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Proud To Be OTG

by Mark Sherr

I’m sure that I, like many of you, stumbled upon the Outside The Garden website by accident. Being a diehard New York Ranger fan, I would get most of my Ranger information by logging onto newyorkrangers.com. Approximately one year ago at this time, I was trying to obtain information on the upcoming 2006-2007 season. I was hoping to get the latest preseason roster developments, but if you have ever logged onto nyr.com looking for the latest news, you know you�re wasting your time. So the ensuing search begins. The first pot of gold I found was Blueshirt Bulletin. Wow! A website by ranger fans, for ranger fans. The links on Blueshirt Bulletin led me to other great NYR sites such as Sam Weinman�s Ranger Report and Hockey Rodent, but the real gem turned out to be Outside The Garden.

Outside The Garden. What a great name for a website devoted to the team I love. Look at all of these incredible stats, columns, and links. What’s this forum button? Wow, hockey chat divided into many categories and threads. Upon further exploration of this wonderful site, I was amazed at how much information there was available, how well thought out the layout was, and how easy it was to navigate. I immediately registered as Steady Eddie. Now if I had to do it all over again, I would have chosen a different, more contemporary handle, but in my anxiety to register, Steady Eddie (for Eddie Giacomin, my childhood hero) was the first thing that popped into my head. I had registered around the same time another newbie had registered. We immediately hit it off on the ‘Memory Lane’ threads. JButler17 had become my first internet friend. Many others soon followed. Much to my wife’s dismay, after dinner time soon became OTG time.

For me, this all coincided with my first season as a NYR season ticket holder. After every game I would rush home to read the OTG game thread that I had missed. Thanks in part to OTG, I was able to impress my neighbors in section 340 at MSG with the new wealth of knowledge that I had just obtained from my fellow OTG posters. You guys really know your team, and collectively could put all the New York sportswriters to shame. I actually got a chance to meet some of you at a few games.

As the season went along, the team started to falter. It looked like the playoffs were getting farther and farther out of reach. I tried to remain optimistic, but after the February 24th loss to Columbus, even I gave up hope. Then along comes my fellow OTG poster Dash. He starts a forum thread in the OTG’Mess Hall’ category and names it the ‘Official [Delusional] Optimists’ Thread. Okay, no big deal, but this thread brought in all the optimistic posters at OTG. All of us pessimistic posters stayed with this thread, and eventually jumped on the proverbial ‘bandwagon’ as the team pushed closer and closer to making the playoffs. This thread became the most popular thread on OTG, and the rally cry for the band of brothers all of us at OTG had become. Can you say AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH? It turned out to be a positive season. A season in which many of us were more than satisfied with the end result. I wish all of you could have felt what I felt after the game 6 loss to the Sabres, when the Ranger players saluted the fans at center ice. I’ll be honest; the chill went right through my spine.

What’s the point of this article? Really, just to thank all of my brothers at OTG who make this place a fun place to hang out. Most of all, thanks to Fish for developing and maintaining OTG. Oh, and thanks to even you BelieveMe. Every court needs its jester. I am more optimistic about heading into this season, and look forward to sharing all the excitement with my band of brothers at OTG.

Thank you all,
Mark Sherr

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