Your Guys (A Minor League Fan's Perspective)

I grew up as a Rangers fan, well, to be truthful I grew up as a Bruins fan, discovered the Whalers when I was young and then converted to the Rangers after college when I started working in New York city. Five years ago I became a conflicted Islanders fan. They brought the Bridgeport Sound Tigers to town and I found out fast that it's impossible to be a fan of a minor league team without caring about the big club.

At first you tell yourself you don't care about the Islanders. All that really matters is that the team you're supporting does well. It doesn't take long to realize that the two clubs are irreversibly linked. An Islander gets injured. You lose your best guy at that position. Someone's not playing so well on Long Island. You lose your best guy at that position. Trade rumors. They might throw in one of your guys to finish the deal, or the trade might be uneven and they call up your best guy at that position.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. You still tell yourself that you hate the Islanders (afterall, they're taking away your guys and don't seem to care if your team wins or loses). No way you could ever become a fan of the team that's wrecking your team's season. But, it starts slowly. You wake up and check the boxscore of the Islanders game to see if any of your guys scored. Soon you find yourself flipping the channels during the Rangers game to see how your guys are doing in the Islanders game. Eventually it gets worse and you're setting TiVo up to record the Islanders games so you don't risk missing one of your guys doing something good. The final piece of the transformation comes when you're searching eBay or Ticketmaster trying to pickup some last minute tickets to tonight's Islanders game because a friend just emailed to say he heard that one of your guys got the call and would be making their NHL debut.

These days the only Rangers games I get to are in the Nassau Coliseum. I rarely watch them on TV, but that might change if Steve Valiquette gets some starts this season. Part of being a minor league fan is following your guys when they make it to the big time no matter where they're playing. Last year I spent the Stanley Cup Finals as a hardcore Oilers fan (Raffi Torres is to blame). This season I'll be watching the boxscores for the Oilers, Rangers, Panthers (Kolnik and Mezei), and possibly even the Flames (Eric Godard). And while I might not be able to read their website, I'm sure I'll become a big fan of Локомотив Яросла́вль (Bergenheim and Grebeshkov's Russian home) this season.

Once training camp gets underway I'll use this space to keep you all up to date on how things are going on the Bridge. I'm hoping to see a big season out of Marjamaki, Regier, Koalska, Comeau, Nielsen and the rest of the guys who spend some time as Sound Tigers. And I'll be looking to you to keep me up to date on how your guys are doing for the Islanders because don't forget Hunter, DiPietro, Nilsson, Campoli, Gervais, Bouchard, and Dubielewicz are my guys too!