One of the first gigs I got via my Rangers job was writing for The Hockey News. That would be in September 1955. I started covering the Blueshirts for THN and -- you can look it up -- a feature on Rangers ace Danny Lewicki had my first THN byline heading the piece. Well, a good 68 years have gone by and guess what? I'm back writing about the Rangers again,
This was a sleepy August afternoon in 1954 when the phone rang in the living room. Since my Mom and Dad both were working, I grabbed the old-fashioned receiver and heard a familiar voice.
"Is this You, Stanley?" asked Herb Goren, who knew darn well it was me. But why would the New York Rangers publicist want to talk to me except to congratulate me for graduating from Brooklyn College?
When I informed Herb that he guessed right on who answered the phone, I still was wondering "Why Me?"
I didn't have to wait long. Goren had been a veteran newspaperman with the New York Sun and was accustomed to getting to the point faster than the Brighton Express thundered down the hill from Avenue H to Newkirk Avenue station.
"How would you like to work for the Rangers?" said the voice at the other end.
Since the words seemed to have come out of a dream, I shot back, "Excuse me, what did you say?"
When Herb assured me that I had not gone momentarily deaf, he explained that he had an opening for a full-time assistant and would I be interested. You know what I replied.
"WOULD I? WOULD I? Herbie knew my answer in advance and told me that he'd go back to his boss, Rangers manager Frank Boucher, and get his green light.
Needless to say, I spent the next 24 hours trying to figure out what Boucher would say to Goren and then what Herbie would tell me. Well, I'll tell you what he told me the next afternoon:
"Kid, you got the job. Come over to 309 West 49th Street at ten in the morning, and I'll show you the ropes."
Which he did and I became an official, paid member of the Rangers Family. From time to time, I feel obliged to reassure dubious Blueshirt followers that I owe my life, my hockey career -- just about everything, as a matter of fact, to those five little words, "You got the job, kid."
Working for the Rangers was heavenly for a 22-year-old who was brought up at Madison Square Garden since age seven in 1939. First, it was going with my Dad to the Sunday afternoon
Met League-Eastern League double-headers. Then to the Rangers starting in 1942.
Goren knew me starting in 1950 when he personally launched the Rangers Fan Club and Fischler rose to the position of Vice President.
I could go on forever about how lucky I was to work that 1954-55 season at 349 West 49th corner of Eighth Avenue. Herbie told me it would be a five-day week. Nix to that: I told him I'd be in on Saturday and Sunday; the two-day freebie was on me.
No, it was actually on hockey. Over the weekend, I could pore through all the out-of-town papers. That season, we had farm teams in Saskatoon, Vancouver, and Guelph.
What fun it was to digest all the hockey news in the Vancouver Sun, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, and Guelph Mercury. And what a blast actually meeting the New York writers like Stan Saplin of the Journal-American, Al Laney of the Trib, Jim Burchard of the Tely, and Joe Nichols of the Times.
When I say that Rangers job made my life, I didn't mean maybe.
It led me to a full-time gig at the J-A, a one-shot doing play-by-play for a Habs-Rangers game, and eventually writing about six Rangers books -- the truth is I forgot how many -- going on road trips.
In good time, it enabled me to get in the TV business, cover Stanley Cups all over the place -- including 1994 -- and, well, you get the point.
Oh, yeah, what's the point?
One of the first gigs I got via my Rangers job was writing for The Hockey News. That would be in September 1955. I started covering the Blueshirts for THN, and -- you can look it up -- a feature on Rangers ace Danny Lewicki had my first THN byline heading the piece.
Well, a good 68 years have gone by, and guess what?
I'm back writing about the Rangers again, but The Hockey News looks a bit different than it did when I wrote about Danny Lewicki. Then again, so does The Maven.
Hey, 91 years will do that to a hockey nut!