Welcome Home Brian Leetch!

[rangerfan]

If you don't know what that means, you shouldn't be reading this thread. If you do, well, eunf said.

[Thunder22]

My Leetch jersey is on my chair, my tix are in hand... the gf got lucky and scored her company box for tonight, i might have to marry this girl! .. can't wait to welcome the guy home...

did you hear that MSG isn't doing a video tribute pre-game at leetch's request? it's a shame....

the first "bring him back" chant should start at around 6:05

[Thunder22]

http://www.nypost.com/sports/rangers/rangers.htm

GARDEN CAN CHEER LEETCH . . . AND RANGERS


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Boston Bruins defenseman Brian Leetch, left battles with Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Luke Richardson.
Photo: AP
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March 20, 2006 -- TWENTY-FOUR months and 18 days later, Brian Leetch will skate onto the Garden ice, wearing the unfamiliar No. 22 on the back of his Bruins uniform.
When he does so tonight - playing on Broadway for the first time since March 2, 2004, one day before he was traded to the Maple Leafs, and for the first time ever against the Rangers - it surely will be a trying time for Leetch and a jarring sight for the Blueshirt faithful.

But though the greatest defenseman in franchise history will no doubt be celebrated spontaneously and often by the crowd - there will be no pre-game video tribute in accordance with Leetch's wishes - the atmosphere surrounding his return will be dramatically different than it would have been had the lockout not wiped out his first scheduled return with Toronto on Nov. 11, 2004.

Had Leetch returned then, his celebration would also have been a condemnation of GM Glen Sather, who was widely vilified both for dealing the 17-year veteran and for doing so without giving the defenseman input into the decision. Had Leetch returned then, chants of "Fire Sather" and "Bring Him Back" would no doubt have dominated the night.

It would have been as much about bitterness as about thanks.

Now, however, the Rangers are a first-place team, and as popular with their fan-base as any team in franchise history. It is impossible to believe the fans will vocally abuse the GM behind the decisions that have their team contending for a division title. It is impossible to believe that, no matter how ardently the fans wish Leetch well, they will wish him to do well enough tonight to help Boston beat the Rangers.

In other words, this won't be, "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!" and the fans rooting for the Red Wings to beat the Rangers (as they did) on Nov. 2, 1975.



The deal that sent Leetch to Toronto represents the signal move of the 2004 deadline purge of veterans that re-set the course of the franchise.

In exchange for Leetch, the Rangers received center Jarkko Immonen, currently a respectable prospect in Hartford; defenseman Maxim Kondratiev, who was flipped to Anaheim for Petr Sykora; a first-round pick in the 2004 draft that was dealt in order to move up and select Finnish winger Lauri Korpikoski, a highly-regarded 19-year-old the Rangers are hoping to bring to North America as quickly as possible; and a second round pick in the 2005 draft that became Portland defenseman Michael Sauer.

As much as this is personal for Leetch - and understandable, given the clumsy manner with which he was informed of the deal, an abrupt phone call from the GM while in his hotel room in Boston with roommate Mark Messier - it was not personal for Sather. It was business.

Just as it was business when - as reported exclusively by The Post - Sather tried to get Leetch back in December, offering Tom Poti even-up for the now 38-year-old, a proposal the Bruins rejected. And just as it was business two weeks ago, when Sather checked with Boston again on the cost of bringing Leetch back at the deadline and discovered GM Mike O'Connell had lost touch with reality.

The reality tonight is this. A member of the family is coming back home to the Garden. And the Rangers are in first place. Cheers.

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[Intel55]

Who??? I am from the USA, what is this "sport" called hockey???