Giacomin Is Back Where He Belongs--With the Rangers

After 4,884 days of deprivation, Eddie Giacomin was reissued his New York Rangers sweater. He clutched it to his chest in a way that justified the fans’ reaction to his banishment many years ago. His hockey career, the man decided, now was complete.

Amid cheers and chants that carried Giacomin, his guests and many fans back in time more than 13 years, the Hall of Fame goaltender was feted in a pregame ceremony at Madison Square Garden Wednesday night.

Surrounded by family and former teammates, he received golf clubs, two airplane tickets to Hawaii, a large-screen television set, a sculpture and the honor of having his No. 1 raised to the roof.

Rod Gilbert, whose No. 7 is the only other retired Rangers’ uniform number, lifted Giacomin’s arms in triumph.

But the night belonged as much to the fans, the 17,500 who have filled the Garden faithfully since it opened for business in 1968, as it did to Giacomin. He made that clear with his actions and his words.

The man applauded them even as they applauded him, he blew kisses and he made a hugging sign as they sang their chorus of “Ed-die, Ed-die, Ed-die,” one of the most familiar refrains in the history of the franchise.

“You, the fans, were my inspiration, my motivation,” said the man, now an assistant coach with the Rangers. “You gave me nine, 10 wonderful years. And, believe me, I’m not running for mayor.”

The special relationship between the goaltender and the fans was cemented on the night of Nov. 2, 1975, when he made his first appearance in another uniform. Their support left him in tears even as he was beating his old team.

It was an unprecedented tribute. Giacomin had been showered with garbage in one of his first starts as a Ranger at the old Garden and eventually won over his critics as much with his warm personality and competitive temperament as with his considerable talent.

In the hours before the event Wednesday, Giacomin had fretted that he might not say what was in his heart. “I guess once I get that initial word out,” he said, “I’ll be OK ... But if I could reverse it tonight and put the 17,500 (fans) on the ice and myself in the stands, I would.”

It was the fans he credited with making the ceremony possible, just as it was the fans who told him how much he was appreciated for his decade of service to the team when he skated onto Garden ice in the strange red uniform with No. 31 on the back. “How can anyone forget 1975?” he said. “(The fans) were here on a mission.”

Even today he can remember virtually every moment of that tumultuous weekend, which was the start of a fire sale, the total overhaul of the club.

Informed on a Friday night, Halloween night, by general manager Emile Francis that he had been claimed on waivers by Detroit, the goaltender and his wife stopped at a restaurant for a drink.

“The next day the phone never stopped ringing. I answered every call. There must have been 50 of them. The next day we go to church, and when we get back, people still are calling. The key question is, ‘Are you going to play (against the Rangers) tonight?’ And I can’t answer it. Now supposedly Detroit has been trying to call me, but I haven’t talked to their management. About 1 o’clock I go into the city to meet the team at their hotel. They’re due at 4:30, but they don’t get in until 5:30.”

Doug Barkley was the Red Wings’ coach. “I told him, ‘I want to play,’ ” Giacomin recalled. “He said he was planning to play (Jimmy) Rutherford.” Giacomin convinced him otherwise, setting the scene for one of the most bizarre nights in the history of the Rangers or any other New York franchise.

Giacomin’s former teammates were as moved as the goaltender as chants of “Ed-die, Ed-die, Ed-die” washed down from the blue seats. “I was standing on the other blue line at the start of the game,” said Brad Park, then the Rangers’ captain. “My concentration was not on the fans but on Eddie’s reaction to them. I was feeling for the man.”

By then, the outcome wasn’t in doubt. Buoyed by the crowd in a normally hostile building, the Red Wings raced to a 4-0 lead en route to a 6-4 victory.

In his anxiety to do well, in his emotional state and in the physical effort that was required, Giacomin lost 13 pounds that night. “I didn’t leave the Garden till 1:30 in the morning,” he said, “when the last reporter was done. I got back to my home and there was Park, Fairbairn and (Walt) Tkaczuk. My refrigerator had been emptied. They stayed to 5:30, 6 o’clock. The only reason they left then was because they were going on a road trip. Some trip.”

On Nov. 7, the other skate dropped. Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi were shipped to Boston for Phil Esposito, now the Rangers’ general manager, and defenseman Carol Vadnais. “You’re never prepared for something like that,” Park said. “I had to hang up on my wife because I was crying. You always carry something special for your first team. When you think about a team, you’ve bled for it, you’ve coughed up teeth for it, you’ve been scarred for life for it.”

And, in Giacomin’s case, you’ve given your heart to it. That loyalty was repaid Wednesday night. Better late than never.

“What this means to me,” the man said as he thought about the return of his Rangers sweater and the sight of his uniform number hanging from the roof, “is that I’m going to finish as a New York Ranger. I won’t work for another organization no matter what happens. This is the end of the book on Eddie Giacomin.”

And he lived happily ever after.