They are inextricably linked. Forever.
Linked by one monstrous double-overtime goal and three words: “Matteau, Matteau, Matteau!’’
They’re also the most direct link there is to the last true glory days for the Rangers — the kind of end-all glory days this year’s team is chasing as it plays the Panthers in Game 2 of the East final on Friday night at the Garden trailing 1-0 in the series.
gives the thumbs up as he poses for a photo with broadcaster Howie Rose at the
Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan, where they participated in a panel
benefiting the Stephane Matteau Foundation and Mount Sinai Hospital, Dept. of
Urology with bladder cancer research on behalf of Howie Rose. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
Stephane Matteau and Howie Rose might as well be related, because they’re brothers forever.
And to think: They didn’t even know each other before the “Matteau, Matteau, Matteau’’ call.
Rose’s iconic radio call of the Matteau goal that defeated the Devils in Game 7 of the 1994 conference final to send the Rangers to the Stanley Cup Final feels like it’s running on a continuous loop — particularly at this time of year with the Rangers chasing the elusive chalice.
We hear it everywhere, and it never, ever gets old.
Unless you happen to be a Devils fan.
“We experienced a moment where we were brought together by fate, like Ralph Branca and Bobby Thomson had their connection for far different reasons,’’ Rose said Thursday. “This was a case where somebody gave me a moment that basically shaped my career and is obviously the highlight of his career as well.’’
Rose, along with Matteau and his Rangers teammates Mike Richter and Adam Graves, as well as former Devil Jim Dowd and former Islander great Pierre Turgeon, convened at a Manhattan venue Thursday for a panel discussion to raise money for the Stephane Matteau Foundation.
Matteau started this event to also raise money for Mount Sinai Hospital’s Department of Urology, which helped save Rose from bladder cancer.
That’s how intimately intertwined the two are to this day.
Rose said the “Matteau! Matteau! Matteau !’’ call “is never anything I take for granted, it’s never anything that I’m passive about when I hear it. I listen to it. I allow myself to drift back into the moment. And yeah, I feel the euphoria. I feel the chills, because not so much that I made the call, but because of the moment.’’
For Matteau — who played on six different NHL teams and was a midseason acquisition by the Rangers in ’94 because he’d played for Rangers coach Mike Keenan in multiple places — it was a moment that changed his life.
“It didn’t change my life right away, because I kept playing,’’ Matteau said. “I played a few more years after that, but it’s when I became part of the alumni that I became aware of the impact that the ’94 players had on the fan base over the years.
“It’s just been amazing. I have my school programs here in New York, and that goal led me to the doors I don’t think I would have been able to get in had it not been for that moment.’’
Asked if he ever wonders what his life would be like right now had he not scored that goal, Matteau said, “It’s a question I get sometimes and I start crying right away, because I’m fortunate that I did score and a lot of good things happened in my life because of it. I cherish it, and I don’t take it for granted.’’
Matteau and Rose reminisced about the fact that, in the heat of the moment as the goal was being scored, neither one truly knew whether it was scored off the stick of Matteau or Esa Tikkanen, who was crashing the front of the net as Matteau took his wraparound shot on Devils goalie Martin Brodeur.
“Howie was a guy that had great vision,’’ Matteau said. “I don’t know if it was a lucky call or a lucky goal, because Tikkanen almost touched it. Howie had the vision and thankfully he made the right call. If you look at the replay, the puck was inches away from Tikkanen’s stick.’’
Rose recalled the moment with some element of angst. He recalled being right above the “Willis Reed tunnel’’ at the Garden, which was not a perfect place to broadcast hockey because it was too close to the ice.
“In an ideal sense, you would like to be able to go higher up,’’ he said. “But your powers of concentration as a broadcaster are so acute and so sharp. In that situation, my eyes were almost magnetically glued to the puck.
“It wasn’t until after I finished yelling his name 1,000 times and watching the replay that it even occurred to me that Tikkanen might have gotten the goal. Because when [broadcast partner] Sal Messina was breaking the play down on radio, he said that could have been Tikkanen.
“Now I’m like, ‘Oh s–t.’ ”
Thankfully, his eyes had it right.
“My name will always be linked to his name,’’ Matteau said, “and vice versa.’’