WINNIPEG

He's still sharp as a tack, able to remember details of a hockey career from 70 years ago.

But 91-year-old Winnipegger Max Labovitch isn't particularly proud to be an alumni of the NHL's New York Rangers these days.

Labovitch, who lives on his own in West Kildonan, says he's the last surviving member of the 1943-44 Rangers, and who are we to doubt him?

The guy's kept in touch with the Rangers alumni all these years, and remembers teammates and coaches like he played yesterday.

So when someone from the alumni called him a few days ago and said they're getting him two tickets to the Jets-Rangers game here, Dec. 18, he thought it sounded like a good idea.

Then they dropped the other skate.

“She says, 'What's your VISA number? They're $180 seats,' ” Labovitch recalled.

He couldn't believe his ears.

“ I said, 'Thank-you very much,' ” Labovitch said. “I'm on a fixed income. I'm almost 92 years old. I'm the last of the Rangers that's still living, and the last of a few other hockey clubs. Thanks anyways, but I don't think it's very generous to ask me to pay for the tickets.”

Labovitch had watched the Philadelphia-Winnipeg game on TV a week ago and seen former Flyer Reggie Leach in the crowd.

He doubts the Riverton Rifle had to pay the Flyers for his seats, and he's probably right.

Visiting teams get an allotment of tickets for every game, either for friends, relatives or alumni, and Labovitch knows that from his playing career.

“I thought that was pretty cheap of my old Rangers,” he said.

It's not like the Rangers are short of money, either.

“Money? They're one of the richest clubs in the National Hockey League,” Labovitch said. “In our day with the six-team league, Lester Patrick kept the budget down pretty good in those days, the Depression years. So they didn't pay very much for contracts. But today you're talking about millions. So it's kind of a sad story.”

Now, Labovitch is no Reggie Leach, and he knows it.

He only played five games with the Rangers' big club that one season, and didn't score a single goal, managing four penalty minutes.

But he's proud as hell of his claim as the first Jewish Manitoban to sign an NHL contract.

“No, I'm no Reggie Leach,” he said. “But I had a pretty good career. I was in Toledo for four years. One year in 1948 we won three different titles.”

Labovitch put up 20 points in 22 games that season, another seven in 13 playoff games, going against goalies like Terry Sawchuk and Gump Worsley.

He doesn't have any championship rings to show for it, though. They didn't do that, then.

“Just a lot of writeups that you can't put in a frying pan when you're hungry,” he said, displaying a wit as sharp as his memory.

The year the Rangers called him up he had 11 goals and 24 points in 24 games with the New York Rovers of the EAHL, and another 16 points in 11 playoff games.

He signed a $3,500 deal with New York that year, 1943, and recalls being one of eight rookies with GM Les Patrick's team.

“I just come up from New Haven of the American League. I was on the first line, played regular, and all of a sudden we're sitting on the bench,” Labovitch said. “He started farming us out. They lost a couple of games, he panicked. Today, you get a rookie you give him a real good opportunity to stay there.

“And he wound up buying old veterans and they didn't do anything that year. In fact they only won about five games.”

Actually, they won six. Out of 50.

And Labovitch never made it back to the show.

By the end of his decade-long pro career as a Rangers farmhand, he was making about the same per week, $225, as the cost of one prime Jets ticket today.

A ticket one of the richest teams in the NHL doesn't want to give him.

“It's very embarrassing,” he said. “I'm disgusted with them.”

I'm not about to tell the Rangers what to do with their allotment of tickets.

But players like Labovitch, from that era of the NHL, are virtually gone -- and forgotten.

I'd never heard of him, until a friend e-mailed me with his story.

The Rangers Thursday night said they'd look into his situation.

Some 72 years after his moment in the sun, is getting one more too much to ask?

paul.friesen@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @friesensunmedia