Welcome hockey fans to the debut of our Rangers blog, now the home to my and others’ rambling thoughts and occasional insights about the Rangers, the sport of hockey, and mankind as a whole.

Some of you may be familiar with my name, seeing how I have also covered golf for The Journal News for the past several years and also author a “golf blog”:http://golf.lohudblogs.com/ on this site. Though I don’t know this for certain, I’m pretty sure I am our paper’s lone dual blogger, which makes me either A) an invaluable and devoted employee or B) the only guy dumb enough not to get out of doing extra work.

So you know, I’m at peace with either one.

OK, some quick background: While this is my first season as the Rangers main beat guy, I did help out my predecessor, the multi-talented Andrew Gross (who now covers the Jets and has “his own blog”:http://jets.lohudblogs.com/ as well) with coverage over the years; and I have a fairly solid foundation in the sport. I’ve been playing hockey competitively since before I was in grade school, and I continue to be an avid player today.

In fact, if there’s a reason I’m looking forward to being around the Rangers it’s you never know when the team’s upper management might be looking for a 165-pound, unspectacular forward to round out the power play.

Should that happen, I would hope I’d have the story first.

Anyway, it’s an exciting time for hockey in New York, this after the doldrums of the previous decade. The Rangers are again a viable team in the NHL, and the sport as a whole is a faster and more entertaining product. I don’t want to sugarcoat everything: if television ratings are an indication, it’s apparent that the NHL is still struggling to make up the ground it lost during the lockout season of 2004-05. But as someone who been enamored with the sport since before I could read (which, for the record, was not anytime in the past few years), I can’t help but think it has a chance to gather some momentum this season.

I suppose we’ll see. For now, the Rangers have “only been in training camp for a few days”:http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SPORTS0107, but it’s apparent things happen fast around here. The annual Blue and White scrimmage will be played this morning at the MSG Training Center, followed by the team’s first exhibition game tomorrow night against the Devils in New Jersey.

Be sure to check back, because I will be at both to offer my take.

Sadly, though, I won’t be bringing my skates.