Misconceptions

Anyone who has ever read a blog of mine probably knows my biggest pet peeve by now, people who still refer to the Devils as a boring, trapping team. While the truth is that the Devils haven’t full-on “trapped” since Jacques Lemaire stepped down in 1998, I will accept an admittance that the Devils have not done so since the lockout.

Recently, however, I’ve started to come around to the fact that there’s no escaping the shadow which the rest of the NHL casts upon us. And that’s not a bad thing. Because every team’s got something…every team has an image they cannot shake, for better or worse. For example, we may be a boring team, but the Toronto Maple Leafs will go another 42 years without getting to the Finals, let alone win a Cup, the Flyers are nothing but a team of goons, the Ducks can only do one thing well and that’s take penalties, the Islanders have no fans, the Canucks have no players, the Blue Jackets aren’t an actual NHL team are they?, the Lightning run themselves like a fantasy team minus actual talent, the Wild are more boring than the Devils, etc. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Whether or not any of these media stereotypes are actually true, I’m not going to attempt to answer, because if you’re a fan of that team, you know they probably aren’t.

But there is a point to that ridiculous rant, and it is this: NHL.com writer Phil Coffey wrote an article one week ago declaring that Zach Parise “ruins a perfectly good image for Devils,” a “carefully honed image as a boring, defense-only team.”

Phil…really?

Now, I can only pray that your comments were sarcastic in nature and meant to poke fun at our bad rap, but by reading the rest of your article, it sure does not seem that way. That can only mean that you, sir, actually believe that we love being berated by the entire hockey media, especially Mike Brophy, the only human I’ve ever truly despised without actually meeting.

You think we take pride in being the NHL’s punching bag? Do you also believe you’re related to Paul Coffey, that Evgeni Malkin is on his way to the Kings, that Gary Bettman is doing a hell of a job running the NHL? (Personally I don’t dislike him, but it seems like everyone else does.)

I submit this to you, Mr. Coffey: Thanks for your praise of Zach Parise, but you are still a moron for even thinking for a second that we enjoy the unfair image that we have.

And so, I get to the REAL point of this blog, the top five misconceptions about the Devils. If you believe that any of these are true, please do some fact-checking and/or cease reproducing at once.

1. “The Devils play a boring, trap game.” (Not really, no, sorry. Especially not this season. Clearly the media does not watch our games, or refuses to admit that we’re done with that nonsense because they have nothing else to say about us.)

2. “Martin Brodeur is the only reason the Devils have had any success.” (Allow me to introduce to you, one Scott Clemmensen. Clearly the fact that we retained our division lead the entire time Brodeur was hurt speaks to the contrary. And we did it all without the hall-of-fame defense we used to have.)

3. “The Devils are just some team who plays in a swamp.” (Well this used to be true, until we moved into the Prudential Center in 2007. Yet, why is it that every hockey writer did not get that memo, and still refer to our home turf as “the swamp”?)

4. “The Devils will never be able to lure free agents.” (Well, we don’t really want them, and there’s two reasons for that. First, we build from within unlike the Rangers, who love to sign big names and wonder why they never win. Secondly, big name free agents don’t want to be on a good hockey team, they just want to get paid. That is the precise reason they go to the Rangers instead of us.)

5. “No one comes to Devils games.” (They never used to because our old arena sucks, and was in the middle of nowhere. They don’t now because they have a false image of Newark as a giant cesspool. Parts of Newark are extremely safe, but some people are afraid of their own shadow, so forget trying to convince them. Also, the Rangers predate us by a good 60 years, therefore have a much broader fanbase. Unfortunate, but it is the truth. When kids who grew up on the Devils, like myself, are old enough to afford their own season tickets, perhaps the tide will change.)