New Jersey is a great place. It’s a great place for food, and music, and traffic, for trying to get laid, and if you’re a fan of the puck, for hockey. Say what you will about their playing style, or their playoff woes over the last decade, but there can be no denying that the Devils have long since overcome the crippling terribleness that once had Gretzky calling them “an embarrassment to the game.” New Jersey has a solid team, and three Cups to attest to that.
Having said all that, New Jersey residents, and Devils fans in particular, tend to be…dickheads. Which is great, in most social situations, but for me, at least, it doesn’t transfer over to hockey. It could be that I’m just painting too idyllic of a picture of other teams’ fans, but I never feel like a New Jersey crowd has the same energy of a place like Pittsburgh, or even Phoenix before the Red Wings slapped them with their wieners in game 7. When I go to a game, I feel like everyone around me is there more to criticize everything the team does, regardless of the score, rather than root their hearts out for the team. I mean, isn’t it an indication that something is wrong when the loudest shout of the night is invariably “Rangers Suck!”, even if the Devils are hosting Calgary at the Rock that particular night.
Don’t get me long, I love to bust some Ranger fan balls as much as the next guy. That’s one of the things makes the sport great, the rivalries, especially between teams in such close proximity, like the Devils and Rangers and their most recent playoff executioners, the Philadelphia Flyers.
I like to think of myself as a new breed of hockey fan at best, and at worst a guy already well suited for a job as an NHL analyst. I might bleed red and black, but I don’t live and die by the tip of Zach Parise’s stick (his dick?…totally different matter). I respect the players of the National Hockey League and all the great things they do every night. I’d like to see every team in the NHL win a Stanley Cup at some point in my lifetime; save one, and that one is a team currently ahead of the Boston Bruins by a score of 3-2. I’m a lover of the game man, but do I hate the fucking Flyers.
Now, don’t go calling me bitter. This isn’t about the first round. This is a matter of principle. Honestly, I like a lot of the Flyers players this year. Boucher, Pronger, Briere, even that vaudevillian villain Daniel Carcillo; these guys are great players, but they’re Flyers. I’m all for loving the game, and I think it’s important to be able to separate yourself from your team and enjoy the game from the perspective of a different team, but there is a flip side of that coin. Just as the game needs rivalries, the fans need an enemy. A nemesis. Ask most Devils fans who their nemesis is, and most answers will be the same. The Rangers of course.
Daniel Carcillo, Flyers Winger.
Having been raised by a pair of expatriot Ranger fans, I was never indoctrinated in the Ranger-loathing that so permeates the senses of most Devils fans. Instead, my parents ever so subtly (or maybe not subtly at all, I don’t remember, I just know it worked) directed my innate hockey-hate at the other nearest city and team, those Philthy bastards. Not that it was hard, growing up, to hate the Flyers. I didn’t know many Rangers fans as a kid, but there were plenty of heathens and idolaters rolling up to the playground during recess wearing some gaudy Flyers gear, or even worse, a Phantoms shirt.
Totally lame.
So, as the third period of this game four gets ready to kick off, let me make this plea to you, New Jersey Devils fans. In this new decade, as we approach thirty years as a franchise, let us stop waging a war on two fronts. Until such time as they prove a threat once more, let’s retire the Rangers as Enemy Numero Uno, and officially start hating the Flyers, a team Colin Powell once called “The root of all evil and everything bad that has happened to anyone.” with all the copious pent up hostility and sexual frustration that comes along with every New Jersey childhood. Not because they out played us in Round 1, but because let’s face it, people who root for Philadelphia are usually WAY bigger dicks than people who root for New York or New Jersey. While the Devils fan base can’t do much to improve its ‘tude during the off-season, at least we can pass the time with spite.
Go Bruins.