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Where were you/what were you doing...


RowdyFan42

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(Bonus points to anyone who was at the game...)

This post by thelastonealive got me wondering what everyone was doing when the Devils first laid hands on the Stanley Cup. We're the same in that I too remember the first Cup more vividly than the other two, despite the fact that I was only 14 at the time.

Since the early '90s, my family has gone on vacation to a place in northern Vermont during the last week of June. Because of the lockout, the Finals were also pushed into late June, so it just happened that I was away for Game 4. I remember staying up late, after everyone else had gone to bed, watching Doc call the game on Fox (Burlington didn't have a Fox affiliate at the time but the national feed was available) and then flipping between Fox and CBC watching each network's post-game coverage. I must've been up for at least two hours afterward, watching the late SportsCenter, starving for any mention of the game so I could continue to bathe in the glory and excitement of the Devils winning the Cup. I had seen my hometown River Rats win the Calder Cup just a month earlier on TV (the clinching game was in Fredericton, New Brunswick), and that was exciting enough, and now on top of that came this even bigger rush with the Devils' victory.

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I was in the Med, Denying Flight over Bosnia in a 130` engineroom. We were picking up the games (sporadically) on AFRTS. I would make alarms in the plant go off everytime the Devils scored & give a gooooooaaaaalll over the P.A. system.

I was taking apart small wire brushes and making little brooms out of them. There were quite a few Deadthing fans aboard that were going to get the little brooms as a reminder of what just happened to their team! :lol: I put a little memorial note on each as a collectors item. :koolaid:

Wish I saw it live, but I made the most of it. :noclue:

Edited by Masked Fan
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Great topic, Rowdy! ;)

Okay, so here goes...

The DAY the Devils won their first cup, I was in Seacacus, seeing the Cup in person (as well as all of the other trophies). They were all on display in some hotel or conference center up there. The line was rediculously huge and we basically got in, filed past each trophy, took pictures of each, and left. I didn't care that we waited three hours for 10 minutes in the building, it was awesome to me nonetheless.

The night they won the Cup, I was at the house of a girl who I really liked at the time (I should note that I was 12, and just finished seventh grade when they won it). We had been going to the same school for years and both got into hockey (and football) at the same time, so I would watch the Seahawks every week at her house and catch Devils games on occasion as well. Her mother was a Devils fan and I guess her father was too, but he was always the kind to make fun of all the players rather than really be into it (I still distinctly remember one of his neverending phrases being "Who's smarter, Martin Brodeur or a box of rocks?")

Aaaaanyway, we're all packed into their living room watching the game, and I was having an absolute blast. I remember very vividly them showing in the last minutes Mike Peluso crying on the bench and her father laughing uproariously at it, but I couldn't defend Peluso because I was crying just as hard...It was absolutely unreal. After the post-game celebrations (including champagne toast, my first taste of champagne ever. Didn't like it), everyone else went to bed and myself and the girl who I was friends with stayed up til 2 or 3 in the morning talking about the game, the season, and all that fun stuff. I walked home at 3 in the morning and never slept until the next night.

The day of the Stanley Cup celebration was the day my grandmother was going to be flying in from Arizona - she'd do it every year, and every year we'd go to the airport to pick her up. I was so convinced that my parents would never let me miss that to go to the Cup celebration that I didn't even ask, but my friend's mother called and asked specifically if they could bring me with them. My mother was pissed that I didn't ask in the first place! I was amazed. At the Cup celebration they handed out these posters with the Stanley Cup on it and that year's roster. On the back of one I wrote "NASHVILLE? NEVER!" and held it up wherever I went...and then, of course, was the motorcade and Chris Terreri's "NASHVILE?! NO WAY!" sign. I felt proud. Very proud. We played street hockey and I broke the taillight on my friend's mother's car with an errant shot. Oops.

And walking back to the Giants Stadium parking lot through the OLD walkway after the celebration was about the scariest moment of my life...packed with Devils fans chanting and banging on the walls...this was the very narrow walkway with wooden boards for a floor, and it felt like the thing was going to collapse and we'd all fall to our deaths on Route 3.

So yeah, that's my long-winded and probably rambling story. I wish I had the memories of '00 and '03 like I do '95, but unfortunately I didn't have great hockey-loving friends like I did at the time so I didn't pay quite as much attention...I still watched the games, but not as intensely as '95. Though I do remember getting a hat in 2000 the weekend they won the Cup and one of the teachers at school on Monday being shocked someone had Stanley Cup '00 merch already. That was the week of graduation as well if I recall correctly...

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I was sitting in my season seat of section 119, row 24 seat 2...my friend Shel was sitting in seat 1...my friend MaryAnn was sitting in row 23 seat 1 and her brother Joe in seat 2...we were jumping up and down, crying and the happiest people on planet earth...as the game wound down, Lou (who used to sit in the box at the top of section 119) looked down at me and said for your mother...my mom died in her sleep after watching game 1 on June 17...my mom and Lou always used to chat and had asked where she was at game 3...he was really upset when I told him we buried her that morning...it will be a day and a game that I will never forget...btw...me and my 2 girlfriends went to Houlihans after the game with some guy we picked up...never got his name but called him Mr. Coney Island because that is where he said he was from...oh what a night!!!!!

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I was 14 years old. My parents went out somewhere with my siblings, so I had the whole house to myself. EVERYONE I knew were Ranger fans (except for a Flyers fan) and they were all telling me how bad the Devils were going to lose EVERY round. I vividly remember jumping so quick that I got a charliehorse after the 4th goal. Seeing that game winning Broten goal, and hearing Doc's call (shot by Broten, nubbed by Broten...) still sends a chill up my spine to this day. That, and "The Championship to New Jersey, the Devils win the Stanley Cup", Peluso crying, watching Daneyko, Driver and Maclean hoist the cup... Man, after enduring all that torture from Rag fans in 1994, that moment was amazing.

By the way, I remember the 2000 Cup, too... I was drinking with a bunch of buddies, and we had the game on. A lot of these guys were the same Ranger fans from before, and after this one, they were patting me on the back and congratulating me. Funny what a difference it was once the team earned some cred...

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My brother and I were putting the finishing touches on our home-made Stanley Cup (using our mothers favorite mixing bowl - she was none too happy when she found out). We only finished the thing at the point where Peluso started crying. We had already made this gigantic display on the front lawn that said "DEVILS RULE" using one sheet of bristol board for each letter.

After the game we went out to the street with our newly made Stanley Cup and some brooms and ran through the neighborhood waking the neighbors.

A couple days later we went into town and bought the whole stock of Devils championship gear at the sporting goods store. Granted they only ordered in 5 T-shirts and 5 hats.

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Was visiting my then girlfriend at Georgetown University in D.C. Told her that we had to go to a Sports Bar(Champions) to watch the game. Walked in to Champions, and was told the game was being shown upstairs. Walked upstairs to find........two other people watching the game. Not a fun way to celebrate their first Stanley Cup. Called my Dad immediately afterwards. We were pretty giddy.

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207 row 7 seat 8

The continous roar of the crowd, the upper deck shaking, the Devils rarely allowing a shot on goal over the final two periods, were experiences I'll never forget!

BTW the face value for my ticket in the upper deck for a Stanley Cup Final game in 1995 was $65.00. The same face value for my regular season "upper deck" tickets in 2007-08.

Edited by Rock
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I believe I was evading a Keanu Reeves look-alike israeli pilot who I had (mistakenly it turns out) invited to my apartment for the weekend. Trauma. We met and then he had to leave then we had a telephone romance for a few months then he flew up and in real life he was this trauma dork. He was pretty hot though.. trauma -- if only I'd been into hockey. I was sure the wongs would win the cup so didn't follow the series AT ALL :giggle: didn't even know they were playing the Devils!! Being from Dearborn I'd bandwagoned :P How shocked was I when I saw the hairy dude from Jersey on the post the next day? I even took that wanker back to the airport - saw the paper there on Sunday.

how creepy is it that I remember that? As i wrote that all down and was about to hit Add Reply I was thinking that can't be right -- I mean I remember the Post in the airport on Sunday.... it wasn't even a big deal...I just remember it... weirdness. Well -- the weekend was really sucky and weird so... :noclue: That's why I asked the date -- i was pretty sure it was the Rony weekend... hmeh - no big deal. It's just so strange that some random day in my past I remember :wacko:

Edited by Pepperkorn
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I believe I was evading a Keanu Reeves look-alike israeli pilot who I had (mistakenly it turns out) invited to my apartment for the weekend. Trauma. We met and then he had to leave then we had a telephone romance for a few months then he flew up and in real life he was this trauma dork. He was pretty hot though.. trauma -- if only I'd been into hockey. I was sure the wongs would win the cup so didn't follow the series AT ALL :giggle: didn't even know they were playing the Devils!! Being from Dearborn I'd bandwagoned :P How shocked was I when I saw the hairy dude from Jersey on the post the next day? I even took that wanker back to the airport - saw the paper there on Sunday.

how creepy is it that I remember that? As i wrote that all down and was about to hit Add Reply I was thinking that can't be right -- I mean I remember the Post in the airport on Sunday.... it wasn't even a big deal...I just remember it... weirdness. Well -- the weekend was really sucky and weird so... :noclue: That's why I asked the date -- i was pretty sure it was the Rony weekend... hmeh - no big deal. It's just so strange that some random day in my past I remember :wacko:

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I was 13 and my uncle took me tailgating with some of his drinking buddies. That day, the Meadowlands parking lot was the first place I ever had a beer. We hung out all afternoon, eating burgers and dogs, and I remember talking to some Swedish photographer who had come in from Stockholm to get pictures of Tommy Albelin.

That game is seared into my mind. The first goal 1:09 into the game was surreal. Going down 2-1, I remember my Drunkle lamenting how we'd be going back to Detroit. I kept harassing my mom, telling her she was bad luck (which I always did) and she got up and left. Within 2 minutes, Chambers ripped one from the point. 2-2. (My mom did get to see the rest of the game though.)

I didn't sleep at all that night, and I ran to the convenience store the next morning to pick up every single newspaper they had. They are all still in a drawer in my room.

In 2000, it was my high school graduation, and my dad was ready to fly out to Dallas for the game (where he got tickets/money to do such a thing, no one knows), but my mom said there was no way I was skipping graduation for a hockey game. Oh, Mom, when will you ever get it? That night, I was at a party broken up by the cops in Wayne or Fairlawn or something, and ended up at some girl's house down the road. Her brother and dad were monster fans and we watched OT together.

In 2003, I was at the game, same seats as Game 4 back in '95, but just had surgery to realign my nose, which I broke in a fight 2 years earlier, and never bothered to fix. I couldn' breathe and was in so much pain up until 5 minutes before game time, and again for a few days afterwards, but for about 8 hours from 7 pm to 3 am, I felt great. Especially since a couple schmucks from Anaheim were sitting right in front of me. Seeing that kid go home in tears was great.

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... looked down at me and said for your mother...

...my mom and Lou always used to chat and had asked where she was at game 3...

Edited by Masked Fan
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I was 31 at the time, and living in Tinton Falls, NJ. My neighbor was working for Comcast, and at a cable convention in like December of 94 he won a prize sponsored by ESPN for tickets, and an overnight stay to a Stanley Cup Finals game, wherever it may be. Needless to say, it was NJ or Detroit, so we were talking as the finals got underway, and he says to me, "Who the hell would want to go to Detroit, and I live in NJ....", so he was kinda bummed. I wanted to go really badly, and he knew it so he asked me to go. ESPN must have felt bad because they sent a Limo, and we drove into the City, and we had Dinner on them at Rusty Staubs, then back to Jersey for the game. It was an unbelievable event, just to be there. My wife was watching at home, and she was really bummed. I remember taking her to game 5(?) against Dallas, when the Devils could have closed out the series, but friggin' Modano with the late overtime winner shattered that one. She got to be there for Game 7 against the Ducks though, so I guess it's all good....

Chris

Edited by chrisg19
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turned 11 years old just a few days before.

had a meaningless scrimmage soccer game that my parents forced me to play in (at least it was raining so i made the car a muddy mess as payback).

luckily the game was only 15 minutes from my house so when we got in the car the game had started and by the time we turned on 520 in Lincroft...i hear the beautiful voice of Mike Miller "SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" and i go crazy in the front seat.

i'm not sure my dad's hearing as been the same since (remember, i'm only 11).

luckily i got home before there was another Devils goal scored!

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