Rangerade - Where's Gene Leone When You Need Him?

The New York Rangers need to win 2 consecutive games against the Washington Capitals if they hope to advance to the 2nd round of the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Perhaps they need some Rangerade.

You probably have heard the Gatorade story. The popular worldwide sports drink started out as a student experiment at the University of Florida in 1965 to give the school's athletes - The Gators - optimum performance through hydration and electrolyte replacement. Now Pepsi owns it and it is popular amongst athletes and non-athletes alike right around the globe.

Well in 1951 a New York Rangers fan tried to make up his own concoction to help out his hockey team. Gene Leone, owner of Mama Leone in Manhattan at the time, created a "magic elixir" that would, he promised, would turn his slumping Rangers into winners. Players were said to take just a sip out of a large black bottle before each game.

And it worked! Well, it worked briefly. The Rangers went on a 11 game streak where they only lost 2 contests. The mysterious mix was the talk of the hockey world. The Toronto Maple Leafs are said to have even tried to have the bottle seized when the Rangers crossed the border!

The magic of the elixir was short lived. Soon enough the Rangers returned to the bottom of the standings.

The Rangers also hired a hypnotist by the name of Dr. David Tracy to instil positive images and confidence in the players before they played a game against Boston. The Bruins won that game, and that was the end of that experiment.