In NHL.com's feature on superstitions in the NHL, Rocky Bonanno looks at the Rangers 54 year Stanley Cup drought...."Would you believe the team was cursed? That's the legend, anyway, and there are a few differing theories.
One stems from a desecration of the Stanley Cup. During the 1940-41 season, team management supposedly burned the mortgage of Madison Square Garden in the bowl of the Cup after making the final payment, as a sort of celebration. The legend goes that the hockey gods were not happy with this symbolic gesture.
No Cup for you!
Another theory on the curse involves the first NHL team to play in New York, the Americans, which was another tenant of Madison Square Garden. The Americans were run by coach and general manager Red Dutton, who suspended the operations of his team following the 1941-42 season because his team lost several players to the armed services for World War II. Dutton always had planned to revive the Americans following the war, but when he attempted to do so, in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1946 his plan was rebuffed by the NHL. Dutton believed the Rangers were behind the decision. Angered, Dutton declared that the Rangers would never win the Stanley Cup again for as long as he lived."
...i was only alive for 17 of those years, but man they were tough ones. Especially living on Long Island where Islander fans were all too happy to remind any Ranger fan about 1940.
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