It has been a wonderful, crazy and exhausting few months for New York sports fans, and this Saturday could be remembered for generations. The Knicks are playing for a championship a half-century in the making; the first World Cup match in the Meadowlands pits Brazil against Morocco; and, in case anyone forgot, the Yankees and Mets are still in business, too.<\/p>\n
It could be a day that people regale their children with, 32 years from now \u2014 just like the last time the Knicks were one win from a championship and on their way to Texas for the next game.<\/p>\n
It was June 1994, the climax of a wild spring that made New York rightly feel like it was at the center of the sporting universe. But back then, the Knicks were only one part of a singular and bizarre moment in sports history. By the time the craziest day in sports rolled around in mid-June, most fans had already been through a two-month spin cycle of anxiety, joy and pain.<\/p>\n
The Knicks were in the N.B.A. finals for the first time in over two decades. The Rangers, after decades of hockey futility, had finally won their first Stanley Cup in more than 50 years, and the city had an energetic, sports-loving new mayor. The Yankees and Mets played almost every day, the Gay Games were in New York that June and it was also the first time the World Cup was held in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an unbelievable time to be in New York,\u201d said Dave Checketts, the president of the Knicks and the Rangers in the 1990s. \u201cThe city was just electric, and the Garden was at the center of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sound familiar? Actually, there was even more going on in \u201994, because jammed awkwardly into the middle of it all was the hunt for O.J. Simpson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was crazy,\u201d Mario Elie, a forward on the Houston Rockets, who grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, said in an interview last week. \u201cMy own family was watching it.\u201d In the series against the Knicks, he said many of his childhood friends were rooting against him, and that makes sense.<\/p>\n
For weeks, New Yorkers were riveted by the tandem rise of the Knicks and Rangers. From the middle of April until well into June, almost every night one of those teams was embroiled in a tense playoff clash, with half the games at Madison Square Garden, where both teams alternated playing. Night after night, over ice or hardcourt, the building pulsated, and both teams kept winning.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach series, I didn\u2019t think it could get any louder,\u201d said St\u00e9phane Matteau, one of the Rangers\u2019 heroes that season. \u201cBut each time, it did. It was completely wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Knicks to reach the finals, they had to beat the Nets, the Bulls and the Pacers, the latter led by the Knicks archenemy, Reggie Miller. The last two series went to seven games, and the intensity was so raw, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had to intercede.<\/p>\n
Spike Lee, the Knicks superfan sitting courtside, had gotten into a beef with Miller, which seemed only to motivate him. Some fans blamed Lee for the Knicks losing that game, and Giuliani came to his defense. \u201cI think it\u2019s shame he\u2019s being scapegoated,\u201d the mayor said at the time. But the Knicks prevailed in Game 7, while the Rangers did their thing in spectacular fashion.<\/p>\n
The impact of the dual playoff runs supercharged the city, with fans packed into bars and vacuuming team merchandise off store shelves. This was the era of dial-up internet, when the main barometer for a New York team\u2019s place in the city\u2019s consciousness was still the back page of the tabloids. Either the Knicks or the Rangers \u2014 or both \u2014 were on the back page of The New York Post for a whopping 47 days in a row that spring. <\/p>\n