After excellent seasons between 1977 – 79, the Rangers came very close to clinching a playoff spot in the first half of 1981.

After 1981, the Rangers would not post a winning record for another five seasons.

The Islanders got their revenge, however, eliminating the Rangers in four consecutive playoff series starting in 1981 en route to their second of four consecutive Stanley Cup titles.

They lost to the Rangers two years in a row in 1981 – 82 and 1982 – 83 and then were swept by the Washington Capitals in 1983 – 84.

In September 1981, Hull attempted one final comeback with the New York Rangers at age 42.

* May 10-Cornwall Royals defeat the Kitchener Rangers to win the 1981 Memorial Cup

In addition to the Yankees ( 1975 ), he also played for the Chicago White Sox ( 1978 ), Texas Rangers ( 1978 ), Cleveland Indians ( 1979 ), St. Louis Cardinals ( 1980 ), and Chicago Cubs ( 1981 ).

Eighteen teams have all hosted an all-star game at least twice since the Mets last did: Atlanta Braves ( 1972 and 2000 ), Chicago White Sox ( 1983 and 2003 ), Cincinnati Reds ( 1970 and 1988 ), Cleveland Indians ( 1981 and 1997 ), Detroit Tigers ( 1971 and 2005 ), Houston Astros ( 1968, 1986, and 2004 ), Kansas City Royals ( 1973 and 2012 ), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim ( 1967, 1989, and 2010 ), Milwaukee Brewers ( 1975 and 2002 ), Minnesota Twins ( 1965, 1985, and 2014 ), New York Yankees ( 1977 and 2008 ), Philadelphia Phillies ( 1976 and 1996 ), Pittsburgh Pirates ( 1974, 1994, and 2006 ), San Diego Padres ( 1978 and 1992 ), San Francisco Giants ( 1984 and 2007 ), Seattle Mariners ( 1979 and 2001 ), and St. Louis Cardinals ( 1966 and 2009 ), and Washington Senators / Texas Rangers ( 1969 and 1995 ).

One of the first known fantasy hockey leagues was formed in 1981 by Jay Arbour ( son of legendary New York Islanders Coach Al Arbour ) and Neil Smith ( who served as GM of the NY Rangers from 1989 – 2000 ).

The next year he started a broadcasting career that would continue through the rest of his life: first for the Montreal Expos ( 1970 – 1971 ), then the Texas Rangers ( 1972 ), California Angels ( 1973 – 1979, 1981 ), Chicago White Sox ( 1982 – 1987 ), NBC ( 1977 ), ABC ( 1978 – 1986 ), and finally back in Los Angeles with the Dodgers ( from 1988 until his death in 1993 ).

After failing to agree terms with Bolton Wanderers in 1981, he was invited as a guest player and played three matches for two Hong Kong First Division teams ( Sea Bee and Rangers ) in 1982.

His play impressed scouts, and he was taken ninth overall by his hometown Kitchener Rangers in the 1981 Ontario Hockey League draft.

The 1981 – 82 Kitchener Rangers were a team that featured several future NHL players.

Tkachuk has earned the nickname " Walt " ( given to him by Eddie Olczyk ), possibly in reference to Walter Tkaczuk, a star center who played for the New York Rangers from 1967 to 1981.

This resulted in a difficult period in the history of Rangers, as the average attendance fell to 17, 500 in the 1981 – 82 season, including a crowd of only 4, 500 for a game against St. Mirren.

Piersall later had broadcasting jobs with the Texas Rangers beginning in 1974 ( doing color and play-by-play for televised games ) and with the Chicago White Sox from 1977 to 1981, and was teamed with Harry Caray.

Fred Eloy Manrique Reyes ( born November 5, 1961 ) is a former Major League Baseball second baseman who played for the Toronto Blue Jays ( 1981, 1984 ), Montreal Expos ( 1985 ), St. Louis Cardinals ( 1986 ), Chicago White Sox ( 1987 – 89 ), Texas Rangers ( 1989 ), Minnesota Twins ( 1990 ) and Oakland Athletics ( 1991 ).

Shaun Cameron Wright-Phillips ( born 25 October 1981 ) is an English footballer who plays for Queens Park Rangers and the England national team.

* William M. Jennings ( 1920 – 1981 ), one time owner of the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League ; the League annually gives out an award in his honour

Taylor Pyatt ( born August 19, 1981 ) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who plays for the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League ( NHL ).

In 1981, London football club Queens Park Rangers dug up its grass pitch and installed an artificial one.

Kirby provided Pacific with Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers, which was finished by " Pacific staffers and freelancers inking and coloring the artwork ," and published bimonthly from August 1981, selling well and helping Pacific to ever higher profits.

In October 1981 a 39-man unit of Thai Rangers and Burmese guerrillas attempted to assassinate Khun Sa at the insistence of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

In 1980, he became director of operations for the New York Rangers and in 1981 became the youngest general manager in Ranger's history.

In 1981, Parsons, Woolfson and their record label Arista, were stalled in contract renegotiations when on 5 March the two submitted an all-instrumental atonal album tentatively titled ' The Sicilian Defence ' ( the name of an aggressive opening move in chess ), arguably to get out of their recording contract.

Ideas were plotted to design a new model and they revealed to the press their approach to an updated 1981 model MGB.

A few years later, in 1981, IBM introduced the first DOS based IBM PC, and due to the overwhelming popularity of PCs and their clones, DOS soon became the operating system on which the majority of BBS programs were run.

In 1981, a split-season format forced the first ever divisional playoff series, in which the New York Yankees won the Eastern Division series over the Milwaukee Brewers ( who were in the American League until 1998 ) in five games while the Oakland Athletics swept the Kansas City Royals in three games in the Western Division.

Four important wins during the 1981 season were two wins each over the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Cowboys.

Despite his ill health, Haley began compiling notes for possible use as a basis for either a biographical film based on his life, or a published autobiography ( accounts differ ), and there were plans for him to record an album in Memphis, Tennessee, when the brain tumor began affecting his behavior and he went back to his home in Harlingen, Texas, where he died early in the morning of February 9, 1981.

In January 1981, six of his supporters, including two sons-in-law, were executed.

When the Church chooses to canonize new material, it is typically added to the Doctrine and Covenants ; the most recent changes were made in 1981.

Some were allowed to reenter starting in 1981 but solely as migrant labor.

One of the potential helmet designs Brown rejected was a striped motif that was similar to the helmets adopted by the team in 1981 and which is still in use to this day ; however, that design featured yellow stripes on a turquoise helmet which were more uniform in width.

Population censuses were conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics ( BBS ) in 1974, 1981, 1991 and 2001.

Population censuses in Bosnia and Herzegovina were conducted in 1879, 1885, 1895, 1910, 1910, 1921, 1931, 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991.

The censuses before were organized in 1981, 1971, 1961, 1953 and 1948, during Communist Yugoslavia.

The last four were in 1971, 1981, 1991, and 2001.

The last four were in 1963, 1971, 1981 and 2001 with a census estimate in 1989.

* In 1980 the blue jersey was rendered in a slightly darker shade than the 1964 – 79 version ; from 1981 – 1994 the dark jerseys sported numbers that were gray with white borders and a blue pinstripe.

Sections 137 and 138 were added to the LDS Church's 1981 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, which is the edition currently in use by the church.

Parton's singles continued to appear consistently in the country Top 10: between 1981 and 1985, she had 12 Top 10 hits ; half of those were number-one singles.

From 1976 to 1981, DARPA's major thrusts were dominated by air, land, sea, and space technology, tactical armor and anti-armor programs, infrared sensing for space-based surveillance, high-energy laser technology for space-based missile defense, antisubmarine warfare, advanced cruise missiles, advanced aircraft, and defense applications of advanced computing.

In 1981, Stephanie Riethmiller, who lived in Ohio, was kidnapped by deprogrammers who were hired by her parents to remove her from a lesbian relationship.

After a drop-off in such seizures for some years, several U. S. tuna boats were again detained and seized in 1980 and 1981.

Among the commercial successes for German films of the 1980s were the Otto film series beginning in 1985 starring comedian Otto Waalkes, Wolfgang Petersen's adaptation of The NeverEnding Story ( 1984 ), and the internationally successful Das Boot ( 1981 ), which still holds the record for most Academy Award nominations for a German film ( six ).

Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike ; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league.

Some of the most successful films were made during ' recessions ', such as Chariots of Fire ( 1981 ).

Some of the first examples were created ca 1981 by graffiti artist Blek le Rat in Paris ; by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.