The captain of the Rangers got his first look at the transformed Garden and what will be his team’s new locker room facilities yesterday while wearing a hardhat.
Couldn’t have been more symbolic.
Couldn’t have been more appropriate.
Because Ryan Callahan, the Blueblood who earlier in the day was appointed by coach John Tortorella as the franchise’s 26th captain, is the personification of the Black-and-Blueshirt mentality that has come to identify the Rangers.
There will be a new, 21st-century Garden in which the Rangers will play Broadway beginning next month, but it will be the same, relentless Callahan leading the band that will approach 2011-12 with the same, relentless approach that defined last year’s club.
“The key for me personally is that I can’t let the captaincy change me at all,” Callahan said as he was joined by teammates Marc Staal, Brandon Dubinsky, Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh and Derek Stepan on a tour through the evolving arena that remains a construction zone. “I can’t let it change me on or off the ice, the way I play or the way I act.”
Callahan, 26, was a fourth-round selection in the 2004 Entry Draft in which the Rangers took Al Montoya sixth overall, Lauri Korpikoski 19th, Darin Olver36th, Dane Byers 48th and Bruce Graham 51st, but then hit the jackpot with Dubinsky at No. 60 and after two more washouts, Callahan at No. 127.
There is tangible responsibility that accompanies wearing the “C” on a hockey sweater. There will be times Callahan will be called upon to enforce accountability within the room and among his teammates, to metaphorically point a finger or two.
“I won’t be shy about that,” said Callahan, who recorded personal bests with 23 goals, 25 assists and 48 points in 60 games last season, and will be supported by Staal and Brad Richards as alternate captains. “There has to be accountability among the players; the coaching staff can say and do only so much.
“It’s our room. It’s our team.”
Tortorella never had a doubt Callahan would be the right person at the right time to succeed Chris Drury as captain. The coach has no doubt he will be well received when delivering messages.
“I know Cally will do it the right way,” said Tortorella, whose team opens training camp on Friday. “He has instant credibility. Everybody respects him, everybody likes him.
“I know he’ll handle himself the right way. If he ticks somebody off — and he almost certainly will at some point — it will be for the right reason.”
My enduring image of Callahan from last season isn’t the winger diving in front of a Zdeno Chara slap shot in the final minutes of a critical victory at the Garden the final week of the year, the play on which he sustained the broken ankle that sidelined him from the playoffs, but rather of Callahan diving in front of slap shots from the point against the Devils in Newark during an exhibition game.
Sometimes relentlessness can be defined as recklessness, but it’s a mistake to expect Callahan or his coach to agree.
“That’s us, and that’s me,” Callahan said. “If we’re winning 3-0 and there are two minutes to go and there’s a shot to be blocked, I’m trying to block it.
“We take great pride in the identity we created. We’re not backing off it now.”
You could practically hear Tortorella beaming through the phone when that message was relayed to him.
“That’s exactly what I expect from Cally,” the coach said. “You can’t pick and choose, you can’t turn it on and off. You have to be who you are.”
In other words, the Rangers and their captain will be wearing hardhats from Day One.