Ray Pfeifer, 9/11 hero, drops Isles’ ceremonial first puck
Ray Pfeifer, an FDNY 9/11 first responder, drops the puck for John Tavares of the New York Islanders and Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins during the ceremonial puck drop before the game at Barclays Center on April 2, 2016. Credit: NHLI via Getty Images / Mike Stobe
Ray Pfeifer doesn’t know which of his friends submitted his name to the Islanders. The former New York firefighter isn’t sure who told the team’s Hometown Hero initiative that he had worked on the pile at Ground Zero for eight straight months, or that 12 guys from his ladder company died on 9/11, or that he spent the ensuing years fighting for health benefits for those poisoned by the attack — and that he was one of them. Terminal cancer is eating at his kidneys, bones and brain.
The 58-year-old Hicksville resident, who considers himself not a hero as much as a poster boy for a bigger movement, generally tries to avoid individual praise and says anyone who tries to give him any is in for some flak.
But on Saturday afternoon, the lifelong Islanders fan made an exception. Before the game against the Pittsburgh Pengins, Pfeifer found himself at center ice, flanked by Sidney Crosby and John Tavares, dropping the ceremonial puck.
“There’s nobody who’s going to be more happy than me,” Pfeifer said on Friday, a day before he rolled out onto the ice in his wheelchair to drop the puck to thunderous applause. “To be in that venue, just to be in front of a hometown crowd and be with my team . . . it’s a dream come true. Not everybody gets to do it. I’m a longtime fan, and it’s an honor just to go out there and hang out with these guys.”
The feeling probably is mutual.
Pfeifer is a retired 27-year veteran of the NYFD, a first responder who was scheduled for a day off on 9/11. He got there as soon as he could. “I spent nine days at the pile and slept down there,” he said, and for the better part of a year, he either was digging or attending funerals.
Later, the attacks took on a more insidious nature: Those exposed were getting sick by the thousands, and health care, provided by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, was set to expire in 2015.
That’s when Pfeifer took on his mantle of so-called poster boy, part of the FeelGood Foundation team. About 80,000 lobbyists, including talk-show host/comedian Jon Stewart, were able to pressure Congress to extend the act, essentially providing health care for the duration of first responders’ lives.
“I feel we’re being murdered by terrorists every day,” Pfeifer said, adding that the puck drop, done in partnership with Amgen’s Breakaway from Cancer initiative, takes on significance in light of the fight.
“It’s a good thing for the 9/11 community,” he said. “I know we’re 15 years out, but to be home with a hometown crowd and be able to say what happened on 9/11 — not to dwell on it, but to just remind people there are still people out there that are sick.”
He had eight of his friends there along with his son Terence, 24, an FDNY EMT. (His daughter Taylor just passed her NYPD exam.) It was supposed to just be a boys’ night watching his beloved team . . . until, that is, he got the call last week that this particular game would be a little more interactive for him.
“They always surprise me,” he said of his friends. “I’m going to be overwhelmed with excitement.”
Pfeifer said he had a bad scare in December — he’s had 11 major surgeries now — but other than the wheelchair, you wouldn’t know it.
“I’m a lucky man,” he said. “I had 15 more years than my friends.”
He keeps beating his doctor’s expectations, and he has no plans to stop anytime soon. “I’m coming out of” the health scare, he said. “I think because of the Islanders. I need to watch them win the Stanley Cup this year.”
He laughs. The Islanders have some big injuries and an uphill battle to climb. But hey, crazier things have happened.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
