Curse of 1940

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The Curse of 1940 is a superstitious explanation for why the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League did not win the league's championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, from 1940 to 1994.

1 Allegations of a curse
2 The Islanders
3 End of the Curse
4 References

[edit] Allegations of a curse

The Rangers began play in the 1926-27 season, and quickly became one of the league's most successful teams, both competitively and financially. They won the Stanley Cup in 1928, 1933 and 1940, and their games were usually sold out.

In the 1940-41 season, the mortgage on their arena, Madison Square Garden, the current edition of which had been built in 1925, was paid off. The management of the Madison Square Garden Corporation burned the mortgage in the bowl of the Cup. This led some hockey fans to believe that the Cup, which is regarded almost as a sacred object, had been "desecrated", leading the "hockey gods" to place a curse on the Rangers. ^[1]

Another theory is that the supposed curse came from Mervyn "Red" Dutton, the coach and general manager of the New York Americans, for whom he had once played. The Amerks were actually the first NHL team to play in New York City, beginning play as soon as the Garden opened in the 1925-26 season. However, not having the financial backing of the Garden Corporation, the Amerks struggled, and the NHL took over ownership of the team in 1937. They made five playoff appearances, including a loss to the Rangers in 1929 and a win over the Rangers in 1938. But their loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1938 Stanley Cup Semifinals was the closest they were ever get to winning the Cup.

Following the 1941-42 season, with so many players having entered the armed forces to fight in World War II, and the Americans hurt by this more than most teams, the league folded the franchise. Dutton blamed Ranger management for encouraging league officials to do so. The only compensation he received was to be named NHL President in 1943, a post he held until 1946.

There is no evidence that Dutton used his position as President to hurt the Rangers' chances to win the Stanley Cup. But he was bitter, and declared that the Rangers would never win the Cup for as long as he lived. He died in 1987, at the age of 88. At that time, the Rangers were in their 47th season without having won the Cup.

The Curse of 1940 worked in several ways, some of them odd. The Madison Square Garden Corporation found it could make more money when the circus came to town in the spring, and this forced the Rangers, and later the National Basketball Association's New York Knickerbockers, to use different arenas at the worst possible time, during their respective leagues' playoffs. The Rangers used Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto as their "home ice" in the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals, and lost to the Detroit Red Wings. At the time, most fans simply believed the Rangers were victims of bad management, not of a curse.

[edit] The Islanders

The Rangers rarely made the playoffs during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1972, they reached the Stanley Cup Finals again, this time losing to the Boston Bruins. Although nothing bizarre happened during the Finals, as has often happened with alleged sports curses, they had now gone 32 years without winning the Cup. The next season began with the founding of an expansion team playing on Long Island, the New York Islanders. In 1975, the Islanders reached the playoffs for the first time and defeated the Rangers. The teams played again in 1979, and the Rangers won, advancing to the Finals, where they lost to the Montreal Canadiens, although this was not unusual, either, since it was the Canadiens' fourth consecutive Cup.

The Islanders won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 1980, beginning a streak of four consecutive championships, one more than the Rangers had won in their entire 57-year history to that point. Fans of the younger franchise began chanting "1940! 1940!" during games between the teams, particularly in the tense 1984 playoff series won by the Islanders in overtime of the deciding fifth game. This chant caught on around the league. It was also in the 1980s that the idea of a "Curse of 1940" began to take hold, with Red Dutton's death in 1987 and the occasional publication of the photograph of the Garden mortgage being burned in the Cup's bowl. (The "old Garden" was demolished after the Rangers and Knicks moved into the "new Garden" in 1968.)

In 1992, the Rangers finished with the best overall record in the NHL, earning them the President's Trophy, but they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Patrick Division Finals. Although the Penguins were defending champions, and their victory was hardly a shocking one, there was an odd moment when goaltender Mike Richter allowed a shot from the blue line by Ron Francis past him. The next season, with hopes high, the Rangers finished last, largely because of an injury to defenseman Brian Leetch. In the kind of incident many fans ascribe to curses, Leetch arrived at the Garden in a taxi, stepped out, and broke his ankle when he slipped on a patch of ice, a most ironic injury for a hockey player.

[edit] End of the Curse

The Rangers advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1994, having not won the Stanley Cup in 54 years. In that time, championships had been won in the New York area by the Islanders (four), the New York Yankees (14), the New York Mets (two), the New York Giants baseball team (one, and they had been in San Francisco since 1958), the Brooklyn Dodgers (one, and they had been in Los Angeles since 1958), the New York Giants football team (three), the New York Jets (one), Knicks (two NBA titles) and the New Jersey Nets (two ABA titles, playing as the New York Nets).

The Rangers played the New Jersey Devils, who had begun play in the 1982-83 season and had never won the Cup yet. The Rangers had already beaten the Devils in the 1992 Patrick Division Semifinals. Devils fans had picked up the "Nineteen Forty" chant and the curse myth from Islander fans, and it was noted that the hockey seating capacity of the Brendan Byrne Arena (later renamed the Continental Airlines Arena) was 19,040. It looked like the curse was at work again with the Rangers trailing three games to two and facing elimination when Blueshirts captain Mark Messier challenged the New York media by offering a "guaranteed" win in game 6: "We know we are going to go in there and win Game Six and bring it back to the Garden."

The Rangers fell behind 2-0 quickly but trailing 2-1 in the third period, Messier scored a natural hat trick (three straight goals) to make good on his guarantee and force a deciding seventh game. The curse threatened again in game 7 as the Rangers led 1-0 and looked as though they were about to advance to the Cup Finals when Valeri Zelepukin scored with 7.7 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game. But in the second overtime, Stephane Matteau scored on a wraparound goal to give the Rangers the game and the series.

The Rangers moved on to the Stanley Cup Finals, and defeated the Vancouver Canucks in seven games with Messier scoring the Cup-winning goal. The city of Vancouver has actually waited longer to win the Cup, as the Canucks only began NHL play in 1970, and the last team from the city to win the Cup was the Vancouver Millionaires in 1915. The Rangers ended their Stanley Cup drought at 54 years. A fan at the Garden held up a sign saying, "NOW I CAN DIE IN PEACE." The slogan began to appear on T-shirts around the New York area.