Ice Hockey · 1994 · New York, USA
The Rangers End 54 Years of Waiting
Having guaranteed a win to force a Game 7 two rounds earlier, 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 so long it had become a running joke and a genuine source of civic frustration. 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 itself 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 before the Rangers held on.
Messier lifted the Stanley Cup in front of a Manhattan crowd that had waited 54 years for the moment, ending one of the longest championship droughts in North American professional sports at the time. His willingness to guarantee victory two rounds earlier, and then produce it, cemented his reputation as one of the sport's great leaders.
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