As we suffer through another season for the rebuilding New York Rangers hockey team and hesitantly enjoy watching a rejuvenated Knicks team after rebuilding for 20 years in a row, let’s harken back to even better times shall we?
On Friday, June 8th, 2019 the New York Rangers had a special ceremony celebrating the 25th anniversary of the only Stanley Cup victory people my age will probably see in their lifetimes. If you haven’t watched the ceremony, try to find it, it’ll bring smiles, memories, and a tear or two for sure. Mark Messier; still an absolute hero among heroes, lead the ceremonies, had a tear or two streaming down his face as well. I especially hope other professional athletes who hesitate to come play in New York City got/get to watch it. It’s a great example of how true sports heroes in NYC are treated, even 25 years later. Shortly after, I spoke about the glorious sports year that was 1994 that had the Rangers and the Knicks (yes the Knicks) both in the finals of their respective sports to a few co-workers and was reminded that they weren’t even born yet. Though you had to be there to fully appreciate the craziness and the glory (except for Major League Baseball) of that year in sports, I’ll do my best to describe what it was like. And for those of you who lived through it, hopefully this post (and yes I realize this is a George R.R. Martinesque length post, but please bear with me) will bring back some fond memories. But first we need some context: 1994 was a crazy year (at least for back then) even without the sports.
In 1994, the Dow closed the year at 3,834, the Fed Funds rate started the year at 3.00% and ended the year at 5.50% as the economy emerged from a crappy recession, and a gallon of gas cost $1.09 nationally. The year saw among other many notable events; military action in Bosnia and Herzegovina (leading many people to say “where”?), a US-led invasion of Haiti (which at the time also had people saying “where”?), a tragic tornado outbreak in the southeastern US, the beginning of the horrific Rwandan Civil war and mass genocide, the first fully multiracial elections in South Africa which saw Nelson Mandela emerge as the winner, the opening of the English Channel, the OJ Simpson low-speed white bronco chase (more on this one later), and the Whitewater scandal investigation of then President Bill Clinton. In tech we saw the launch of Netscape Navigator which quickly became the search leader in this new thing called the Internet and the launch of a company known as Amazon by the now front page news founder, Jeff Bezos.
In pop culture, we all went to see The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, Dumb and Dumber, Pulp Fiction, The Mask, Speed, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and best picture winner Schnidler’s List, for those who didn’t see it in 1993. On TV (an actual TV since there were no streaming devices yet) we watched Friends, the X-Files, Frasier, Beavis and Butt-head, Law & Order, and The Ren & Stimpy Show, and mostly listened to grunge, the Dave Matthews Band, the Beastie Boys, and Snoop Dogg. I personally also listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails’ “The Downward Spiral”, Pink Floyd’s “The Division Bell”, The Allman Brothers Band’s “Where It All begins”, Portishead’s “Dummy”, Beck’s “Mellow Gold”, Pantera’s “Far Beyond Driven”, Corrosion of Conformity’s “Deliverance”, and, Korn’s self-titled 1st lp, which blew my mind at the time, but I digress. Since people still read books back then, we read books such as The Alienist by Caleb Carr, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, Insomnia by Stephen King, The Chamber by John Grisham, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Disclosure by Michael Crichton and The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (which made us afraid to be near anyone that even so much as sniffled, sound familiar?). In addition, us geeks welcomed fantasy novels Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan and Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe. The console video gaming world was dominated by Nintendo and Sega Genesis. On PCs, the release of Warcraft by Blizzard entertainment would later lead to a heckuva franchise. Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson secretly wed in the Domican Rebublic and we were all like “huh”? And sadly Curt Kobain took his own life.
In sports, the year got started infamously when Nancy Kerrigan was attacked after a practice session in Detroit. She was unable to compete in the National Championships and her chief competitor, Tonya Harding went on to win. Tonya, however, later had to the give up the title as she was implicated in the attack. She denied any wrongdoing and later a sex tape surfaced with her it in. Ahhh, the ‘90s. The winter Olympics kicked off in Lillehammer, Norway where the US finished a disappointing 5th in the medal count. The NFL saw the then San Diego Chargers make it to the Super Bowl (see, I told you it was a crazy year), but lost to the Niners in a “defensive struggle”, 49-26. The Jets welcomed Pete Carroll as their new coach and finished the season at 6-10 (so some things haven’t changed much). The Giants finished as one of 4 NFC teams at 9-7, but missed out on the playoffs due to tiebreakers. The pre-BnB era Patriots finished the regular season at 10-6 but lost to the Browns 20-13 in the opening round of the playoffs. In other football related news, the nation was glued to the TV on June 17th to watch OJ Simpson evade police in his soon-to-be infamous white bronco (more about this later). The US hosted the Soccer World Cup in 9 cities across the country including East Rutherford. My friends and I were able to watch team Italy practice a few times and even got the team, including superstar Roberto Baggio, to autograph a soccer ball or two. They sadly went on to ultimately lose to Brazil in the finals. MBL players went on strike and the season, including the Word Series, was cancelled for the first time since 1904. It was a new low for professional baseball at the time. George Foreman (the grilling guy, but at one time a pretty good boxer) won the WBA and IBF Heavyweight Championships. But the best part of 1994 and one of the best sports moments for me ever occurred in June: The friggin “can-we’please-not-hear-the-1950-chants-anymore” NY Rangers and the “this-can’t-be-real-but-if-you-say-so” NY Knickerbockers made it to the finals at the same damn time.
For me personally, in June 1994, I was a recent law school grad looking for work in either law or finance, I couldn’t decide which. I was living back home (yay me) in NJ. Sports was an even greater distraction from the stress for me at the time and I was all in. Since I was living in NJ and unemployed, I didn’t have the money the go any of the games, but I was going into the City frequently for job interviews. And boy was the City electric with sports.
Stay tuned for part 2 of 6
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