Curse of 1940 The Curse of 1940 was a superstitious explanation for why the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League ( NHL ) did not win the league ' s championship trophy , the Stanley Cup , from 1940 to 1994 . Popular theories . The Rangers began play in the 1926 – 27 season and quickly became one of the league ' s most successful teams , both competitively and financially . They won a division title in their first season of existence and a Stanley Cup against the Montreal Maroons in their second . They would win two more Cups in 1933 and 1940 , both over the Toronto Maple Leafs , and their games were usually sold out . During the 1940 – 41 season , the mortgage on the Rangers ' home arena , the third Madison Square Garden ( built in 1925 ) , was paid off . Hence , the management of the Madison Square Garden Corporation symbolically burned the mortgage in the bowl of the Cup . This led some hockey fans to believe that the Cup , which is regarded almost as a sacred object , had been " desecrated , " leading the " hockey gods " to place a curse on the Rangers . Another theory is that the supposed curse came from Red Dutton , the coach and general manager of the New York Americans , for whom he had once played . The Amerks were actually the first NHL team to play in New York City , beginning play as soon as the Garden opened for the 1925 – 26 season . However , their original owner , bootlegger Bill Dwyer , found the going difficult with the end of Prohibition , and the NHL took over ownership of the team in 1937 . They made five playoff appearances , including a quarterfinal loss to the Rangers in 1929 and a quarterfinal win over the Rangers in 1938 . However , after beating the Rangers , the Amerks fell to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Chicago Black Hawks in the 1938 semifinals , the closest they ever got to winning the Cup . Following the 1941 – 42 season , many NHL players entered the armed forces to fight in World War II . This hurt the Americans more than the other teams , and so Dutton announced his team would suspend operations for the duration of the war . He was named NHL President upon the death of Frank Calder in 1943 , a post he held until 1946 , when he resigned and was replaced by Clarence Campbell . Dutton had resigned the league presidency with the intention of reviving the Amerks . However , the league , with the encouragement of Garden management , reneged on a longstanding promise to allow the Amerks to return . A bitter Dutton declared that the Rangers would never win the Cup for as long as he lived . He died in 1987 , at the age of 88 . At that time , the Rangers were in their 47th season without having won the Cup . The Curse of 1940 " worked " in several ways , some of them odd . The Madison Square Garden Corporation found it could make more money when Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus came to town in the spring . This forced the Rangers , and later the National Basketball Association ' s New York Knicks , to use different arenas at the worst possible time — during their respective leagues ' playoffs . At the time , it was not possible to configure arenas in a way that would allow a circus and a hockey or basketball game to take place on the same day . Hence , the Rangers used Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto as their " home ice " in the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals , and lost to the Detroit Red Wings . This move potentially cost them that year ' s Stanley Cup , a trophy without which the curse story might never have taken hold ; after the Blueshirts took a 3 - 2 series lead on the Wings , the NHL cited an obscure rule stating that a deciding game in a Stanley Cup final could not be played on neutral ice . MLG was labelled " neutral " because its tenants proper were the Leafs . MSG was still occupied by the circus at the time . The Detroit Olympia was thus the venue for the sixth ( although the Rangers were to be designated the " home " team for that match ) and seventh games , both of which were won by Detroit . Also , while Dutton was the league president , he oversaw a 1943 – 44 Rangers team that inherited the title the Americans left behind upon their folding of hardest - hit NHL team by World War II . The Rangers asked the NHL for permission to fold until the end of the war because of their best players ' service in the armed forces overseas — a request Dutton himself had neglected to make before his own team ceased operations , as he had simply folded the Americans franchise . The Dutton - controlled NHL did not honor the Rangers ' request , and so they finished well back of the other five teams that year , with career minor - league goaltender Ken McAuley giving up 310 goals in the team ' s 50 games , a league record for worst goals - against - average that has stood ever since . The closest any goalie since has come to equalling this record is Greg Millen , whose 4 . 70 GAA came from allowing 282 goals in 60 games for the Hartford Whalers forty seasons later . At the time , most fans simply believed the Rangers were victims of bad management , not a curse . The Islanders . The Rangers struggled for several years after World War II ; after their 1950 Finals appearance they only made the playoffs six times in 17 seasons . In 1972 , they reached the Stanley Cup Finals again , only to lose to the Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito led Boston Bruins . Although nothing bizarre happened during the Finals , as has often happened with alleged sports curses , the Rangers had now gone 32 years without winning the Cup . The next season began with the founding of an expansion team playing on Long Island , the New York Islanders . In 1975 , the Islanders qualified for the playoffs for the first time and defeated the Rangers . The two teams squared off again in 1979 , this time with the Rangers emerging victorious . They went on to lose the 1979 Cup Finals to the Montreal Canadiens , but again nothing bizarre was thought to have happened , as the 1979 championship was the Canadiens ' fourth Stanley Cup title in a row . The Islanders won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 1980 , beginning their own streak of four consecutive championships , one more than the Rangers had won in their entire 57 - year history to that point ( after 1983 the Isles had only existed for 11 years ) . During the Islanders ' second Cup run , in 1981 , the Islanders swept the Rangers in the second round . During that series , fans of the younger franchise taunted the Rangers by chanting " 1940 ! 1940 ! " This chant caught on around the league . It was also in the 1980s that the idea of a " Curse of 1940 " began to take hold , with Red Dutton ' s death in 1987 and the occasional publication of the photograph of the Garden mortgage being burned in the Cup ' s bowl ( the third Garden was demolished after the Rangers and Knicks moved into the current Garden in 1968 ) . Also , in 1982 , the Colorado Rockies moved to suburban East Rutherford , New Jersey and became the New Jersey Devils . In 1992 , the Rangers finished with the best overall record in the NHL , earning them their first of two Presidents ' Trophies , but they lost to the defending Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the Patrick Division Finals . Although the Penguins were defending champions , and their victory was hardly a shocking one , an odd moment came when Rangers goaltender Mike Richter allowed a shot from the blue line by Pittsburgh ' s Ron Francis by him . The next season , with hopes high , the Rangers finished last in the Patrick Division , largely because of an injury to defenseman Brian Leetch . In the kind of incident many fans ascribe to curses , Leetch arrived at the Garden in a taxi , stepped out , and broke his ankle when he slipped on a patch of ice , a most ironic injury for a hockey player . End of the Curse . By 1994 , the Rangers had not won the Stanley Cup in 54 years . In that time , championships had been won in the New York area by the Islanders ( four ) , the New York Yankees ( 14 ) , the New York Mets ( two ) , the New York Giants baseball team ( one , and they had been in San Francisco since 1958 ) , the Brooklyn Dodgers ( one , and they had been in Los Angeles since 1958 ) , the New York Giants football team ( two ) , the New York Jets ( one ) , the New York Knicks ( two NBA titles ) and the New Jersey Nets ( 2 American Basketball Association titles , playing as the New York Nets ) . All five other of the Original Six teams collected Stanley Cup s since 1940 : the Habs 20 times ; the Maple Leafs 10 times ; Detroit five times ; Boston three times , and the Hawks one . The Rangers stormed through the 1993 – 94 regular season , scoring 112 points en route to clinching their second Presidents ' Trophy in three years . They swept aside the Islanders in the first round of the playoffs and defeated the Washington Capitals in five games in the second round before meeting the Devils ( whom they had beaten in the 1992 Patrick Division Semifinals ) in the Eastern Conference Finals . Devils fans had picked up the " 1940 ! " chant and the curse myth from Islander fans , and curiously , the hockey seating capacity of the Devils ' home arena , the Brendan Byrne Arena ( later renamed the Continental Airlines Arena and then Izod Center ) , was 19 , 040 . With the Rangers trailing the series three games to two and facing elimination , it looked as though the curse was at work again . However , Rangers captain Mark Messier challenged the New York media by offering a " guaranteed " win in Game 6 : " We know we ' re going in there to win Game 6 and bringing it back for Game 7 . We feel we can win it and we feel we are going to win it . " " The New York Post " and " The New York Daily News " both carried back pages offering Messier ' s guarantee : " We ' ll Win Tonight . " The Rangers quickly fell behind 2 - 0 , but trailing 2 - 1 in the third period , Messier scored a natural hat trick ( three straight goals ) to make good on his guarantee and force a deciding seventh game . The curse threatened again in Game 7 as the Rangers led 1 - 0 and looked as though they were about to advance to the Cup Finals when New Jersey ' s Valeri Zelepukin scored with 7 . 7 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game . But in the second overtime , Stephane Matteau scored on a wraparound goal to give the Rangers the game and the series . The Rangers moved on to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Vancouver Canucks and took a 3 - 2 lead late in the third period of the deciding seventh game . They shot the puck down the length of the ice with seven seconds left . Thinking the game was over , the Rangers poured onto the ice celebration . However , the Canucks touched the puck to stop play with : 01 . 1 left . The officials reset the clock to 1 . 6 seconds and ordered a faceoff in the Ranger zone . Both Messier and Craig MacTavish conferred and came up with a gambit to ensure the Rangers ' win . Both of them , figuring that officials wouldn ' t call a penalty at such a dramatic moment , committed fouls on the final drop of the puck as first Messier , then MacTavish whacked and cross - checked Pavel Bure . The siren and the crowd ' s screams silenced the Russian Rocket ' s protests as the Garden erupted into tears and cheers . As the Rangers skated around the Garden ice with the Cup , a fan at the Garden held up a sign saying , " NOW I CAN DIE IN PEACE . " The fans started to chant " 1994 ! "