Twenty years ago Tuesday, Stephane Matteau became a Rangers legend, the Blueshirts were on their way to their first Stanley Cup crown in 54 years and Howie Rose’s call would go down as a seminal moment in New York City sports broadcasting lore.
It was the evening of May 27, 1994, Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Rangers and Devils, the final game of a classic series between the bitter Hudson River rivals. Matteau sent the Rangers to the Stanley Cup finals with a a double-overtime goal — after New Jersey’s Valeri Zelepukin forced overtime with 7.7 seconds left in regulation — and Rose was on the mic for WFAN 660 AM.
“Matteau behind the net … Swings it in front … He scores! Matteau, Matteau, Matteau! Stephane Matteau … And the Rangers have one more hill to climb, baby, but it’s Mount Vancouver! The Rangers are headed to the finals!”
That call — and game — is never far from Rose’s memory. When he’s recognized by Rangers fans, he often receives the same reaction.
“Matteau, Matteau, Matteau!” they scream.
“It’s a moment that a lot of broadcasters work their entire careers for and never get,” Rose said before calling Monday’s Mets-Pirates game at Citi Field on WOR 710 AM. “Particularly now, with the 20th anniversary [on Tuesday] and the Rangers on a pretty great run, there are even more reminders today than the last couple of years.
“For it to have endured for 20 years, it’s pretty neat. I will say that I don’t think it would have taken on the apparent life it has had they not won the Cup.”
When he hears the call, Rose, 60, not only reflects back on that magical spring, but also to his childhood as a die-hard Rangers fan. He started following the team in 1966 and endured many a painful memory of postseason heartbreak before the Rangers won it all in 1994. He would bring his tape recorder to games as a teenager, sit in the blue seats and practice for his future career, imagining such a moment — a moment he aced.
“The overriding thing I felt was the pressure to get every single play right,” the two-time Emmy Award winner and member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame recalled. “Your focus as an announcer is so intense. My attention to the puck was so acute and fixed, and a lot of it had to do with the location where we broadcasted at the Garden [above the tunnel where the teams entered and exited].
“It wasn’t an ideal location for hockey. In a perfect world, you like to be higher up, but in that particular case, the vantage point made it easy for me to keep my eyes glued to the puck. It was almost magnetic. [My eyes] were almost attached to the Rangers’ crest on the puck. There wasn’t any deliberation, any guesswork. It was the product of just basically reporting what I saw, which was reporting Matteau scoring the goal.”