Tuesday, September 11, 2012

A Piece of History: Flyers/Rangers 9/20/01

It had been nine days since the world had changed. Nine days since many people of the world who thought no evil like the one the saw on September 11, 2001 had that thought shattered by random acts of terrorism carried out against Americans, where over 2000 innocent people lost their lives. Nine days for people to attempt to get their lives back on track. Professional hockey players included.

I had no knowledge of this before today, as I found this on a Rangers message board I frequent. What I found was nothing much, but it spoke volumes to me. On September 20, 2001, the Rangers and Flyers held an exhibition game. The game was tied 2-2 headed into the 3rd period, and it would end in a tie. Not because the players could not score, they elected not to play.

The 3rd period never began, because President George W. Bush was delivering a speech to the people of America informing them of what has been happening in the past few days. What plans of action are going to be taken, and to reassure the American people that there will be brighter days in the future. There were some current players on the ice for this game. For the Flyers, you can see a recently retired Marc Recchi standing next to a young Brian Boucher at the goal, and on the bench were Ruslan Fedotenko, Simon Gagne, and Justin Williams. And for the Rangers, players like Mikael Samuelsson, Tom Poti, Jason LaBarbera, and Manny Malhotra were possibly on the bench that day. All in the name of getting back to the normal way of life.