Rangers Daily: Dolan’s a champion after hard-earned lessons with 2 teams
Ironically, it took 54 combined seasons of sports ownership for James Dolan to finally become a champion. That’s 27 seasons owning the New York Knicks and another 27 as New York Rangers owner (including the 2004-05 campaign lost to the NHL lockout).
Of course, 54 is an ironic number since the Rangers went 54 years before finally ending their Stanley Cup championship drought in 1994. That’s was before Dolan’s tenure as owner, but still relevant. The Knicks, as you may have heard, just won their first NBA title in 53 years, with Dolan securing his first championship of any kind since taking over running Madison Square Garden’s co-tenants in 1999.
When he joined Knicks players, coaches, and staff on the portable stage in San Antonio this past Saturday, after they knocked off the Spurs in five games of the 2026 NBA Final, Dolan apologized on national television to the fans back home.
The first thing he said publicly after winning this championship was, “Hey New York, I’m sorry it took so long, but here we are, and hopefully it won’t take that long again.”
Knicks fans — and the Blueshirt Faithful — clearly agree. The Knicks last made the NBA Final in 1999; the Rangers reached the Stanley Cup Final once under his stewardship, losing in five games to the Los Angeles Kings in 2014, and their Cup drought now sits at 32 years.
“My whole career, the whole time I’ve been with owning the team, I’ve tried to learn, right? And some of those lessons came pretty hard, sure,” Dolan said Wednesday during an in-studio interview on WFAN. “And I wish I was smarter or knew how to do it better, right? But I did finally. I mean, I can’t say I’ve got it all figured out, but we did win a championship. And I wish I knew then what I know now. Back then, [27] years ago, I probably would’ve made a lot of different decisions, but, you know, I’m sorry it took so long.”
One of his first major moves as dual sports owner was to fire Neil Smith as Rangers general manager. Yes, the very same Neil Smith who was the architect of the 1994 Cup champs, the only Rangers team to win a championship in the past 86 years and counting.
We don’t know if he ever regretted that decision, and it certainly wasn’t asked by host Craig Carton during the WFAN interview Wednesday. In fact, the Rangers were never mentioned during Dolan’s 40 minutes or so on the air. No reason to kill the Knicks buzz by talking Rangers, who just completed a second consecutive season missing the playoffs. We understand, it does make sense.
By and large, the Knicks have always been Dolan’s first love, and the Rangers are the little brother, so to speak. In some ways, that’s been good because Dolan’s been a bit more hands-off with the Rangers. Where the Knicks had 10 GMs since Dolan became owner, the Rangers showed more stability with just four different general managers. Not shockingly, the Rangers had more success — after some brutal early years under Glen Sather — winning the Presidents’ Trophy twice and reaching the Eastern Conference Final five times since 2012.
But back to Smith. He was canned after the 1999-2000 season, New York’s third straight of the playoffs, replaced by Sather.
Here’s how Smith explained it to Forever Blueshirts on the latest Rink Rap podcast.
“It took us until 1998 to start to fall, so that’s four years of pretty good [after winning the Stanley Cup in 1994], I mean we went to the Final Four in 1997, and then we started to miss the playoffs when we were supposedly trying to rebuild the team, get back and replace the assets we’d given up to get the Cup,” Smith explained. “Nobody understood that. Ownership changed, and ‘Why aren’t we doing better? Why are we missing the playoffs?’ The explanation wasn’t bought by the people who needed to buy it. And so out goes the only regime to win the Cup in 54 years, and by then 60 years, and in came people who knew how to win the Cup in the ’80’s.
“So, expectations become more unfair than they used to be. Anything [I] did when I got there that was smart, it only had to be smart, was brilliant. After you win the Cup, smart moves were just blase moves because everything changes.”
It’s funny in a way that Dolan showed so much patience with Sather and, now, appears to absolutely love Drury. And let’s see if Dolan’s patience grows since his championship thirst finally was quenched — albeit with the Knicks — or if he’s even hungrier for the Rangers to match what their Garden brothers did this spring.
Is the clock ticking on Drury, or has his runway been extended? Time will tell.
In the meantime, enjoy the Knicks parade down the Canyon of Heroes on Thursday, and dream on the Rangers one day soon doing the same.
New York Rangers news and analysis
So what does it mean that Vincent Trocheck hired powerful agent Pat Brisson, and how will that affect the Rangers should they try and trade the veteran center this summer?
Using the Benchrates model, our Ryan McInerney breaks down some surprising results as to which Rangers players were overpaid and underpaid this past season.
Former Rangers GM Neil Smith offers up plenty of insight on why it’s so difficult to win a championship in New York, no matter the sport.
NHL news and rumors
Sportsnet: Nick Kypreos reports that Connor Hellebuyck may want out of Winnipeg, and that the Florida Panthers are trying to find a way to sign their goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky, before he becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1.
Vegas Hockey Now: The Golden Knights moved quickly to name Ryan Craig their new head coach.
TSN: Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon explained why Vegas granted fired coach Bruce Cassidy permission to speak with only one team about its coaching vacancy this offseason.
San Jose Hockey Now: Sheng Peng breaks down the Sharks trade to acquire defenseman Michael Kesselring from the Buffalo Sabres.
Sportsnet: Luke Fox gets into why the Toronto Maple Leafs hired Jim Hiller to be their new coach, after a lengthy extensive search.
New Jersey Hockey Now: James Nichols breaks down why Ottawa Senators defenseman Jordan Spence is a solid trade target for the Devils this offseason.
Daily Faceoff: Spencer Carbery and the Washington Capitals agreed on a contract extension to keep the coach in D.C.
TSN: The Boston Bruins will retire Patrice Bergeron’s No. 37 next season.
