READY TO RUMBLE: Flyers captain Chris Pronger and teammates stand with Marian Gaborik, Ryan Callahan and Brad Richards (right) during the announcement of the 2012 Winter Classic to be played Jan. 2 in Philadelphia. Glen Sather guaranteed the Rangers would win the game and the Stanley Cup, too. (REUTERS)
(
)
PHILADELPHIA — The sound of Flyers chairman Ed Snider, other semi-dignitaries and the mayor of this fine town droning on incessantly about the greatness of the franchise and of the city’s pro sports’ clubs was just too much for Rangers general manager Glen Sather to bear.
So, tired of having his team and city serve as little more than props for the NHL at the press conference yesterday for the announcement that the Rangers and Flyers would meet in the 2012 Winter Classic on Jan. 2 in the Phillies’ ballpark, Sather issued twin guarantees for his team and the Yankees.
“At the end of the year, we are going to be carrying the Cup, just like the Yankees will have the World Championship as well,” Sather said after first guaranteeing victory in the outdoor game.
Mark Messier would have been proud. So certainly would have George Steinbrenner.
“I just couldn’t let Snider go on and on like that,” Sather told The Post up the first-base line, minutes after the formal proceedings had ended. “I mean, we’re here, too, you know.”
Rangers head coach John Tortorella all but recoiled when asked if he would second the GM’s notion — surprise, surprise — but both Yankees manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman told The Post’s George A. King III they hope Sather is clairvoyant.
“I hope he is right; I hope he is really, really smart,” said Girardi, no relation to Rangers defenseman (Lt.) Dan Girardi.
“I hope he is right,” said Cashman, whose AL East champions are scheduled to open the playoffs Friday at the Stadium.
That “we” to whom Sather referred included Tortorella, Ryan Callahan, Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik, who were on stage during the announcement. While at the podium, Sather had also referred to another, “we,” those the 1985 and 1987 Oilers, in saying: “I’m sorry we kicked the hell out of you twice in the Stanley Cup [Finals].”
Snider, who will certainly need multiple surgeries for the shoulder dislocations he must have incurred from his ceaseless pats on his franchise’s own back, couldn’t resist reminding everyone that Sather’s reference was to Edmonton and not to the New York, returning to the podium to boast: “I remember kicking the hell out of the Rangers on the way to our Cups.”
Cue the footage of Dave Schultz watched on Dale Rolfe in Game 7 of the 1974 semifinals while the rest of the Rangers on the ice meekly watched the defenseman absorb the horrific beat-down in what became a 4-3 elimination defeat.
The Flyers have been one of the NHL’s most successful franchises economically since joining the NHL for 1967-68. Much of that success, as in much of the financing for the arena into which they moved in 1996 across the parking lot from the Spectrum, was built on the shoulders of Eric Lindros, something Snider never seems to remember to report.
But the fact is the Flyers have not won a Cup since Gerald Ford was in the White House, their 1975 repeat championship being their last.
The fact is 15 franchises have captured 35 Cups since Bernie Parent, Bobby Clarke and their teammates skated laps with the chalice around the old Aud in Buffalo on May 27, 1975, with eight of the winners in cities that weren’t even in the league at the time. Only six franchises are enduring longer droughts than the Flyers.
Yet Snider and his franchise hold disproportionate sway over NHL policy. Even concerning the Winter Classic, they will be the second team to play twice in the five-year-old Winter Classic, joining the Crosbys in that distinction. And they get the game at home in a nice, but hardly iconic ballpark, while New York apparently will not be considered as a stage until and unless Yankee Stadium becomes available.
Ah, Yankee Stadium, which will be home to the 2011 World Series Champions just as the Garden will be home to the 2012 Cup champs. Sather, after all, guaranteed it.
Good for the Old Rascal.