Mike Celizic

"The NHL is hot, the NBA is not." Sports Illustrated actually printed that headline 13 years ago — and not on April Fool’s Day.

Talk about your cover jinxes.

Whether you think 13 is unlucky or not, it’s been long enough for the National Hockey League, the all-but-ignored stepchild of major American sports. The league’s been through a season-destroying lockout and has emerged with a salary cap and liberalized rules. It’s got an up-and-coming superstar or two and the same blurringly fast game that it’s fans think is the greatest in the world.

What it needs now is what it had in 1994, the year of that now ludicrous-sounding headline: the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup finals.

You know there had to be some private cheering in the league’s home office when the Rangers, who had to fight tooth and nail just to make the playoffs, steamrolled the Thrashers in the first round of this year’s playoffs. The Broadway Blues, who posted their first playoff series win in a decade, looked nothing like a team that barely deserved to be there.

Rather, with a hot young goaltender named Henrik Lundqvist stopping everything he saw and most of what he didn’t see, two grizzled veterans names Brendan Shanahan and Jaromir Jagr, and a really annoying forward named Sean Avery, the Rangers looked like they could take on anyone.

For NHL executives, it doesn’t matter what they really think of the Rangers.

They could be as ardent fans of the Rangers as Karl Rove is of Sheryl Crow.

They’d still be pulling for New York to keep pumping out heart-pounding wins and driving toward the Cup.

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They have no choice. It may be shallow, and it may be an insult to all the other deserving teams from all the other Cup-hungry towns, but it’s true. If the NHL is going to regain some of that sex appeal is had in 1994, it’s got to have the Rangers.

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It wouldn’t be nearly this desperate if any other of the big-name teams were doing their part, but they’re not. The Boston Bruins, once as proud a franchise as there is, has been dreadful for years, determined not to let the Celtics be the most miserable team in town. The Canadiens, who have won more championships than any team not named the Yankees in any sport, haven’t been to the finals in close to forever. Toronto can’t get it done. Chicago’s Blackhawks are run as badly as the Arizona Cardinals, the L.A. Kings are still looking for an identity, and Philly’s once-feared Broad Street Bullies have devolved into the worst team in hockey.

It’s great to have upstart teams and small-market Cinderellas get their day in the sun now and then. Detroit’s trip to the World Series last year was an absolute treat, and I still feel warm inside thinking about the Twins two World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. In the NHL, the Penguins were from a small town, but the presence of Lemieux and their great offense elevated them far above their humble home.

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