New Rangers Ice Show: Mamma Mia! or Dark Knight?

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On October 10th, The Tom Renney Show will be opening for its fifth season on Broadway. So far the show has won no Tonys, Oscars, Grammies, or Stanley's. That almost sounds like a musical group or a penalty kill unit that would play at the Garden: Tony, Oscar, Gram, and Stanley.

But this long running, un-nominated, and non-award winning Renney Show keeps packing them into the Garden with the generic promise that the best is yet to come. Recently this perpetually promising Rangers team has finished third (out of five) in the Atlantic division for the last three seasons, and lost in the Eastern semi-finals the last two. Promising but not fulfilling.

And like any long running Broadway show that's grown stale, this one needed a tune-up. So some veteran and controversial cast members have been jettisoned and some promising new comers brought in. These changes have been orchestrated by that stealthy Canadian impresario of the ice Glen 'Tomato Face' Sather.

Sporting a budget of over $55 million, will this year's 'Tomato Face' production of The Tom Renney Show get Mamma Mia! (the movie) reviews? --

• It is not merely that Pierce Brosnan cannot sing Wade Redden cannot play; it is that he looks so uncomfortable doing it.


• The legal definition of torture has been much aired in recent years, and I take Mamma Mia! the NY Rangers to be a useful contribution to that debate.


• Make that Grandma Mia!


• Miscast, poorly shot, possibly choreographed by a spastic eight-year-old, Mamma Mia! is the Rangers are a mess, but it's kind of an impressive mess.


• There might not be anything as utterly dispiriting as watching people pretending to have fun, and that is quite literally the only card the movie has Rangers have to play.


• Brosnan Redden especially looks physically pained choking out the lyrics hits, as if he's being subjected to a prostate exam just outside of the camera's eye.


• Yuck!...the very model of the modern musical comedy--there's absolutely nothing original in it...[and] it looks awful.


• Mamma Mia! This team leaves me sending out an S.O.S., with much of the blame falling to the filmmakers coach. It's more akin to a music video the ice follies than a musical hockey team, and a sloppy one at that.


• You may find that the movie version of Mamma Mia! 2008-09 Rangers team brings out your inner Simon Cowell.

Or will the Tom Renney show receive Batman, The Dark Knight movie reviews? --

• An obvious improvement over its immediate predecessor...


• ..many excellent moments and action set-pieces...


• You will exit the cinema MSG with an enhanced respect for Nolan's Sather's intelligence, for Wally Pfister's Tom Renney's pin-sharp cinematography coaching ...


• Everything you've heard is true... brilliant.


• Heath Ledger's Nikolai Zherdev's performance was a strong contributor, but Christopher Nolan's writing and direction Tom Renney's coaching is the real star.


• Nolan Renney and company did such an incredible job with this and tied up all the loose ends so well, that it's hard to fathom what they could do and where they could go...


• Do not worry about going in with unrealistic expectations. Your expectations pale in comparison with what The Dark Knight is the Rangers are prepared to deliver.

If it is the former, and not the latter, which players will get to sing these songs on the soundtrack:

• "Super Trouper"
• "Dancing Queen",
• "Knowing Me, Knowing You",
• "Thank You for the Music",
• "Money, Money, Money",
• "The Winner Takes It All",
• "Voulez Vous",
• "I Have a Dream"
  
• "SOS - Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find...

You will laugh, you will cry, you will dance in the aisles. The new Tom Renney show opens on Broadway in 69 days... Mamma Mia!

Mamma mia, here I go again
My my, how can I resist you?
Mamma mia, does it show again?
My my, just how much Ive missed you
Yes, Ive been brokenhearted
Blue since the day we parted
Why, why did I ever let you go?
Mamma mia, now I really know,
My my, I could never let you go. _lyrics

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update: Just to be clear, we bare no animosity towards Mr. Sather by calling him "Tomato Face." In fact, Wikipedia and several other websites list that as one of his nicknames. Wikipedia says:

Glen "Slats" Sather (born September 2, 1943 in High River, Alberta) is a retired professional ice hockey left winger ...

Also nicknamed "Tomato Face" due to his perpetually red face during his playing days, Sather was born in High River, Alberta but grew up in Wainwright, Alberta...

This nickname was one we missed when doing our "10 Strangest Old School Hockey Nicknames" article last week. It certainly qualifies and it has been added.

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