Madison Square Garden has lost its soul

I’m a Rangers fan. Since I first watched hockey, I’ve bled red, white and blue.

For me, and many thousands like me, heaven looks a lot like Madison Square Garden, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street, right there in the bustling heart of Midtown Manhattan.

Heaven sounds like the blaring goal horn, and 18,000 singing the Rangers’ goal song with lung-bursting enthusiasm.

Walking into the Garden is an absolute privilege – there’s so much history there.

Jordan dropped 55 on the Knicks in 1995 and Kobe Bryant bettered that with 61 against the Knicks 14 years later; the Rangers broke The Curse and won the Stanley Cup in the spring of 1994; Frazier and Ali contested the Fight of the Century in 1971 and a rematch three years later; and anyone who’s anyone in the music world has played its famous stage.

On top of that, the venue envelops you as soon as you come in off the street.

I had the pleasure of being at the Garden watching the Rangers twice during the week before Christmas – Wednesday against Sidney Crosby and the Penguins and Friday night against John Tavares and the Islanders (both, unfortunately, losses for the Blueshirts).

I’ve seen the $1.07 billion dollar renovation that, over three summers, has completely transformed the inside of the arena into one of the most beautiful and advanced sports facilities that you’re likely to find anywhere in the world, whilst maintaining its signature low roof design inside and the cake tin-like exterior.

Inside and out, the ‘new’ Garden is undeniably spectacular, with perfect sightlines and the impressive Chase bridges that sit high over the ice to provide a very unique view of hockey.

But something was nagging me during both games. We’re talking about the Rangers’ crosstown rivals, the Isles, and the Penguins, whom no New York hockey fan likes.

And it was quiet. Too quiet.

I’ve been at Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings games, plus a Lakers NBA contest whilst out in Southern California in the last month, and I was horrified the other night to think back and to realise that those crowds were louder than the ones I was apart of at the Garden.

I went to both Rangers games with friends who’d never seen hockey before.

They’d heard about Madison Square Garden, of course – it’s one of the more famous destinations in New York City – and I was disappointed when they told me that they preferred the atmosphere at the games we saw out west.

It kills me to think that brand-new/non-traditional hockey markets have a better atmosphere than a place where hockey has been a part of the fabric of the great city ever since the formation of the National Hockey League.

It hurt more to hear it because I’m a Rangers fan and because I remember when Madison Square Garden was a place no opposition team wanted to come into.

Back when Jaromir Jagr was captaining the Rangers in the late 2000s and into the early years of this decade, the Garden crowd was imposing, even scary at times.

Opposition fans were made to feel uncomfortable, in the best possible way, because the parochial support for the Rangers was overawing.

The Rangers faithful were loud, sarcastic, biting, humorous and most certainly not afraid to voice their disapproval of its own team – a New York City staple – the officials and opposition fans at every opportunity.

As a Rangers fan, it was an electric place to watch a game. You could take someone to their first hockey game at the Garden and they’d come away a fan for life.

The first time I went in there and saw those retired jerseys, Ranger greats, hanging above the sheet of ice, I was hooked by that atmosphere, and swept away by it. You could tell that our enthusiasm lifted the Blueshirts on the ice.

Yes, the crowd had its loud moments last week, particularly when the Rangers put the puck in the net, but it didn’t last for long.

The “Crosby sucks” chants happened, of course, but they didn’t happen often. They booed him when he touched the puck…but not for long.

Not like it used to be – continuous booing that stopped only for the length of a derogatory chant.

One thing for certain is that there wasn’t the same sort of continuous noise that’s made Chicago’s United Centre such a tough place for opposition teams to play.

In the Windy City, they start screaming at the first note of the national anthem and don’t stop until well after the horn’s gone to end play. It hurts me to say it, but I will anyway – United Centre is the best place in the United States to watch a hockey game, and by a long way.

Why have things all of a sudden changed in Madison Square Garden? I think I have some idea.

I mentioned above the billion dollars’ worth of renovation that’s transformed the famous venue. For mine, that’s what’s causing this problem.

Back before the beginning of the refurbishment, you could get a pretty good seat low down close to the ice for a reasonable price – I know, because I have done so on many occasions. Not anymore.

The Dolan family, owners of MSG, have an enormous $1 billion dollar bill that’s burning a hole through their accounting ledgers – it’s a bill that needs to be paid, and paid quickly.

The easiest way to accomplish that, of course, is to raise prices across the board.

Everything is more expensive at Madison Square Garden now – you name it, it’s seen a hike.

Worst of all are ticket prices. They’ve been driven clean through the Garden’s famous roof and into the stratosphere.

Great seats in the lower bowl area are now far too expensive for your working class fan, and it’s not just tickets, but everything else you need to purchase at a game: food, drink, maybe a program, a t-shirt (or more, if you’re a tourist and want something to remember your Rangers game by), transport to and from the Garden…everything.

If you’re with a family, you’re outlaying some serious cash for the game day experience.

So, who takes over those seats close to the ice that are too expensive for your working class hockey fan? The type of attendee that every real fan dreads to see come in and take over their turf – the dreaded corporates.

It mirrors what’s happened at Air Canada Centre, where the Toronto Maple Leafs play before quiet crowds that have become infamous for being quiet and, dare I say it, timid.

At the two games I saw, conservatively, I’d say the bottom bowl was at least 80 percent corporate types. The types who see Rangers and Knicks games as ways to network and hobnob with potential business associates and generally press the flesh in a city so much a focal point of local and international business dealings of all sorts.

That leaves the real fans relegated to the nosebleed seats, which is what lessens the overall noise in the arena.

We sat in the 400s both times – not bad seats but not ice-side, either, and were surrounded by jersey-wearing fans.

Down in the lower bowl, when they bothered to arrive well into the first period, there were suits as far as the eye could see.

It’s infuriating. They barely look up from their champagne or Heinekens when the Rangers scored, and a scant few sang Slapshot with the rest of us.

The sound down there was flat. Up high, we were loud and into every hit, pass, shot and save, especially on Friday night when the Isles were in the house, but probably too far away for our noise to be properly heard out there on the ice.

Is this the end of the Garden being a feared venue for road teams?

It used to be an absolute fortress for the Rangers. Not anymore, sadly.

Can we dare to hope that once James Dolan and the powers-that-be at MSG have recouped what they outlaid for the all-out renovations they will make ticket prices a little easier for the regular, everyday fan to afford than they currently are?

It would help grow hockey, and the more people attracted to this great game, the better.

A drop in ticket and food prices and you’ll open up the lower levels of the Garden to the diehard fans, just like it used to be.

That’ll change the atmosphere inside the venue in a New York minute!