They Might Be Giants

These are hardly the best of times for New York sports fans. Madison Square Garden, formerly known as one of the most exciting sports palaces on the planet, has been transformed into a tomb under the nonleadership of James Dolan. The Knicks have to improve to qualify as a laughingstock; the Rangers are mired in last place in the National Hockey League’s Atlantic Division. The New York Jets recently put the finishing touches on a truly awful 4-12 season. As for the 2007 baseball season, the less said the better.

But all is not lost, sports fans! Out of nowhere, the Giants are one win away from earning a berth in the Super Bowl. They play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night for the National Football Conference championship

Only a few months ago, the Giants were written off as terminally mediocre, or worse, after starting the 2007 season with two straight losses. Coach Tom Coughlin was said to be one loss away from the unemployment line. Fans were making plans to tar and feather quarterback Eli Manning of the Famous Football Mannings. Even when the Giants made the playoffs with a 10-6 record, critics insisted that the team just got lucky.

As the sage of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, once said, luck is the residue of design. Those lucky Giants defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs. O.K., said the skeptics: Just wait until the Giants play the Dallas Cowboys, the class of the N.F.C. The Giants won, 21-17. Credit the coach and players for going about their business without paying attention to critics. And give credit to the team’s co-owners, the Mara and Tisch families. They never panicked, they never delivered back-page ultimatums, they never threatened anybody’s job.

New York sports fans have to relish Sunday’s matchup with the Packers. The two teams have a storied history, the linchpin of which is Vince Lombardi. the Fordham University graduate learned how to coach as an assistant with the Giants during the glory years of the 1950’s, and then went on to become a cultural icon as the head man in Green Bay.

In the middle of a dreary sports winter, New York has a reason to cheer: The Giants and the Packers, in a championship game. Just like the good old days.