Paul Coffey was on the commish’s radio show yesterday and it reminded me of yet another one of my dumb stories, as Coffey always does.

Not sure if it was the ‘83 or ‘84 Cup finals at Nassau Coliseum. My softball season had already b…

Michael Del Zotto, the OHL All-Star selected by the Rangers in the first round of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, signed his first pro contract with the team Tuesday. In 2008-09, the 18-year-old ranked among the highest-scoring defensemen in the OHL.   

I guess the NHL changed its mind on the scheduling and is ready to get the party started sooner than later, which is a good thing for NBC and a good thing for people who, you know, actually care about hockey and don’t want to wait for the champio…

Rangers winger Ryan Callahan talks about what he plans to do over the off-season as he gets ready for 2009-10

Because of Gary Bettman’s lousy television contract, the Stanley Cup Final schedule is being dictated to the NHL, it’s teams, the players and their fan base by the programmers at NBC Sports.
The first two games of the Stanley Cup finals are going to be played back to back this weekend in Detroit because NBC doesn’t want [...]

For Ranger fans, it is a moment that will never get old. Just ask Howie Rose - whose legendary call of Stephane Matteau’s Game 7 goal against the Devils marked its 15th anniversary yesterday - it is a moment that got better with time.

“I just can’t believe it’s been 15 years,” Howie Rose said today as he thought back on his legendary call of Stephane Matteau’s legendary goal. “It still seems like it was five minutes ago.”

If only. The most electrifying moment in Rangers history turned 15 years old today, and with it one of the great calls ever in sports. “Matteau! Matteau! Matteau!” - 15 years or 50, that moment of May 27, 1994 will never get old.

But if it actually had happened five minutes ago, Rose wouldn’t have been very happy with it. Because he told me today that when he first heard the playback of his call, he immediately regretted it.

“When I heard it, I thought I’d blown it - not from a technical standpoint, but because I thought I’d lost it. I’d never heard myself like that,” Rose recalled at Citi Field as he prepared to call the Mets-Nationals game for WFAN. “When I listened to it again for the first time, my heart sunk, because I heard myself out of control. I was very uncomfortable with it and when I left the building, I was not at all in a good mood about the call.

“But when I drove home, that’s all I heard was the call. And people oddly were talking about the call as much as they were the game. … And I thought, ‘Geez, I guess they like it.’”

Rose grew up on Long Island a diehard Ranger fan (he was at the Garden for Pete Stemkowski’s goal against the Blackhawks in ’71), which is why he said he was “furious” when Valeri Zelepukin tied the game with 7.7 seconds left. Other, lesser announcers might have been pleased, knowing that overtime would provide an indelible moment on which they could put their own stamp. Not Howie, not in that spot, not with 7-point-freakin’-7 seconds left.

“I had been convinced that the Rangers were cursed - remember, I grew up here,” Rose said. “Only the Rangers could have given up that goal with 7.7 seconds left. That was beyond cruel and unusual punishment. That was ridiculous.

“I used to tell Neil (Smith) all the time, ‘It’s never gonna happen. It doesn’t matter what you do. Face it, it’s never gonna happen. Good luck to ya.’ So Zelepukin scores and I throw my headset down and turn to Sal (Messina, his radio partner), right up close to him and say, ‘Now tell me this team isn’t cursed.’ And that was the first time I ever saw Sal (shrug) and say, ‘Y’know, you might be right.’”

I asked Rose if the call was just full spontaneity and emotion, or whether he had anything in mind that he wanted to say on the winning goal. “When it was 1-nothing and got under five minutes to go - and I probably jinxed it myself thinking about it - all I prepared in my mind was, as the clock wound down to 3, 2, 1, was to say, ‘And there’s one more hill to climb” - boom, and then let the crowd carry it from there. Obviously, that all went out the window.

“So later, when I was screaming and yelling, that phrase just came back to me. And then I swear someone had just mentioned to me about a Mount Vancouver, so there that went into the mix.”

Rose actually thought he might have blown the call a second way, too - Esa Tikkanen, you remember, had crashed the net, tied up with Jim Dowd and looking on the replays like the goal might have belonged to him. “And Sal says, “I don’t know if that’s Matteau’s goal, that could be Tikkanen.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God,’” Rose said. “I’m going to have to go into a studio now and dub ‘Tikkanen! Tikkanen! Tikkanen!’ I was the most relieved guy in the world when they announced it was Matteau’s goal.

“I never felt anything like that in my stomach like I did for the next 24, 48 hours, and it was the same after the seventh game of the Cup final,” he said. “It really took a toll. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday, when I’m about to take my last breath, the doctor says, ‘You’d have lived a couple years longer if not for the spring of 1994.’”

Few plays in sports can be remembered vividly by hearing an old broadcast, but the sound of Howie Rose calling Stephane Matteau’s 1994 double-overtime goal in Game 7 vs. the Devils is still crystal clear. It all took place 15 years ago this week.

Few plays in sports can be remembered vividly by hearing an old broadcast, but the sound of Howie Rose calling Stephane Matteau’s 1994 double-overtime goal in Game 7 vs. the Devils is still crystal clear. It all took place exactly 15 years ago today.