On August 16 in Rangers history: Happy birthday Eddie O!

What happened on August 16 in the history of the New York Rangers

August 16 is not a notable day for the New York Rangers, but it is the birthday of one of the most colorful and well known Blueshirts alumni.  Of the 20 NHL players born on this date, the only one who played for the Rangers is the one and only Eddie Olczyk, known as “Eddie O.”

Olczyk is commonly introduced as a Stanley Cup winner with the 1994 Rangers, but he was really the ringleader of the “Black Aces,” the extra players who suited up and practiced with the team during the playoffs, but rarely saw any action.  That playoffs, they were Olczyk, Nick Kypreos, Doug Lidster, Mike Hartman and Mike Hudson along with back up goalie Glenn Healy.

In an interesting bit of trivia, although all of the Black Aces have their names engraved on the Stanley Cup, Olczyk, Hartman and Hudson didn’t qualify and the Rangers had to petition the NHL to get them included.  The criteria is a player has to play in at least 40 regular season games or in the Stanley Cup Final.   Those three did neither.  In fact, Olczyk was the only one of the three to even appear in the playoffs, getting into one game during the Conference Finals.

So Olczyk gets the moniker “Stanley Cup winner” whenever he is introduced. Does he deserve it?  Why not.  After all, you cannot blame him for ending up on Mike Keenan’s blacklist.

The Chicago native was a center, born on this date in 1966.  He was the third overall pick in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft, only the 10th U.S. born player to get picked in the first round in NHL history and only the fourth to be pick as high as third overall.  He was selected by his hometown Chicago Black Hawks

He played only three seasons in Chicago before he was traded to Toronto and then Winnipeg before ending up with the Rangers in 1992, traded for Tie Domi and Kris King.  He missed half of the 1993-94 season with a thumb injury and found himself a spectator for most of the playoffs.  Still, he was very popular with his teammates (though not coach Mike Keenan) and he won the Players’ Player Award that season.

It was after the Rangers’ won the Cup that Olczyk became embroiled in a controversy.  When it was his turn to spend the day with the Cup, Olczyk, a horse racing enthusiast, took the chalice to Belmont Park to see Go for Gin, the winner of the Kentucky Derby.   He posed for pictures with the horse and trainer Nick Zito with the proceeds going to charity and that’s when the fateful picture was snapped of Olczyk apparently feeding the horse out of the Cup.

Hockey purists were outraged, claiming that Olczyk had besmirched the reputation of the Cup and prompting a media backlash.  Meanwhile, Eddie O steadfastly has maintained that he never put any oats in the Cup and that picture was one of many and it was just one when Go for Gin put his head into the Cup.

Considering what some recent Cup winners have done with the Trophy, the uproar seems kind of ridiculous now.

Olczky went on to coach the Penguins for less than two unsuccessful seasons and ended up in the broadcast booth for NBC.  He recently declared himself cancer free after a bout with colon cancer.   As a player, he appeared in 1,031 games scoring 342 goals and 794 points for six different teams.  As a Ranger he played 103 games with 18 goals and 40 points.

Happy birthday Eddie O!