New York Cinderella Teams: '54 Giants, '68 Jets, 2007 Giants, and 2009 Rangers

The New York Rangers may be the best Cinderella story in New York City since Maid In Manhattan, but how do they compare with the  2007 New York Giants, the 1968 New York Jets, and The New York Giants of 1954?

Before the 2009 New York Rangers, the 2007 New York Giants were the most recent Cinderella story in the Big Apple. In the playoffs, the Giants stunned the top seeded Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers.

Maid in Manhattan was a Cinderella story set in New York City. The New York Rangers Are The Best Cinderella Story Since Maid In Manhattan movie was a 2002 romantic comedy about a hotel maid and a high profile politician who fall in love, starring Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes, based on a story by John Hughes. A senatorial candidate falls for a hotel maid, thinking she is a socialite when he sees her trying on a wealthy woman's dress.

Like a lot of Cinderella stories, the moral of of the movie is that the bigger your dreams are, the better the chance they may come true.

The 2007 New York Giants season was a real Cinderella sports story. The Giants finished the regular season 10-6, improving upon their 8-8 record in 2006.

The Giants qualified for the playoffs as a wild-card team at the number 5 seed, they beat the No. 4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the top-seeded Dallas Cowboys as well as the No. 2 Green Bay Packers to become the National Football Conference reps in the Super Bowl.

In the big game, they beat the AFC Champion New England Patriots. In one of the most significant upsets in Super Bowl history, the Giants won 17–14. In doing so, the Giants became the first NFC wild card team to win a Super Bowl.

The 2007 New York Giants became the 9th wild card team in NFL history to reach the Super Bowl and the 5th wild card team to win the Super Bowl.

New England led 14–10 with 2:42 left in the game. The defining play of the game came on a third down with five yards to go from the Giants 44-yard line with 1:15 remaining.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning avoided a sack and completed a 32-yard pass to wide receiver David Tyree, who made a leaping catch by pinning the ball on his helmet. It put the Giants at New England's 24-yard-line.

Four plays later, New York wide receiver Plaxico Burress caught the winning touchdown with 0:35 left.

Before that, the 1968 New York Jets had a Cinderella season when they beat the heavily favored NFL champions the Baltimore Colts. The team had the most successful season in franchise history. Trying to improve upon their 8-5-1 record in 1967, they won the AFL Eastern Division with an 11-3 record.

The Jets defeated the Oakland Raiders in the AFL Championship game, 27-23, and earned the right to play in Super Bowl III against the NFL champion Baltimore Colts.
In the Superbowl, the Jets had a stunning upset. It was marked by quarterback Joe Namath's famous "guarantee" of victory. He said "The Jets will win Sunday. I guarantee you."

The Jets defeated the heavily favored Colts 16-7. The Jets win was one of the greatest upsets in football history. By defeating the Colts, the Jets showed that the AFL was ready to compete with the NFL.

Baseball has given New York a couple of Cinderella teams as well. The New York Giants of 1954 swept the Cleveland Indians in the 1954 World Series. That was one of the greatest World Series upsets in baseball history.

In game one of the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds, Willie Mays made "The Catch"—a dramatic over-the-shoulder catch off a fly ball to deep center field. At the time the game had been tied 2–2 in the eighth inning.

The underdog Giants went on to sweep the series in four straight, despite the Cleveland Indians having won an American League record 111 games that year. That was the last World Series victory for the Giants.

The New York Mets won their first ever title in 1969 after finishing last or next to last for years, beating the heavily favored 109-win Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.
Loved by New York fans despite their losing ways — or because of them — the Mets of the early 1960s became famous for their ineptitude.

In 1965 former Yankee great Yogi Berra came out of retirement to join the Mets as player–coach. He only played four games but he coached the team to greatness.
In 1966, the Mets chose future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson in the draft. The Mets acquired top pitching prospect Tom Seaver in a lottery and he became the league's Rookie of the Year in 1967. The Mets remained in last place.

The Mets began the 1969 season with an opening day loss of 11–10 to the expansion Montreal Expos. The Mets sat in third place, ten games behind, but piled up one victory after another, winning 38 of their last 49 games.

They took first place with a 100–62 record for the season, their first winning year ever. The "Miracle Mets" or "Amazin Mets," as they became known by the press, went on to win a three-game sweep of the Atlanta Braves in the very first National League Championship Series.

The Mets were given very little chance in the 1969 World Series, but the Mets' pitching shut down the Orioles after that, holding them to just five runs over the next four games, to win the World Series 4 games to 1.

The term "Cinderella team" comes from the ending of the fairy tale Cinderella, and it implies unexpected success after a period of obscurity.

Year after year, the New York Rangers got big name players, paid them lots of money, and their fans watch the stars fizzle. Even the Great One, Wayne Gretzky, looked merely mortal playing for the Rangers at the end of his career. Gretzky's assists and points were in triple digits for most of his career, but he had 97, 90, and 62 points with the Rangers.

The Buffalo News claimed that, "Every year, the Rangers seduce the hockey world with their big-ticket players only to watch them come up small. Former Sabres captain Chris Drury is included in a crowded group that has underachieved."

Drury hadn’t been a $7.1 million player on the ice. He had 15 goals and 37 points and was minus 10 through 59 games this season, putting him on pace for his worst season since the lockout.

Scott Gomez, pocketing $8 million, was on pace for 55 points and had no goals during a nine-game stretch before scoring his 11th.

Markus Naslund, making $5 million, had three goals and eight points in a 20-game stretch. Defenseman Wade Redden, $8 million, the supposed answer to their power play, hadn’t had a five-on-four point since November 19.

The three, plus Drury, were a combined minus 43.

Goalie Henrik Lundqvist was rated 17th in goals-against average (2.53) and save percentage (.913) and he was making $7.75 million this season.

All told, that’s five key players averaging $7.17 million, putting the team hard up against the salary cap. That was about $5 million more than the NHL average salary and a big pile of money for an underachieving team.

The New York Rangers got off to a great start, with Drury, Gomez, Naslund, Redden, and Lundqvist, going 10 and 2, to start the 2008/2009 season, after losing fan favourites Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka, Brendan Shanahan, and Sean Avery.

They went from first place to the last playoff spot and suffered a serious mid-season slump. They went 2 and 10 and then fired the coach, brought back Avery, and picked up Nik Antropov at the NHL Trade Deadline.

Suddenly, they stopped losing, started scoring, and went on a winning streak. First the new and improved Rangers beat the lowly Colorado Avalanche and New York Islanders, who were in a race for last place in the NHL, but then they beat the league leading Boston Bruins.

A big part of the story was the return of Sean Avery, who was a spark plug for the Rangers when he joined the team two seasons earlier. After leading the league in PIMS for two seasons, he cut down on penalties by 65% and scored some important goals. He  was called the Superpest and King of the Agitators.

He provided the hockey world with an unforgetable moment in the first round of the playoffs against the New Jersey Devils when he took "screening the goalie" to a new level and inspired the NHL to invoke The Avery Rule for unsportsmanlike conduct.

At the end of the season, Jagr went to the KHL, Straka went to the Czech Extraliga, Shanahan went to the Devils, and Avery signed with the Dallas Stars.

Avery did not fit in with the Stars. Dallas dumped him after the NHL suspended him and sent him to anger management but he played his way back with the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL and rejoined the Rangers just before the trade dealine at the start of March.

With the addition of Tortorella, Avery, and Antropov, the sleeping Rangers woke up and started scoring. Wade Redden ended a 57 game scoring slump and Gomez got going, too.

“I’m not doing what I was brought here to do,” Drury told the New York Daily News after a 5-2 loss to Philadelphia. In the big win over Boston, Drury almost had a Gordie Howe hat-trick, with a fight and an assist. He was playing with real emotion.

After winning the game against Boston, the Rangers team gathered at centre ice, backs to each other, faced the fans in the stands, and raised their hockey sticks in salute, while the Rangers faithful roared their approval.

It was an emotional moment that signaled the end of the Rangers slump, the start of their turnaround, and what looked like the beginning of a Cinderella season.

With sixteen games to go before the playoffs, the Rangers are fighting of the Carolina Hurricanes and the Pittsburgh Penguins for the final playoff spot. They were on their way out of playoff contention, so if they make it, they may have had a Cinderella season.

If they meet and beat the Boston Bruins in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, as they did on Sunday, March 8, it will definitely be a Cinderella season.

And if they go all the way and win the Stanley Cup, the 2009 New York Rangers will have a Cinderella season to be compared with the  2007 New York Giants, the 1968 New York Jets, and The New York Giants of 1954.