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As NY Knicks fight through playoffs, fans test the magic of their gameday rituals
By
Charles Lane
Published May 12, 2024
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By
Charles Lane
Published May 12, 2024
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Tim Ullio has been a Knicks fan his entire life but only now does he have a lucky towel.
He has to keep it in his back pocket during games and twirl it from a specific corner. If he doesn’t, the Knicks will lose.
“It's a recent thing, a recent lucky charm,” he said. “But ever since I got it, they've won every game. So, yeah.”
Ullio, a 31-year-old bartender at Stout, a bar near Madison Square Garden popular with Knicks fans, picked up the totem during the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers when a customer left it behind. Now he brings it to every game.
“I almost forgot my towel this morning,” he said in a panic before Friday’s game. “I couldn't find it this morning. It was buried on the couch.”
Tim Ullio, a bartender at Stout near Madison Square Garden swings his once lucky towel.
Charles Lane/Gothamist
It’s possible something was off in his swing Friday because the Knicks fell to the Pacers in game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, cutting their lead in the series to 2-1. Game 4 is Sunday at 3:30 p.m., in Indiana.
The Knicks have largely disappointed New Yorkers for years. The team hasn’t won a championship since 1973. Only last year did they finally make it past the opening round of the playoffs after a decade-long drought. And that’s the problem for many of the fans’ magic rituals: there’s limited data to prove their success.
For many today, everything they touch is cursed.
“They just haven't been that close, that's part of the problem,” said Josh Jacobs, 42, a diehard Knicks fan and school teacher.
The last lucky thing he owned was a hat in 1994 when John Starks and Patrick Ewing at least made the team respectable.
“Maybe this will be my lucky hat,” he said, tapping his orange and blue.
For Dean Ramanathan, 35, his new superstition is not watching games.
“It's such a catch 22, right?” he said, tossing his head back in frustration. “Like, if I watch them, they lose!”
This new magical thinking started in the first round against the 76ers when he missed part of the first two games, but caught all of the third game where they were blown out 124-114.
Ramanathan hates the new voodoo, but his friends are forbidding him from watching the whole game.
“I'm just going to skip the first quarter and follow along on my phone and then start watching in a second,” he said. “I can deal with missing the first quarter as long as they win.”
Other Knicks fans call bogus on the hocus pocus.
“There's no such thing as superstition in sports,” insisted Derick Washington, decked head-to-toe in orange and blue and waiting for a train in Penn Station.
As he lectured on the importance of team management and injury stats, Mike Sileo walked by wearing a Patrick Ewing jersey. Washington grabbed him to help prove his point.
“Yeah, I agree,” Sileo said. “I find them a little crazy, to be honest. It's a little stupid.”
“Superstitions are excuses,” Washington said.
“That's a good way to put it,” Sileo agreed again.
Before the strangers parted, they nodded at each other.
“We got this,” Sileo said.
Ullio, the towel swinging bartender, says there is more to the little rituals than superstition.
“It’s their way of contributing to the team,” he said. “There's that little piece of you inside that goes ‘They won because I had my towel,’ ‘They won because I flipped my hat backwards,’ ‘They won because I was sitting on my lucky bar stool.’”
Tagged
knicks
new york city
sports
Charles Lane
Charles is a Day-of reporter focused on breaking news and enterprise. He’s very friendly and can be reached at [email protected], or more securely on whatsapp/signal 631-295-6715
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