Hockey in MSG

Hockey in Manhattan

The NHL season started in the same evening, when we arrived in New York. The City’s own NHL ice hockey team, the New York Rangers, had two home games during our trip. Luckily, we had free time on Tuesday evening and we were allowed to go watch the match against the New York Islanders.  Actually, this was carefully planned in advance; together with seven other girls we bought tickets about four weeks before the game. Unfortunately, the boys weren’t so lucky. They didn’t start looking for tickets early enough and the tickets became too expensive to buy.

       The atmosphere outside the Madison Square Garden, located in the middle of Manhattan, was already incredible. MSG (capacity over 18 thousand seats) was full of both teams’ supporters. It was amazing to see, how different kinds of people had gathered together to enjoy hockey. The supporters were absolutely the 6^th skater and “Let’s go Rangers” echoed in the arena. Three of us managed to end up onto the screen of one the most famous arenas in the world, which just made our day even better.

        To our annoyance the Rangers lost 3-6 in this emotional local match. After the game we headed to the hostel with a couple of fan products, smiles on our faces and a fabulous experience that we won’t ever forget. It was totally worth seeing. A glimpse to the American sport culture was the best way to culminate the last night of our unbelievable week in New York. I truly hope that in the following years students will make the most of their week in NYC, and go to watch NHL like we did.