am embarrassed to be a Rangers
fan, it's like 1983 all over again.
,P>
What a waste...
C'MON, MIKE!
PLEASE SEND TONS OF EMAIL TO MICHAEL DELL TELLING HIM TO KEEP LCS
GOING NEXT YEAR!
Michael Dell: dell@lcshockey.com
