Era ends with loss of Albany Devils
"An era in Kingston sports has ended even if it didn’t take place in Kingston, Glenford, Phoenicia or even Rhinecliff." It happened in Albany, which Fischler considers a big suburb of Kingston.
An era in Kingston sports has ended even if it didn’t take place in Kingston, Glenford, Phoenicia or even Rhinecliff.
It happened in Albany, which I consider a big suburb of Kingston. So there!
It so happens that our nearest — and best — professional-level sports franchise is gone. Finis.
Pro hockey has just been buried — dead as the Brooklyn Dodgers — in our State’s Capital. And since Albany is near Kingston, this hurts; big-time.
The Albany Devils were beaten in the American Hockey League playoffs last week
And that was that. Byebye pro hockey in the Capital.
It happened because the parent team — New Jersey Devils — no longer could make a go of it in Albany.
Hence, what once was their Class AAA Albany farm club will next be in Binghamton and what Catskill hockey fan wants to drive that far to see a game?
As a result a glorious epoch ended for we fans who enjoyed the easy drive up the Thruway to see first, the River Rats, then the Albany Devils at Pepsi Arena (now the Times-Union Center) on South Pearl Street.
I speak firsthand about Albany and hockey since that most underrated and un-beloved city once was my second home. First and foremost for family and in Winter for hockey as well.
In 1943, my Aunt Hattie, Uncle Paul and Kid Cousin Ira moved to Albany and invited me up from New York City to see them.
Man, did I love that trip. I’d take the New York Central’s crack “Empire Builder” up to the Capital District every possible vacation, but especially at Christmas time.
The beauty part for me was that Albany was a really cold town in those days -- and I loved lots of ice and snow.
Lucky me, my relatives lived right across the street from one of the neatest parks on the continent. Better still, the vast Lincoln Park ball fields would be flooded in Winter and turned into an endless outdoor. ice rink.
That meant I’d put on my skates, grab a stick, sprint across Morton Avenue and into the park where I could spend a frigid — who cares? — day stickhandling to my heart’s content.
One afternoon a young girl my age happened along with her own hockey stick and we passed and shot the puck for a good hour until she accidentally highsticked me above the eye — and that ended that date.
When World War II ended, the RPI Field House — across the river from Albany — hosted collegiate hockey and the pro variety. It even had a kids league and I talked Cousin Ira to be a goalie there. (That idea lasted a month.)
Soon-to-be NHL stars like collegiate hero Red Berenson would visit with his Michigan Wolverines and the Rangers’ Eastern League farm team, the Rovers, played some “home” games at RPI.
But the RPI Field House was in Troy — not Albany — and it took a while before our Capital City finally got its spanking new arena; downtown just off State and Pearl Streets.
This was a no-kidding-around major league-sized rink, easy to reach for folks in the Adirondacks to the Catskills. Many of my hockey-fan neighbors in and around Kingston loved to check it out for an evening’s worth of entertainment.
Some Albany politicians even had a dreamy idea of
placing an NHL franchise in the new ice palace but reality rejected that idea and it was replaced by the nextbest thing an, American Hockey League franchise.
That wasn’t too shabby since the AHL is regarded as the second-best hockey league in the world.
And so, the Albany River Rats — a New Jersey Devils farm club — was born amid scorn for the clever nickname but admiration for its skill on the ice.
During the 1994-95 season, I had the good fortune to broadcast River Rats games. As luck would have it, the NHL was in the midst of a work stoppage — alias lockout — and my SportsChannel employers wanted to fill the void with hockey content.
For me, coming back to Albany was a homecoming. Although my Aunt Hattie and Uncle Paul had passed away and Cousin Ira had moved to Florida, I still considered Albany my second home.
Before our first game, I drove past 82 Morton Avenue, where they once lived, and then around Lincoln Park, where the baseball fields still were in use, and finally down to the arena just a few blocks from the Hudson River piers.
As luck would have it, one of my former interns, Eric Servitah, was handling p.r. for the Rats and he clued me in on the Devils prospects we’d soon be watching during our telecasts.
At the time, we had no idea who might eventually make it to The Show but it
was fascinating just to see these young aspirants.
Before the opening game, Eric and I camped outside the Rats locker room as each of the aspiring River Rats walked by for a scrimmage.
One by one, Eric pointed out each guy and showed me a blurb he had written about the player’s virtues.
The last one to come along was a peach-faced lad who looked like he might be the stickboy or maybe the son of one of the veteran players.
“Who’s the kid?” I asked Servetah since he wasn’t on the roster.
“We just got him,” he explained. “He’s a Russian kid; name is Sergei Brylin. Don’t know whether he’ll make the team or not.”
Well, little Sergei not only made the Rats varsity, he eventually played so well that Devils boss Lou Lamoriello moved him up to the big team when the lockout ended in January.
P.S. Brylin scored a big goal in New Jersey’s fourth and Stanley Cup-winning game against Detroit in June 1995.
That Fall and Winter we broadcast six Rats home games in Albany at a time when hockey was big in the Capital District, as it should have been.
Coached by Robbie Ftorek, the Rats featured such future Devils as Brian Rolston, Stevie Sullivan, Kevin Dean, Corey Schwab and Mike Dunham.
They’d have classic, fightfilled games with the Rangers AHL Binghamton farm club and occasionally draw enthusiastic crowds over the 10,000 mark.
It was the Golden Age of pro hockey in Albany topped by the River Rats winning the league championship Calder Cup a little more than two decades ago.
Long Island native John Weisbrod remembers it well and I remember John well, as well. Hockey star at Harvard. Weisbrod became a San Jose Sharks prospect until a severe injury prematurely ended his career.
Then, he lucked out when River Rats owner Al Lawrence signed him as the club’s general manager and he’s since held a number of top NHL jobs; now as assistant GM of the Vancouver Canucks.
“I remember those Albany days well,” Weisbrod told me. “We had a small staff — not more than six — and had a lot of different jobs to do. But it was a terrific learning experience for all of us. And what a team we had.”
In order for his club to
win the AHL championship, the Rats had to take on the Montreal Canadiens’ Fredericton farm team in the final. Weisbrod remembered sitting in the Rats dressing room while the players warmed up before the game.
“Suddenly,” John recalled, “I heard some noise from the ice that sounded strange, so I ran out to see what was going on out there.”
What he saw was a mass brawl including a bout involving Montreal prospect, huge Donald Brashear. His foe was Albany’s Reid Simpson, an average-sized forward but who could fight.
Weisbrod: “Once I
saw Reid get the best of Brashear, I knew we would win The Cup.”
And they did. “We drew big crowds after that for a few years. Eventually, I left for other hockey jobs but I’ll never forget my days in Albany and what I learned there.”
Don’t ask me to explain why the ice game eventually failed at in Albany because I don’t have the answer; it just did and that’s that.
For Catskill Area sports fans, it was a hockey era to be enjoyed; and now its all in the books.
There’s nothing much else we can do but simply turn the page and remember
the good times and good fellows like Sully, Dunny Schwabby and Rolly.
But mostly I’ll remember that pasty-faced kid named Sergei Brylin who helped win a Stanley Cup for the Devils on a Spring day 22 years ago at the Meadowlands.
I loved those River Rats and how many of them helped win a first Stanley Cup for the big club in New Jersey.
Author-columnist-commentator Stan “The Maven” Fischler resides in Boiceville and New York City. His column appears each week in the Sunday Freeman.