“BISHOP TAKES KING” and “FORZA NINO!!”
#914/#913
914. NEW YORK RANGERS VS TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS
GAME FIVE
MAY 24, 2015
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
QUALITY OF PLAY—7.25
DRAMA—7.54
STAR POWER—5.88
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—7.66
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—6.25
LOCAL IMPACT—8.03
TOTAL: 42.61
“BISHOP TAKES KING”
Usually, taking a hockey puck in the balls leads to very bad things—I speak from experience here. But for Ben Bishop, goaltender for the Tampa Bay Lightning, it turned out to a sunny omen.
The Rangers were the best team in the NHL in 2015, following their Stanley Cup Final defeat in 2014 with the President’s Trophy. They walloped Pittsburgh and survived a test with Washington to each the Eastern Conference Finals for the third time in four seasons. “King” Henrik Lundqvist was the totemic figure as usual in goal, and five different players scored 20+ goals. New York was agog with Cup Fever over these months, certain the Blueshirts would win for the first time since 1994 and second since 1940.
Tampa was good, not great, in 2015, but made the conference finals after besting Detroit and Montreal. In Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, the ‘Ning had more firepower than the Rangers, and had beaten them all three times they played in the regular season (the Blueshirts only lost 22 times all season). But the Lundqvist vs Bishop factor made New York the favorite. Big Ben stood 6’7”, making him one of the tallest goalies ever to lace ‘em up, was in his seventh season with his third team—and this was his initial playoff foray. He was good all year, and shut out Detroit in Game Seven in the first round, but he was certainly no King Henrik.
Bishop played well in a split of the first two games at the Garden, but was beaten for five apiece in Games Three and Four (Tampa won one of them 6-5 in overtime). He was riding a cold spell when the series returned to Broadway for Game Five, held on Sunday night, May 24, 2015.
And then Bishop took one in the jewels during pregame warmups, courtesy of a shot from Kucherov, supposedly his comrade in arms. After several moments of extreme pain on the ice, Bishop managed to skate off under his own power. But observers figured another five-goal beating was in the offing.
Instead, the Rangers never came remotely close to beating him.
The Lightning weren’t exactly explosive, but they scored a pair of goals in the second period. Stamkos set up Valtteri Filppula for a smoking wrist shot that bested Lundqvist, and then he scored an easy power-play goal late in the period himself. Meanwhile the Lightning penalty killers were dominant, and the 26 shots the Rangers managed were easily turned aside by Bishop, with a shorthanded chance by Rick Nash resulting in the best save of the night. The game was over in astonishingly short time—just two hours and 17 minutes, a crisp affair that was mercifully quick for the sellout MSG crowd, which included Kevin Dillon of “Entourage” “fame.” You got the feeling had the game gone another 2:17 the Rangers still wouldn’t have scored. “By the third period this felt like Game 30 of the regular season even though it was Game 99,” wrote Pat Leonard in the Daily News.
Tampa won 2-0 and returned home up 3-2 and a game away from the Stanley Cup Finals.
AFTERMATH
The Rangers bombed Bishop and the Lightning 7-3 in Game Six, but as he had done all season, Big Ben shook off defeat. He pitched another shutout in Game Seven, stunning the Rangers in Game Seven at MSG 2-0 (again). Bishop became the first goalie to ever have two Game Seven shutouts in the same playoffs in his first postseason (and only Tim Thomas and Patrick Roy had done it in any season). Tampa went on to lose the Cup Finals to Chicago in six games.
And another year clicked off without the Rangers winning it all.
WHAT THEY SAID
“In Game Four we judged ourselves by how many scoring chances we got. I think if we’re going to win this series we need to judge ourselves by how many scoring chances we’re giving up.”
—Jon Cooper, Lightning head coach
FURTHER READING:
Facing Elimination the Rangers Expect to Go Home for Game Seven by Allen Kreda, The New York Times
VIDEO:
913. EMILE GRIFFITH VS NINO BENVENUTI
MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
APRIL 17, 1967
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
QUALITY OF PLAY—8.10
DRAMA—8.52
STAR POWER—6.52
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—6.90
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—5.47
LOCAL IMPACT—7.11
TOTAL: 42.62
“FORZA NINO!!”
Emile Griffith is one of the more underrated fighters to enter the ring at Madison Square Garden or any other venue. Twice named Ring Magazine’s Fighter of the Year and holder of title belts in three weight classes, the Virgin Islander is—sadly—best known for killing a man during a fight, Benny Paret, who had hurled gay slurs at Griffith before their 1962 brawl (to be discussed later in the list—also the subject of a heavily hyped new opera). That was the third fight between the two welterweight rivals. Emile moved up to middleweight in time to fight a memorable trilogy with an entirely different boxer than the Cuban pepperpot Paret.
His name was Nino Benvenuti of Trieste, Italy, and their first encounter at MSG resulted in a fight described by the Daily News as “fifteen of the most exciting rounds the Garden has seen in a long, long time.”
Benvenuti was voted the outstanding boxer of the 1960 Rome Olympics, besting Cassius Clay, among others, and became the European middleweight champion. Little-known in the U.S., he looked like a “muscular Beatle,” thought one ringside reporter upon his arrival in New York weeks before tangling with Griffith. Nino trained in a little slice of Italy in the Catskills called Villaggio Italia, where he endured a bizarre training program brainstormed by his manager, a WWII vet named Libero Golinelli.
Libero had Nino drink a “concoction of fruit juices, milk and a touch of cognac” every dawn, then run ten miles before sitting down to a classic Italian lunch of pasta and red wine. He played tennis, shot skeet, and read books (Voltaire, The Old Man and the Sea) for the rest of the day. Gym work wasn’t much in evidence, save for an exercise that involved Golinelli pelting Nino with rubber balls, some striped, some solid red, with the fighter whacking the stripes and ducking the reds. It prepped him for Emile’s quick hands. “If Libero cannot hit me throwing balls, can Griffith with his fists?” Nino pondered.
Nino also evinced some Euro sangfroid in discussing the upcoming engagement with the feared Griffith. "When I step between the ropes,” he told Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated, “the hard part is all over, and if I feel that I am sufficiently prepared, I fear no man. I know Griffith is a good fighter and his style will be new to me, but I am then in my own world and I would not care if he stood on his hands and fought me with his feet. I would know what to do.”
Fight night was Monday, April 17, 1967, with Griffith a solid 13-5 favorite, presuming he fought with his fists and not his feet. A large throng from Little Italy turned out, replete with flags and horns and numerous Italiano chants. At the opening bell, Nino rewarded his supporters with a fast start, using his height and reach advantage to jar Emile with jabs. Early in the second round, he nailed the champ with a stiff uppercut to the heart, once that bounced Griffith to the canvas. Emile rose at four, not hurt but angry, and he returned the favor in the fourth round, blasting the Italian with a looping right hand to the jaw that left Benvenuti sprawled over the middle rope.
Nino took an eight-count, but was allowed to continue. Griffith went “right-hand crazy,” as he said after the fight, and was unable to land the finishing blow. Nino survived the round, and was noticeably peppier in the fifth. Griffith was frustrated through the middle rounds by the challenger’s strong defensive effort. Surprisingly, at least to most who had seen Griffith maintain high energy through fifteen rounds before, the champ started to wilt, while the European was the one who carried the action. Nino dominated the final rounds, jolting Griffith with several left hook/right uppercut combos.
The fight went to the judges, and the action-packed brawl was a one-sided decision in the end—two called it 10-5 and the other had it 9-6., for the winner and new campione del mondo, Nino Benvenuti!
AFTERMATH
Benvenuti scarcely made it back to the locker room before he endured a vomiting fit, sickened less by Griffith’s body shots than the emotions of the evening. He recovered in time to head over to the fabled Mamma Leone’s Ristorante on 48th Street, where he gave a victory speech thanking his family for his success. Back in Trieste a few days later, he was given a parade in his honor through the streets of the port city. The police were on strike but returned to duty for a few hours for this example of la dolce vita.
Griffith was so anxious to get back in the ring with Nino that he went to sign the papers agreeing to the rematch without checking the payday first (fortunately manager Gil Clancy snatched them up and made sure all was in order). The two met in Shea Stadium in September, and Griffith got his vengeance, dominating in a majority decision (one judge mysteriously thought it a draw). Naturally, a rubber match was in the offing. Griffith-Benvenuto III took place March 4, 1968, in the grand opening of the new MSG. That fight will appear later on the list.
WHAT THEY SAID
“[Benvenuti] may have achieved the most impressive debut in America for any Italian since 1492.”
—Tex Maule, Sports Illustrated
FURTHER READING:
“Arrivederci, Nino Benvenuti” by Tex Maule, Sports Illustrated
VIDEO: