Post by Declan on Aug 15, 2009 22:15:43 GMT -5
On the Web site of FDNY Engine Company 231, there is a message announcing the birth of two children to members of the house. There is a family's somber note of thanks to the Watkins St. house for providing an honor guard at the funeral of a retired division commander from E231.
And there is one more item that catches the eye: "All Members Of Watkins St. Are Now Officially NY Ranger Fans!"
"Congratulations," the message reads, "to the newest member of the NY Rangers - Chris Higgins, who happens to be the son of Captain Bobby Higgins E231!" And finally: "The men are hopeful in anticipation of a 'Stanley Cup visit to Brownsville' sometime in the near future!"
"Hockey and firemen," Bobby Higgins says with a chuckle. "Always a pretty solid pair right there."
But for a father of five who goes from one family to another when he leaves home to go to work, it's the hockey part of the equation that gets complicated. The Flushing native has been a die-hard fan of the Montreal Canadiens since 1965, which worked out rather conveniently after Chris was drafted by the Habs with the 14th pick in 2002. During that draft, Bobby was shifting in his seat in the Air Canada Centre as the picks were being made, not because he was nervous for his son, but because he was thinking, "Oh geez, am I going to have to start rooting for the Phoenix Coyotes or something?"
This ain't Phoenix, but it is finally time for all the Higgins men to come home and leave Montreal behind - quite literally, in one case. After four seasons with the team he grew up loving because of his dad - "If he wanted to eat, he was rooting for Montreal," Bobby says - Christopher Higgins, the kid from Smithtown, L.I., who took his first hockey steps at the Suffolk Police Athletic League, the son of an NYC fireman and the brother of an NYC cop - is coming home to play for the Rangers, grabbed by Glen Sather in a seven-player deal that shipped Scott Gomez north. What the trade did for the Rangers was rid them of enough salary to land prized free agent Marian Gaborik on the first day of free agency, while also bringing in a winger with scoring ability in Higgins and an intriguing blue-line prospect in the University of Wisconsin's Ryan McDonagh. What the trade did for the Higgins clan was bring a salt-of-the-earth New York family back together again.
And what was Bobby Higgins' first reaction? "Heartbroken," he says. It took time to absorb the fact that his beloved Canadiens had traded away his son - he was driving when he heard the news and had to pull his car over - but once it sunk in, a picture began to emerge: three Higgins men working the night shift in New York City, all decked out in a shade of blue.
"At the end of the day, that's an absolute thrill," Bobby says. "As a family, I've felt we've been a little fractured with (Chris) being up in Montreal those years. He's home now, and I count that as one of our blessings."
What Bobby Higgins counts as the true blessings in his life seem to fit under two roofs: there is his home of nearly 30 years in Smithtown, where he and his wife Sue raised five children - Jeannie, Christopher, Kevin, Katie and Robert. And there is the two-story brick firehouse on Watkins St. in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where "the old man," as his kids are fond of calling him, has served as captain for the last 11 of his 30 years in the FDNY.
Only once a year do those two houses compete for his loyalty: When Bobby, a hockey player himself who used to play on the FDNY team, attends the annual FDNY-NYPD clash at Nassau Coliseum and watches his other son Kevin hit the ice in, good grief, NYPD blue. Bobby may bend to support Chris' team these days, but Kevin's team? Forget it.
"My mom is always a little nervous (at the game), she doesn't know which side to sit on," Kevin says. "Dad isn't."
Kevin Higgins is a fourth-year officer in Manhattan's Midtown North precinct who "had the Police Department sighted since he was a kid," Bobby says. "Which makes him the black sheep of the family." It will also make him a familiar face around the Garden this season. Kevin's precinct begins 11 blocks north of MSG, and he doesn't punch in until midnight. Translation? "Every game," Kevin says he'll be attending. "Chris already knows I'll be his biggest ticket burner."
He may see light competition from Chris' college buddies who went to Wall Street, and from a family that hasn't had Chris around for winter since he was 13. At 14, Chris left for Avon Old Farms in Connecticut - Brian Leetch's prep school - and after that came Yale, a move he calls "the best decision of my life. In my house it was school first, hockey second."
Except, perhaps, when the Canadiens come calling. The Habs traded up in the first round of the 2002 draft to grab the All-American at No. 14, and after a sophomore season in which he was a Hobey Baker finalist, it was time to go pro.
"That was totally crazy," Bobby says of the '02 draft. "I never really envisioned Chris playing in the NHL. I figured he might get to play a few seasons in Europe before joining the real world."
The real world, of course, is where Bobby and Kevin Higgins work, and where they throw themselves into harm's way. It's the world in which Bobby Higgins spent a day off eight years ago repaving his driveway in Smithtown one moment, then racing to the burning World Trade Center the next.
"It was just a bad feeling; something wasn't right," Bobby says of the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he heard a plane had struck the North Tower and looked up at a clear blue sky. "After about a minute, I called my wife and said, 'I have to go in. Something's going on. You might not hear from me for a little while.' "
At the time, Kevin was a junior at St. Anthony's High in South Huntington, where he remembers classmates losing parents that day. Chris had been at Yale only a week. He was walking back from Spanish class when news spread.
"And I knew my old man would be there right away," he says. Back at the dorm, "we were just all sitting there watching those two towers just coming down, and I knew my dad, he was going to be close by. I was a little scared."
While Captain Higgins combed the devastation in Lower Manhattan, Sue Higgins set up a command center of sorts back in Smithtown, where family and friends could check in. Bobby was so consumed with the grim work at Ground Zero that he didn't reach his wife for a day and a half after leaving home, and he didn't return for two weeks.
"He spent two weeks down there looking for bodies," Christopher says. "You could see the toll it took on him."
These days, it is Bobby Higgins who is hoping his son can stay healthy. Groin and hand injuries limited Chris to 57 games last season and just 12 goals - after breaking 20 in each of his first three NHL seasons - as the Canadiens crumbled in their 100th anniversary season. Now the hope is that a change of scenery, plus a formidable cheering section, will prove refreshing, even if he's only around for the one-year contract he signed at $2.25 million.
"When you're a New Yorker," Christopher Higgins says, "you don't ever feel at home unless you're back in New York, ya know?"
www.nydailynews.com/sports/hockey/rangers/2009/08/15/2009-08-15_chris_higgins.html?page=0