Winter Wishing

Seeking evidence of phantom winter, I went to my first Rangers game for the season tonight. The walk to the subway was cold, promising. The crowd was New York right too, booing the 12 year old boy introduced as the game's honorary member of the crew that cleans the ice during commercial timeouts; naturally screaming "No" when the scoreboard message from Benny asked Gail to marry him (in the third period we saw the happy couple as the Jumbotron informed us "she said yes") and cheering the bald guy in the 400 seats who dances after a fashion to a sound bite of rock at every game during the third period. We also applauded Cyndi Lauper, in attendance and still having fun as her signature song played. I always thought she should have been the one instead of Madonna, but she wasn't. So it was a fine facsimile of winter, and with snow predicted for tomorrow night maybe the real deal to follow, except for the Rangers who spent the evening firing shots straight at Andrew Raycroft's midsection, never followed a rebound and lost to Toronto 2-1. What I've learned between this season and last -- the fastest route out to the subway in the endless corridors of Penn Station.