Ice shavings

Fall is much easier if the Rangers are winning. And they are - thank Christ, they are.

I'm not an obvious fit as a hockey fan - I can't stand any other sports, really. Baseball is tedious, Football is inscrutable. Basketball is gossamer and weightless. I've never analysed why the NHL is different to me. I got hooked the first period of the first game I ever watched on TV, in 1992. Since then, I've been able to go to countless games as a spectator and as press - I covered the Carolina Hurricanes (formerly the Hartford Whalers) for two years with my old paper in Raleigh, NC. Really, I just waved my credentials around, got into the press meal, and watched the game from ice level, vewwy exciting.

I've had the chance to stand next to Mark Messier and ask him stupid questions; I got to see Adam Graves' cock in the locker room. So many of my heroes - Ron Francis, Martin Gelinas, Ray Bourque, Jaromir Jagr (above) - became fully human when I looked them in the eye.

Saturday night, myself and Kenn Beck took in the Rangers-Capitals tilt at MSG, the first game I've actually seen in two whole years. I scored a pair of club seats from work, the only way to watch the sport. The result - a 3-2 shootout victory, the winning goal courtesy of Marek Malik, the lanky Czech rearguard. It was wonderful, so much fun - just a meaningless regular-season game.

And I saw Sheldon Silver, looking very dowdy.