I'll take a shot at this..
I'll be 48 in a few months, born and raised a Ranger fan, there wasn't a hockey team here in Jersey yet, I stayed a Ranger fan for quite a few years.
Hockey has always been my favorite sport, always will. Pat Verbeek had always been one of my favorite players, even on the other team, I watched all teams, if a game was on I was probably watching it.
When my son was born, I couldn't wait to take him to a Ranger game, I was lucky and had no problem scoring tix in work, so we went to about 10 games when he was about 7 or 8 can't remember, he had fun. The following season he wanted to see the Devils, the first game was against the Bruins, there were 2 women sitting directly behind us covered in a Devils blanket. They kept screaming "Boston Sucks!!", that was probably the first time my son heard such language lol, boy he turned around and looked at them like "OMG, you said a bad word"..I told him it's ok to say that at a game, and he's only telling the other team that our team is better than yours. When we got home, my wife asked him how was the game, he was so excited he couldn't contain himself, he looked at her and said "Boston sucks mom!" The look on her face was priceless lol, he kept walking around the house chanting "Boston sucks!!" He started playing my video games and every game he had to be the Devils.
My wife looked at me and said he's a Devils fan, you're a Ranger fan, I told her I'm not about to root against my son, at that moment I became and forever will be a Devils fan.
Travis Zajac is my favorite player.
And yes, I proudly lead the Rangers suck chance whenever I can.