The Rangers once had three farm teams within the five boroughs.
Didja know that the Rangers once had not one. not two, but three farm teams within the five boroughs?
Yes, they did.
It was the 1944-45 season -- near the end of World War II -- and they played on three different sets of ice.
The number one farm club -- call it Double-A -- was the New York Rovers who played every Sunday afternoon at the old Garden on Eighth Avenue.
A constant feeder to the Rangers, the Rovers played in what was called the Eastern Amateur Hockey League, although all the players got paid.
In that same EAHL season, the Rangers also sponsored the Brooklyn Crescents whose home was the Brooklyn Ice Palace on Atlantic Avenue between Nostrand and Bedford Avenues.
Former NHL players such as Allan Stanley, Don (Bones) Raleigh, and Fern Flaman were on the Crescents which only lasted that one season.
One notch lower was the Metropolitan Hockey League with four teams, the Manhattan Arrows, Brooklyn Torpedoes, Sands Point Tigers and Jamaica Hawks.
These teams played preliminary games to the Rovers in Sunday afternoon tilts and also played at the Iceland Rink above the Garden where the Rangers and Rovers also practiced.
The only Met Leaguer I know of who made the NHL was the Rangers' Staten Island-born Nick Fotiu.