I had a lot to learn.

I remember when Aaron Voros was waived and a few days later he was in the locker room. I was a little puzzled, since in the NFL if they waive you, 10 minutes earlier you’d been hustled out a back door by armed guards.

I asked him and he explained to me that it was different in the NHL, why he thought the Rangers did it, and that he expected to stay on the roster.

Darn human of him. And that’s what it was like for the most part, people wanting to talk about a sport they really love.

This blog is such a terrific community. I love the way you guys stick around and talk hockey, bust on Josh and make progressively obscure Seinfeld references.

And reading your comments helped me in the job as well. If I knew you guys were looking for an answer on something, I’d try to find out and throw some audio in there so you’d get a sense of how it was said. I consider myself the straight man to Carp, with his 79 years on the beat. (Sorry, Carp…)

I certainly expect to be back covering sports, and I hope that means more playoff hockey at Madison Square Garden. In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter.com/janesports and I’ll still be following Tortorella and his antics, and probably starting a roller derby blog. (See above pic, that’s the sneer I’ve been working on!) It’s been fun reading you guys there as well, like Sally, Nasty and @LadyBlueICU.

And now I must return to my first job, as an architect (OSR).

I’m including a few audio clips. He talked about how his relationship with coach John Tortorella is coming along and address Colton Orr’s replacement. Here’s what he had to say about Donald Brashear.

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And this is about the benching during the playoffs being the best thing to happen and what’s happened with the coach in the offseason.

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As for the Rangers offense, “I think it’ll be dictated by how we do in camp,” Avery said. “There are lots of lines that don’t have the most skill guys in there and they score goals.”

And now you can return to your previously schedule discussion of Nik Zherdev and the offense.

They didn’t have a reason for me, so I started wondering if it was a deep-seated hatred of children or some sort of juicy incident at his new nightclub that kept him away, but the Rangers checked and turns out it was something as mundane as an inbound flight that was delayed.

That’s not nearly as good a story as Jay-Z and Avery going mano-a-mano over which celeb has the best hangout in NYC.

Avery is still scheduled to visit the campers later this week. Honestly, they didn’t seem too disappointed since it was their first day and they were getting a lesson from Adam Graves. Yeah, no tears there.

....

Gordie Clark’s work has been pretty much done for weeks.

The Rangers’ director of player personnel has been listening to nine scouts – three in Canada, three in the U.S. and one each in Sweden, Slovakia and Russia – debate the relative merits of hockey talent at every amateur level all over the world.

He has watched hours of film, talked to agents and held spirited meetings with his staff. Yet, when the NHL draft begins tonight at 7 and is shown live from Montreal on Versus, Clark (left) does not know who the Rangers will take with the No. 19 pick in the first round.

“This draft is more like waiting to see if someone we really like slips,” Clark said.

First off, the wish list. The Rangers have been looking for a playmaker since last year’s free agency. The team scored 200 goals last season, with only the Islanders (198) and Avalanche (190) getting fewer. The Rangers were seventh in the league with 2,658 shots on goal, but had the worst percentage (7.5), which means a lot of pucks missed their targets.

“There’s no question that we would love to have someone who could be a potential goal-scorer,” Clark said. “That would be our No. 1 priority.”

However, at No. 19, the Rangers don’t have a lot of control over the situation. If they chose to use the pick rather than trade it away, Clark’s options are completely dependent on what the first 18 teams decide.

So as Clark watches the draft board evolve tonight, Rangers general manager Glen Sather will be talking to other team executives about possible trades.

“Glen will come in and work the other GMs while he’s here,” Clark said. “He’ll say there’s a possibility of moving up, or even say there’s an existing player we’d like, and maybe we’ll make a trade.”

What makes that a little more realistic is the relative quality of the draft this year. Clark said the 2003 draft was a pretty rare event with its quality players, but this draft won’t have that kind of depth.

“There is no real Crosby in this draft,” he said.

Teams with the top 10 picks are pretty unlikely to trade, so what happens in the second hour of the draft could get interesting. It’s happened before. In 2005, the Rangers traded up to get Marc Staal, then a teenager.

“There’s so much more to go on in their lives, and our job is to project what they’ll be like when they are a man,” Clark said.

The draft is expected to last about three hours, and if all goes well, Clark estimates the Rangers need to be ready about 9 p.m.

But that is all beyond the research that Clark puts into approaching the draft.

“By Friday, it’s pretty much over,” Clark said.

UPDATE: This release just put out by the NHL.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / JUNE 26, 2009

TORONTO/NEW YORK (June 26, 2009)—The National Hockey League Players’ Association and the National Hockey League announced today that the Team Payroll Range established for the 2009-10 League Year, pursuant to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, provides for a Lower Limit of $40.8 million, an Adjusted Midpoint of $48.8 million and an Upper Limit of $56.8 million.

“Unlike the Wings when Steve was there or the Devils when Lou was there, this was our one shot at it,” Leetch said. “We never got back to the finals, we never won another Cup with that group. And the Rangers are still trying to get back to that point. So it’s a single season that sticks out in a lot of people’s minds in the New York area.”

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Leetch also described the impact the 1980 Olympics had on his decision to play, and how much more imprtant a goal that was than the NHL.

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And remember, please don’t text and drive unless you have a hands-free device or are about to be named to a Hall of Fame in your chosen field. Here, Leetch describes where and how he found out he had been chosen for this year’s class.

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ALSO ON THE TICKET: Former Rangers goaltender and commentator John Davidson was selected as the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award recipient for his broadcasting.

I really liked The Esteemed Doodie Machetto’s idea of taking the last day of my tenure in Carp’s absence to write out favorite moments from the season.

Mine was Adam Graves’ night. I was there with Carp that evening, and it was my first Rangers game as a writer. (I’d been to a bunch as a fan when the law firm I worked in had corporate seats in the 1990’s, a lifetime ago. Yes, I was one of the people in the really good seats who came for the beer, the seats were next to Janet Jones. Unfortunately the job was soul-sucking, but I digress…)

Carp obviously knew Graves, who played during the 63-year span Carp covered the Rangers. He even wrote the program notes for the Garden that evening. I was struck by how moved the crowd was when Graves spoke. How everyone stood for the whole thing, and how grown men were literally wiping tears from their eyes.

I am a sucker for scenes like that.

Feel free to add your own, be it a win, a coaching change or watching someone get slammed to the boards.

And by the way, I informed Josh of what’s going on here, and he nodded his 26-year-old, disembodied head sadly. Actually, he laughed and said this was a pretty fun goup of people. So there.

UPDATE: If you were looking for something to do tonight, Sean Avery is opening his new club, Warren 77 tonight. Not sure if Rangers jerseys are proper attire.

Hockey can’t last forever. and eventually all players have to retire. Now if you’re Mark Messier or Adam Graves, that probably means a lot of charity work, trips to the Bahamas and nights at the Garden to see your number hanging from the rafters.

But what about everyone else?

If your favorite Ranger had broken his leg in his first year of junior hockey and joined the chess team instead, what would he be doing today? For example, (and I’m borrowing here) Paul Mara would be on some fishing boat in Maine where he catches lobster with his bare hands, cooks it over an open fire and then chops down a few trees.

His teammates?

And a Ranger in action, press release below:

Ron Duguay and Ken Daneyko will host a special edition of their weekly SIRIUS XM Radio talk show, Ice Breakers, alongside guest host Sean Avery, from the NHL Powered By Reebok Store on Thursday, May 14, to discuss the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs. It will be today from 5 to 7 p.m. at the NHL Store in Manhattan, 47th St. and 6th Ave.

Before he left on “vacation,” Carp suggested I do a little something to reflect how much he and I really enjoyed covering the Rangers after Sam Weinman left, so here goes.

When the playoffs started I went down to the Garden to do a fan story, where I looked for local people to talk about how they had gotten tickets, what they thought the Rangers could do in the postseason, pretty basic. I ran into this woman who was soaking wet from riding the Rangers double decker bus. She had been sitting in the upper deck despite the rain just to scream her head off in Times Square before Game 1.

Carolyn Lawler was her name. Great to talk to, aspiring sportswriter. I wrap it up and she said, “Are you Jane?” She was a blog reader. I was there with Carp (the photo is from that game) and between us we had about dozen people come up to us to say hello, give us their screen names (What up cml, Raider, L.I. Joe) and talk about the Rangers. I guess then I realized that the blog was as much about give and take as the actual Rangers are with their fans. It’s a different kind of interaction than I’ve seen in other sports, more personal.

So this has been a really cool experience. When Sam left, we weren’t so sure we wouldn’t get booed out of the room. We had some typos in the beginning trying to get stuff out as fast as we could, and you guys were great about pointing it out without making us feel like total boneheads. (Boneheads?) Short story, Carp and I have loved doing this.

So I thought I’d take Warren Mason’s idea and call for your stories about the best and worst interactions you’ve had with a Ranger. I know I’ve seen some posts on this over the last few months, I think a lot around the time of Adam Graves’ night, but clearly you guys can tell a story as well as we can.

That, or free agent speculation or whatever else you want to add.

No. 1: The first time I walked into the Rangers LR it was with The Great Sam Weinman. TGSW had been covering the beat for three years and knew everyone. He was really cool about introducing me to a couple of different players and coaches. Scott Gomez, Tom Renney, Paul Mara, Henrik Lundqvist, Chris Drury and Brandon Dubinsky made small talk for a few minutes and told TGSW how much they would miss him.

About five days later I was sent to cover a game. I hadn’t seen any of them since, but when I walked into the locker room to do postgame interviews after a loss, one person passed by and said, “Hey Jane, welcome back.” I thought hockey players really deserved their reputation for being so friendly. Who was that person?

No. 2: I was covering a game in the Garden against Ottawa and doing a sidebar on a Senator (if I say who it’s a dead giveaway), who is engaged to a woman from our area. They are getting married in Westchester this summer, so I was trying to flesh out the story a little bit when I noticed the guy played college hockey in the same town as one of the Rangers.

It was a 2-1 loss and after the game I went to the locker room to get general quotes and seek out the Ranger to see if he knew the Senator. The Ranger wasn’t in there, so I asked a PR rep to see if he’d come out from a back room and he did. There was a large crowd of press who also wanted to talk to the Ranger, but he knew I’d asked for him so turned to me first. I asked if he knew the Senator given the possible connection and he said, “You called me out here for that?”

I thought possibly hockey players were not as friendly as I first thought. Who was the Ranger?

No 3: This Ranger always stays late at practice, and is one of the last guys to come off the ice. He is also pretty engaging, and will talk about one of his favorite shows, Gossip Girl, with anyone who knows him well enough to ask.

Who is the Ranger?

First one to get all three right gets a media or postseason guide. (I think Carp has an extra!) Also, I am officially on Twitter. Follow janesports to see all my updates on the Rangers, the Jets and my debillitating writer’s block which I write volumes about.

SPOILER ALERT: Due to a request I will post the anwswers up here. Dave was the first to get all three, with Justin close behind. No. 1 was Paul Mara, No. 2 was Chris Drury and No. 3 was Aaron Voros.

Anyway, I consulted with Nasty 1 about the best way to get started this week and he suggested that everyone try to come up with a song that best describes each Ranger. I’ll give an example, Colton Orr = “More Human than Human” by White Zombie.

Just seems to fit his temperament. Or maybe that Rage Against the Machine song with lyrics unfit for a family blog.

Anyway, feel free to riff on that or anything else, and I’ll chime in from time to time. And thanks for the roller derby links. New York City’s league, Gotham Girls, will be playing all summer if you miss seeing a NY team slam someone to the boards.

UPDATE: Thanks to a poster for emailing me about the reports that Nik Zherdev broke his hand playing at the World Championships. Unfortunately, the original report seems to be in Russian, so I will see if I can get that confirmed.