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Rangers embracing Knicks quest for NBA title: ‘city going bananas’
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- Rangers embracing Knicks quest for NBA title: ‘city going bananas’
Rangers embracing Knicks quest for NBA title: ‘city going bananas’
On a beautiful late spring afternoon in Manhattan on Monday, there were Adam Fox , Vincent Trocheck, and Jonathan Quick posing for pictures on their way to Madison Square Garden. Unfortunately, they weren't about to play for the New York Rangers in a Stanley Cup Playoff game Monday. Instead, the trio of Blueshirts were supporting the Garden's other tenant, the Knicks , in Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
Quick rocked a cool Knicks jacket; Fox wore a Knicks tee shirt; and Trocheck's only nod to the teams that play at the Garden was his Rangers 100th anniversary baseball cap. The three took a picture alongside a NYC cop, with Moynihan Hall in the background, about a block from MSG, which was posted on social media.
Fox is a native New Yorker, hailing from Jericho on Long Island, and expects to be a Rangers staple for years to come. Quick, a Connecticut native, retired at the end of the 2025-26 season. And Trocheck is the subject of trade rumors during the Rangers retool this summer. But the three buddies remined united supporting the Knicks.
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Former Rangers legend Henrik Lundqvist , an avid Knicks fan who was in San Antonio to watch them play earlier in the Finals, also was in attendance Monday, as were a bevy of other celebrities, including President Donald Trump . And that's not to mention rabid local die-hards, who've waited 53 years since the Knicks last won an NBA championship, and 27 years since their most recent Finals appearance.
However, the Knicks disappointed, losing 115-111 to the Spurs, failing to put a stranglehold on the best-of-7 series. The Knicks still lead the Spurs 2-1, with the road team winning each contest, heading into a crucial Game 4 on Wednesday.
Even up in Ontario, just north of Niagara Falls, former Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi admitted being swept up in the excitement of the Knicks run this spring.
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"I can just tell watching Instagram clips, all the celebrities there, it's pretty cool. Like the city's going bananas, clearly," Girardi told Forever Blueshirts on the Rink Rap podcast . "Even in 2014 when we were in the Stanley Cup Final, we [the players] can't see what's going on out there (in the city), and I'm sure it was near the same (for the Knicks) … But it's really neat to see the city embracing the Knicks like this."
The closest Girardi came to this level of hysteria in the Big Apple during his 11-season tenure with the Rangers, as he pointed out, was their thrilling run to the 2014 Stanley Cup Final, the organization's first Finals appearance since winning the Stanley Cup in 1994.
"Thinking back to 2014, it was just an amazing time. You really couldn't go any where without being noticed, obviously the playoff beard gives you away pretty quick," he explained with a chuckle. "I remember riding around in one of those bicycles (pedicabs), sitting in the back with my family and people yelling "Let's go Rangers! Let's Go Girardi!" I'm just down by Central Park thinking I'm just going to hang out and have a good day off, but it was pretty funny.
"Obviously, I was born and raised where I am living now but at the time I left the Rangers (in 2017), I had lived a third of my life in New York, a bunch of time in New York City and a couple of years out in Rye, that's a third of my life lived in New York. So I'm proud to be a New Yorker, an honorary one. Both my kids were born in New York City. So, New York does hold a special place in my heart and it will forever."
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Girardi noted that the "1994 guys are legends for life" in New York for winning the Cup. And the same will hold true for the Knicks if they can take two more wins against the Spurs.
"Hopefully it (a championship) happens again for the Knicks. It's once in a lifetime for a lot of these fans. It's great to see them uniting the city. And obviously up here people are always asking me if I'm watching the Knicks, because they know I played in New York, and all my son's friends are watching. So, yeah, it's trickled all the way up here."
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