[Devils-list] Devils instilling Jersey pride in youth
Jennifer Ellis
bud8gurl@hotmail.com
Fri, 22 Jun 2001 23:25:31 -0230
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<H1>Devils instilling Jersey pride in youth </H1>
<P><I>Sunday, June 17, 2001</I>
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<P><!--SLUG: DEVILSBI --><!--DATE: 0617 --><!--EDITION: 1e --><!--PAGE: s05 -->
<P><!--HEADLINE: Devils instilling Jersey pride in youth -->
<P><!--HEADLINE: The big-time isn't<P>
just the Big Apple -->
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<P>By BOB IVRY<BR><I>Staff Writer
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<P><FONT face=Helvetica,Arial size=+2>T</FONT>he Cup stays here. The Cup doesn't stay here.
<P>The Cup doesn't matter.
<P>The real question, on the heels of the Devils' stunning fold in the Stanley Cup Finals, is this: Are you ready for something completely different? Because, not now, but soon -- very soon -- New Jersey will rule.
<P>For now, winning two, three, five, 10 Cups in a row won't matter. It won't matter because the current generation of adult New Jerseyans will forever feel, deep down, no matter what, second-rate. Deep down, they'll always feel New York is better. The jokes about "Joizey" and the refineries and the swamp and the landfills and the What Exit will bring their sting. And no number of Stanley Cups hoisted aloft by toothless, grinning puck chasers at the Meadowlands will ever change that.
<P>Soon, though, a younger generation, coming of age in a Devils-abetted era of increasing Jersey hegemony -- economically, in its quality of life, and in the </B></I>crucial category we'll call, for lack of a better term, self-esteem -- will react to all the razzing, all the putdowns, all the tired</B></I>, old jokes</B></I> with a healthy "Yeah, right."
<P>Not now. But soon.
<P>Because just as the world wars of the 20th century were won on the playing fields of Eton, the cultural wars of the 21st are routs now being completed on rinks such as</B></I> the Ice House in Hackensack, where 8-year-old Craig Wyszomirski </B></I>of Mahwah plays defense for the Hurricanes traveling hockey team.
<P>"If anybody ever said New York is better than New Jersey, I'd say, 'Have you looked at the scoreboard?' " a defiant Craig said before </B></I>Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals in East Rutherford.
<P>To 11-year-old Michael Infante of Chatham, who was rollerblading in the Meadowlands parking lot dressed in a Devils home jersey two hours before Game 6, any talk of a state inferiority complex merits a shrug and a scoff.
<P>"I really think the Devils turned that around," Michael said. "At my school </B></I>[</B></I>the Peck School in Morristown</B></I>]</B></I> </B></I>there are some Rangers fans, and if the Rangers beat the Devils just once, it's a huge thing to them. But it doesn't matter. New Jersey can look down on New York now."
<P>A voice from the younger generation speaks: <I>New Jer</B></I><I>sey can look down on New York now.</B></I>
<P>"Almost a revolution has been going on," said James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. "The state's self-esteem is as high as it's ever been. It's fashionable now to be a Jersey guy."
<P>Or gal.
<P>Soprano. Springsteen. Sehorn. Strahan. Susan Sarandon.
<P>Scott Stevens.
<P>Hughes added: "Twenty-five years ago, New York City went bonkers when the Meadowlands [sports complex] opened. For sports teams to be located here was something they couldn't handle. Now, it's old hat. Between that and the tremendous boom in job growth and luxury housing, there's a whole new level of comfort in being a New Jerseyan."
<P>Hughes, who attended Game 4 of the Devils-Avalanche series, allows his chest to swell over statistics such as </B></I>these: In 1950, New Jersey had 1.7 million jobs, while New York City had 3.4 million. Today, New Jersey has 4 million jobs, while New York City has 3.8 million.
<P>The Cup stays here. The Cup doesn't stay here. The Cup doesn't matter.
<P>Crave more evidence of New Jersey's ascendancy? According to the Edison Partnership, a nonprofit Jersey booster group based in Trenton:
<P>Of all states, New Jersey has the highest concentration of scientists and engineers -- <I>some of whom are </B></I><I>Devils</B></I>'<I> season ticket</B></I> <I>holders</B></I>.
<P>New Jersey is home to 3,000 more high-tech companies than are based in all of California's Silicon Valley -- <I>and some of those companies will be shelling out for </B></I><I>luxury boxes at the proposed new arena in Newark</B></I>.<I> <BR>More scientific patents are granted in New Jersey per year than most states get in a decade -- <I>most states that, </B></I><I>incidentally, don't have their own hockey teams</B></I>.
<P></B></I>And with a per capita income of $36,983, New Jersey ranks third -- behind only Connecticut (former home of the </B></I>Hartford </B></I>Whalers) and Massachusetts </B></I>(home of the playoffs-deprived </B></I>Boston</B></I> Bruins) -- as the richest state in the union, <I>and thus its citizens are able to pay the escalat</B></I><I>ing ticket prices for hockey games, allowing the Devils to </B></I><I>spend more on player salaries, promotion, and amenities </B></I><I>for fans</B></I>.
<P>"If you lopped off the southern portion of the state and left just the 11 counties of north-central Jersey," Hughes said, "you'd have the wealthiest metropolitan area in the country, and the fifth-largest in terms of office space -- the commodity that really matters in today's economy."
<P>Hey, the numbers are impressive, but they're cold. They just sit there, like an empty arena, ready for demolition. If you don't feel good about yourself, statistics, no matter how rosy, mean zilch.
<P></B></I>It's so revealing that, according to plenty of anecdotal evidence, the same baby boomers who made fun of the bridge-and-tunnel population over Stoli martinis in Manhattan singles bars 15 to 20 years ago have now become, with their 2.1 children, luxury SUVs, luxury McMansions, and luxury dogs, the very bridge-and-tunnel population they once mocked.
<P></B></I>This is where it comes full circle: The parents might be, metaphorically or literally, Rangers fans, but the kids are Devils all the way.
<P>"I'm living proof," said Rob Ryan, a Devils season ticket holder from New Milford who, at 26, might be a little long in the tooth to be representative of this specific trend, but he's emblematic enough. "The team came here when I was 7, and everybody knows -- at least everyone who's about my age -- that our parents were either Rangers fans or they weren't into hockey at all. They saw the Devils as a cheap and easy way to see hockey without having to go into the city.
<P></B></I>"</B></I>The Devils will never steal those fans away from the Rangers. That's why they have to reach the kids to build a loyal fan base. And they're doing it."
<P>Pro sports teams help flavor their communities with their personalities, but for the most part, New Jersey's teams are still burdened by the insecurities bred in the old school. While the Devils are the state's sole champions (sure, there are the Giants -- the <I>New York </B></I>Giants,</B></I> the team has never worn "New Jersey" on its jerseys and has not, up till now -- similar to the state as a whole -- completely etched for itself a distinct identity without using as a reference point the team from the big city that looms on its eastern flank.
<P></B></I>This is where the proposed Newark arena comes in. Though objection to the move south is fierce and nearly unanimous among the Devils' North Jersey fans, the site, rimmed by the man-made canyons of New Jersey's own largest city, at least won't have the King Kong of a Manhattan skyline mouth-breathing down its neck.
<P>"I think [the Newark arena] is a great thing for Newark and a great thing for New Jersey," Devils </B></I>coach</B></I> Larry Robinson said last week. "[You] basically give yourself a home."
<P><I>A home</B></I>. As Dorothy Gale -- or Newark native Philip Roth -- could tell you, the simplest definition of home is a place where you can be yourself. Neither the Devils, with a dismal home playoff record of 7-6, </B></I>nor their fans, who protest the inadequacies of Continental Arena as if they're trying to convince themselves, have they ever really felt at home in that concrete bunker in the swamp.
<P>Instead, picture this: A winning team that wears the words "New Jersey" on its uniforms, playing in a new home arena, supported by increasing numbers of young, homegrown fans.</B></I>
<P>As comforting as that vision is, it's but a contributing tributary to a greater, more important one: A generation of psychologically liberated youngsters, for whom a newspaper article describing New Jersey's nagging feelings of inferiority is as antique as a smallpox vaccine, a kinetoscope, or a goalie without a mask. That image of the state's self-assured future makes the outcome of the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals, win or lose, or fans' feelings for a new Newark arena, like it or loathe it, seem like a mere prelude to a time when Jersey Pride will be more than just the name of a tomato.
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