NHL

Broadway Hat a hit for Rangers

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It is scruffy and weathered and shrunken and black, something someone who lost a bet might be forced to wear, but to the Rangers, the Broadway Hat is not meant to be a fashion statement. It is a symbol of their unity and camaraderie, a reminder that a team chasing a Stanley Cup as doggedly as they are can celebrate a different hero every night, and hat’s off to him.

“When you receive it, it’s a pretty cool feeling,” Brian Boyle said Tuesday. “It’s a little embarrassing, but I think it’s a fun thing that we started as a team this year.”

Embarrassing?

“You wear it and you get the interviews and you’re wearing this funny hat on your head,” Boyle said. “Then the next game [we] win, you gotta give a speech and hand it to someone. … It’s nice to see that the guys appreciate what you’re doing.”

The Broadway Hat goes to the player who made the biggest impact that night. It is a spur of the moment decision made only after a victory in the dressing room by the previous winner.

“Our MVP of the night,” Brandon Prust said. “Teams in the past have used hard hard hats, or I’ve heard of teams handing out like a shovel. It’s kind of like a hard-working kinda hat, so that’s who you hand it out to.”

Broadway Joe Namath wore fur coats, but never the Broadway Hat.

Brad Richards bought the hat from a stranger on the Rangers’ preseason trip to Europe.

“It was bought off a human’s head,” Prust said.

Tom Landry was famous for wearing a fedora on the sidelines. Bear Bryant wore a black-and-white houndstooth hat. The Broadway Hat has a style — or lack thereof — all its own.

“It’s kind of a goofy-looking thing,” Rupp said. “First of all it doesn’t fit half the guys in this room — it’s too small, and I don’t know, I think it’s thrown in hockey bags and goes on the road, it’s kinda gross. It just doesn’t look like it has any kind of form to it … but it’s something that we take pride in receiving that.”

The Broadway Hat is not something you would see the elegant Clyde Frazier wearing.

“It’s kind of like when you were in school and you got a gold star from your teacher,” Prust said. “Getting that from your peers is a good feeling.”

Rangers coach John Tortorella, who would rather eat the hat than regale the media, just might allow his players to pose it atop the Stanley Cup should the Rangers knock off the Devils and party like it’s 1994. They could call it the Stanley Cap.

“It’s got a lot of character,” Prust said, “just like this team.”

The Broadway Hat takes it with him on the road.

“Whoever wins it just throws it in their bag and then the next game they have to pass it out,” Rupp said.

Henrik Lundqvist has worn the Broadway hat a club-high seven times. He was the first.

“He was like, ‘Oh, thank you,’ and he went to put it in his stall, and we’re like, ‘Oh no no no no no, you’re wearing that thing!’” Marty Biron recalled.

During the regular season, 22 different Rangers got to wear it. Rookie Chris Kreider became the 23rd in the playoffs. Only twice has the hat not been given out — when Boyle (concussion) went down against Ottawa, and after Marian Gaborik’s triple overtime winner. Dan Girardi, who beat Martin Brodeur to break the ice in Game 1 Monday night, is the latest.

Who looks the best in it and who looks the worst?

“I think Michael Del Zotto probably looks the best in it … the Italian looks probably help with that,” Rupp said. “And I think Brian Boyle looks funny ’cause it doesn’t even fit on him at all.”

Boyle doesn’t argue.

“It doesn’t fit me very well, I don’t look the best by any means, I’m probably one of the worst,” he said, and smiled. “Hanky (Lundqvist) could probably make anything look good.”

Prust gives Richards the nod for best in show.

“That’s Broadway Brad,” Prust said. “Worst, I don’t know … It seems to have shrunk in size, so some guys with big heads it doesn’t fit too well.”

The Broadway hat is made by H and M, and is size men’s 56. It even has its own Facebook page.

“I just don’t think anybody looks bad in it, to be quite honest,” John Mitchell said. “Maybe Boyler [Brian Boyle] or somebody with some nice long hair kinda flowing out the back of it might look the prettiest in it . … Or Haggy [Carl Hagelin], he’s got nice long hair, but I don’t know who would look the worst . . . maybe Marty Biron . . . No I’m just kidding. … Like I said, I mean a hat, it just makes everybody look so good.”

Only seven more wins, and the Broadway hat becomes the Stanley Cap.

steve.serby@nypost.com