200 replies to this topic

[rig15]

My whole family rooted for the Rangers and of course I had to be different. My Uncle was working for the Meadowlands at the time and he brought me to my first game when I was around 6, so 1985. I remember running around Brendan Byrne like a maniac all the way up top and I thought it was the coolest thing. I think I was the only person at the game. Ever since that day Hockey and the Devils became my biggest obsession. THANKS UNCLE LEO!!!!

[Beezer34]

Before the 1994 debacle, there was 1988. We got through Round 1, Round 2, and then the next thing you know there we were in the Final 4. It was only the Boston Bruins that stood in our way from what would have been our 1st trip to the big Championship dance. I was all but 8 years old, however I remember it as if it were yesterday. The series went the full 7 games, and in the end the Devils fell 1 victory shy from the Stanley Cup Finals. The hook was the aftermath, on almost every news channel in Jersey AFTER the game that got me addicted. Seeing coach Jim Schoenfeld verbally abuse referee Don Koharski, screaming obscenties and yelling, "Have another doughnut, you fat <<bleeping>> pig!" The incident resulted in a suspension for Schoenfeld, and a life long fan in me. From that moment on I remember saying to myself, this team has to win the Stanley Cup.

Edited by Beezer34, 15 November 2007 - 11:48 PM.

[Devils1985]

Wow, I never got around to posting in this one. Might as well now!

December 1985 really did it for me. I used to watch games on TV, but while it was fun it just seemed sorta random. Then Dad got tickets to the Devils through work, and I got to see them beat Vancouver 4-1, Chico in the net. I was a Chico fan and a Devils fan from then on out, and even at 17 I could see that you won't really 'get' the game until you see it in person . I also started to listen to far away games on AM radio at night, and for some odd reason started following the Red Wings. Maybe just to say that hey, here was a team worse than the Devils. This of course made the '95 Finals a little ironic! One reason I dug the Devils is because they wore the New Jersey name, unlike the Jets & Giants. A true Jersey team.

[njdevilfade2black232]

I started watchin hockey when I was 6 livin down near philly, so I only saw Phailures games, and I started out as a Phailure fan. Cable was all but non existant, and they for damn sure weren't gonna show any hockey games, especially devils games. Anyway, it wasn't until 90 that I realized Jersey had a team. The rest is history after that.

[goalieguy87]

My family is originally from south jersey, but i grew up here in kansas. So my dad had told me about the devils but back then all we got to see if any hockey was the blues. So when the 94 conference finals were on it was my first time seeing the boys. I was 7 years old and was hooked!!! sure the rags won....but the very next year the boys won the cup...so i got to see it all unfold within a year.

[njdss4]

I was born near Los Angeles, but moved to NJ when I was 2 and when I was 9 I saw my first hockey game on TV (my mom thought hockey was too violent so it took a while to see my first game). It just happened to be the Devils beating Detroit in Game 4 of the 95 Finals to win their first Stanley Cup. With that game, I was hooked and have been a diehard Devs fan ever since. My only exposure to hockey before that were the Mighty Duck movies.

P.S. I consider myself lucky because I've been to a Stanley Cup Finals game (NJ vs. ANA 2003 Game 3 in ANA) and I've had my picture taken with the Stanley Cup on FIVE separate occasions. That, on top of the fact that my favorite team in my favorite sport has won the Cup 3 times since I've started watching hockey.

[britoon]

I've never been what you would call a "sports fan" I don't know all the players life stories. I can't recall stats from a decade ago. I don't remember each player to score a game winner in any given year. In fact, I really started watching sports regularly within the last 6-7 years. I have always liked the Devils, however. Born in NJ, my dad took me to a game when I was pretty young (I believe it was a Devils Islanders game at the Brendan Byrne arena. I think the Devils won. I still have the ol' red and green mesh cap, and pennant that he bought me from that game and I look at those items like a badge of honor, for being a part of a growing NHL super power. I am drawn to the Devils, mostly because of 1995 when beating the Red Wings seemed impossible and a scrappy team from NJ that had only been in the league for a little more than a decade had showed they had what it took to bring down goliath.
I went through a few years of not watching regularly and randomly keeping up with my team through newspaper articles and on ESPN, always aware of the Devils no matter where my life and interests took me. My biggest regret is that I didn't get to watch the 2000 cup run because I was obsessed over a dumb girl in college and she pretty much ruled my life. I turned on the TV to see the Devils had actually won the Dallas Series and embarrassingly enough I had no idea how great that Cup run was. (Believe me I wasn't going to let that happen again) Long story short, I have a better girl now (my poor hockey widow wife who puts up with my Jersey buying, Brodeur-worshipping, Devils watching ass) and I think I have been a better fan since.
The Devils were always there for me, and even now that I live in Atlanta, I still go to every Thrashers Devils game and try to fly home to the Rock whenever I can.

Plus, the Devils have the best logo and color scheme in all professional sports. Being a graphic artist, that holds a lot of weight as well.

LETS GO DEVILS!

[njdevilsluva]

lol lets see...

mine has to be sitting infront of the tv when i was like 4 and 5 and have no idea wat was going on. id cheer when my bro and dad did and boo when they did.

and its always finalized with the first game. mine was when i was like 7.

[ClutchDevil30]

My Dad is a Rangers fan...'nuff said! I'm not a follower!

[Richer's Ghost]

Everyone asks me how living in Ohio I became a Devils fan and it's the same for all of my teams... when I picked a team to follow I chose one of the worst teams going so I could follow the team on the rise to the top. Go back about 20-25 years and you'll see... Packers, Indians, Devils are my teams for my sports (NFL,MLB,NHL) and I almost pulled out the triple crown in 1995. Packer won the super bowl, Devils as you well know won the cup, and the Indians made it to the world series but lost in 6 games (damn Braves).

Since then the Devils have been consistently the best for their relative sport, but the Packers have had a few seasons going deep into the playoffs including another superbowl loss to the Broncos. Indians have had the talent, but have fallen flat in scoring (sounds like the Devils eh).

So I don't go by geography but rather the sheer enjoyment of finding an underdog and riding the transformation into a powerhouse. It's been fun.

[thefiestygoat]

Thats an interesting story RG. I never heard of anyone doing that but its pretty cool. Oh btw, Packers and Indians suck...welcome to the forum!

[Richer's Ghost]

Thats an interesting story RG. I never heard of anyone doing that but its pretty cool. Oh btw, Packers and Indians suck...welcome to the forum!

Yankees SUCK!

[yahdevs56]

Yankees SUCK!

Oh yeah!


I'm new here. But born and raised and still live in Jersey.

[Charlemagne]

as i said in my intro:

i followed the sharks around as they played the rags, isles, and devs last season, and though by some cruel twist of fate they lost to all of you puckers, my visit to the rock was the best. best arena, best fans, nicest people. you won me over.

[moustic]

AND we have the Friesen4Eva Link !

[95Crash]

You always hear about New Yorkers being proud to be from NY and Philly people being proud to be from PA -- well I grew up in New Jersey and always took great pride in being from NJ. ... I still take great pride in it.

I always wanted NJ to have its own pro sports teams. As a child, I even wrote a letter to then-Gov. Brendan Byrne asking him if we could get a NJ baseball team. He wrote me back, saying it would be a great idea. Unfortunately, it never happened.

In 1976, the Giants moved to NJ but didn't take the Jersey name, and that always bothered me A LOT. I rooted for them for a while -- especially when they were coached by Jersey's own Bill Parcells. Popular players like Harry Carson, Phil Simms and all those guys lived in Jersey and could be seen shopping and dining out in NJ. The team definitely had a local flair. Even superstar linebacker Lawrence Taylor owned a popular bar/restaurant on Route 17 in East Rutherford, LT's. But then, after those guys left or retired, the team started to change. And in the year 2000, team management decided to have the team switch back to using the old "ny" helmet logo, and all of a sudden I was fuming mad! To me, it was the ultimate F-U to New Jersey. Little by little, I flat-out stopped caring about them. They obviously did not respect the state of New Jersey, so F them! Same thing when the Jets changed back to their old helmet logo in 1997. If the Jersey name is not good enough for them either, then F them too! That's how much I now despise those teams! ... Sorry, but that is how I feel.

Anyway, when the Nets came back to NJ (from Long Island) in the mid- to late 1970s, I didn't notice it right away because pro basketball wasn't on my radar.

But when the Devils started playing in New Jersey in 1982, I took to them right away! I was a month short of my 14th birthday and had just started getting into watching and playing hockey with my friends. They were all Rangers and Islanders fans. But I didn't feel a connection to those teams. I am Jersey all the way, dammit!

I went to the Devils second home game -- which turned out to be the franchise's first win as a Jersey team -- a 3-2 win over the Rangers, no less! My father dropped me and my friend off at the arena. The game was great! Lots of back and forth cheering between Rangers and Devils fans. But it bugged me that there were so many Rangera fans there. It made me dig down and root for the Devils even harder. For the next few seasons, my father and I went to a bunch of Devils games together. I still have some old programs and yearbooks and stuff.

For a long time, there was always this threat that the Devils would have to move to another state because of low attendance. That always worried me, so I ended up going to a lot more games than I could actually afford. I swear, I must've racked up multiple years worth of credit card debt in my personal effort to save the team!

Fortunately, I don't do that anymore. I only go to the games when I can afford to do so. Actually, now that I have my finances all straightened out, I'm at the point where I can finally afford to buy season tickets -- which I plan to do next season.

Anyway, I love going to Devils games, I love watching them on TV, I love reading about them, etc. I have even gotten my wife into them. She loves them almost as much as I do. We recently had our first child, and I can't wait to bring him to a game!

I used to always tell people that my favorite sport is football, but my favorite sports team is the Devils. I think that I am finally at a place in my life where I can say that my favorite sport now is hockey. The sport is awesome! And the only sports team I care about is the Devils!

Chico Resch, Don Lever, John MacLean, Pat Verbeek, Ken Daneyko, Randy Velischek, Bruce Driver, Chris Terreri, Scott Stevens, Claude Lemieux, Randy McKay, Mike Peluso, Martin Brodeur, Bobby Holik, Bill Guerin, Stephane Richer, Scott Niedermayer, Petr Sykora, Jason Arnott, Patrik Elias, John Madden. ... Some of them have come and gone, but all of those guys and more, at one time or another, have been like family. The kinship I have felt with this team ... it is like that of no other. So proud to be able to say that they all sported the NJ on their chest.

In short, I became a Devils fan way back when ... and I have never looked back!

Go Devils.

Edited by 95Crash, 08 November 2008 - 05:05 PM.

[Martyisth3b3st]

^probably the best post on here.

[Cachorro Louco]

Ok I don't where to started...

Rangers and Ducks have always been big in Brazil, ducks for the movi, and the Rangers I don't know how they got to be kind of Famous in Brazil.

That was the only teams I knowed in Brazil.


Well in 2004 I moved to the US, got used to the culture very quickly, yet never understand the "American sports" Like, football,baseball,basketball ...

Well in 2006 in was working in a Restaurant hurrying up, since a party called that they will come with 1 hour early with 20 more people

Luckily I got done setting the Tables up with time spare, So the only thing left to do was filling the "chaffing dishes" with hot water.

I went to the kictchen fill-up the bucket with hot water, As i was going back to the party salon, I slip on a water spot right on the middle of the kitchen.( someone forgot to mop-off the water from defrost chicken boxes).

Unfortunaly i just didn't slip. The slip kind twist my left knee, an to top it off I just on this left knee.


Needless to say I fvcked pretty badly my left knee and I had to go to surgery.

Well what you can do with imobolized left leg( Who had knne surgery knows when, you some surgery on the knee in kind disconect the neres on the legs, so you can't even lift you leg).

Well I became I couch potato for while, first day, I watched the 6 star wars movies, that comcast putted for free on demand, Bought 3 soccer games from my soccer team, them the soccer tournament ended.

I tried to find something else to waste time, one night I found a Rangers game, was on the middle of the game, and I really forced myself to root for the Rangers, not because I had known Rangers in Brazil, but because I always rooted for the team of my region or state. Since at this time I didn't know that New Jersey Had the Devils. I tough: " ok lets root for the Rangers, since NJ doesn't have one, gonna root for the closest one the Rangers"

Well I did tried but was no use I could not bare to watch the gme for more than 10 minutes, I changed the channels thinking: " dude the Rangers are a bunch pussies running arround."

And I tried another time same result" bunch of sissies running around" So just gave up watching hockey streotyping that" hockey is boring, nothing but pussies running arround, wrong sport for me to fallow"


One night I got home from College turn the TV on and there was a Devils game, but at the time didn't notice the name of teams, and since I already ha sterotyped the hoceky as a "boring game for pussies" I quickly typed another channels number, but as the channel was going to change the announcer yelled: "WHAT A AMAZING SAVE BY..."

By this time the channel had Already changed, but that yelled Grab me by the balls And I quickly hit last Channel and saw the Reply.

Was one of those amazing saves made by Brodeur that you can't even descrbed you know, the one that he mixes, Kung-fu, pato-fu,jiuje-tisu,Karate.

I was thinking "that's not boring... not boring at all"

And I fallow the rest of the game, some hard hits on both sides And I thinking" This gmae is not only populet by pussies and sissies like Rangers"

And finally the Devils scored in a awesome Play, and the announcer said " Great play by New Jersey"

I was like : "Dude New Jersey,has a Hoceky team??? And they don't run aorund like sissies and pussies like the rangers. And Above all the don't suck"

That game made me a Devil's fan but my schedule didn't allow tog o to the Arena nor watch the games, I only could fixed the schedule this year. And I could finally go to the Arena.


Luckily for me the Rangers Sucked enough even I forcing myself to rot for them could not buy to root for them.

I know it's kind I silly but that the way it happened

[Martyisth3b3st]

haha, that's funny. Good thing you didn't happen to watch the Rangers in like a 5-0 blowout win or anything, lol.

[mouse]

I started watching sports with my dad, who was never a hockey fan. He rooted for Yankees, Giants, Knicks and Rangers, but since he never watched hockey, I never got into the Rangers. I started watching a little bit in 93-94, and immediately hated Rangers fans. This isn't fair to real Rangers fans, but most of the fans in 94 never watched hockey and just jumped on the bandwagon. There's something extremely annoying about listening to people who know nothing talk trash. Since I lived in New Jersey, and rooted against the Rangers, I became a Devils fan. That said, I was never a huge hockey fan, I'd watch a couple playoff games, but I was more into football/basketball/baseball. That changed when I started college. I joined the Oberlin College Plague, the only club hockey team whose mascot is a 6 foot paper mache pecker named Thor the Thundercock. While I mostly joined cause hockey looked fun, and we only practiced once a week, I became addicted fairly quickly. While I was playing hockey, I began to watch more frequently. After the lockout, I became obsessed. Even though I can't afford to go to that many games (goddamn student loans), I don't miss my boys on TV, and I'm trying to save up for playoff strips.