Ice Hockey · 1994 · New York, USA
The Rangers End 54 Years of Waiting
Two rounds after publicly guaranteeing a win to force a Game 7, Mark Messier lifts the New York Rangers to their first Stanley Cup since 1940.
Rangers 3-2 Canucks (Game 7)
Result
1940 (54-year gap)
Previous Cup
Mark Messier
Captain
The New York Rangers had not won the Stanley Cup since 1940, a drought long enough to be both a running joke and a genuine civic grievance. Facing elimination in the 1994 Eastern Conference Final against the New Jersey Devils, captain Mark Messier publicly guaranteed a Game 6 win, then delivered a third-period hat-trick to make good on it.
The Rangers advanced and met the Vancouver Canucks in the final, a series that also went the distance. Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on 14 June 1994 finished 3-2 to New York, with the Canucks pressing hard in the closing minutes and the Rangers holding on.
Messier lifted the Stanley Cup in front of a Manhattan crowd that had waited 54 years for it, ending one of the longest championship droughts in North American professional sport at the time. Guaranteeing the win two rounds earlier and then producing it is why his name still comes up whenever leadership in the sport is discussed.
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