“Rocking your red” a paler shade in comparison

Last night, for his birthday, I treated a good friend, who is a Flyers fan (hey, none of us are perfect), to a marquee divisional matchup between his favorite team and the Devils, at the still sparkling-new, and cavernous and sterile, Prudential Center in downtown Newark.

As we know, the Devils and the Washington Capitals have used perilously similar marketing slogans (the Devils clarion call being to “Rock your Red”).  I viewed this game as a prime opportunity to compare the arena atmosphere for the fan at the new home of one of our old Patrick Division rivals, against a hated divisional and geographical foe on a Friday evening, to the often-maligned (until very recently) fan support at the Verizon Center.

Turns out, the question of which fans rock red better and louder has an unequivocal answer.  We do.

How many times as Capitals fans have we withstood attacks over the years that no one shows up at our games, that D.C. area fans are fickle, lifeless, and boring.  And more recently, that we wouldn’t even show up to watch the greatest offensive talent in the game, until the team improved? 

Announced attendance was 15,529 for this game in Newark.  But it looked, and definitely felt, much emptier than that.  It was a vacuum suck of an environment, for a game against the FLYERS.  So disappointing.

And yet, it also augmented my pride in being a Caps fan. 

Few rocking their red in Nueva Jersey

You’d think that this game would have it all — a prime Friday night start time (and no World Series game to conflict), a despised rival, plenty of the rival’s fans in the building, and the promise of some serious fisticuffs.

What’s more, the Devils were coming off a 5-0 win against Dallas and a three-game winning streak (started with the SO victory over the Caps).  But the energy?  The fan base was practically on life-support.

When the home team scored, many of those that were actually in their seats for the game stayed seated and clapped politely.  Very few chants, horns, or other noise-making could be heard at any regular intervals.  The few fans around me seemed much more concerned with chicken fingers, nachos, and/or getting hammered.  The reaction to what I thought were amazing, game-changing plays on the ice drew muted response.   

And I witnessed no witty banter, light insult, or any real interaction at all between the home team fans and the supporters of the orange and black.  The other Devils slogan is “Jersey’s Team,” which itself should cause controversy and sparks between a Devils and Flyers fan base.  The big joke further south is that half of hockey fans that live in New Jersey are Flyers fans.

By contrast, Caps fans seem, and have seemed, so much more into the game.  We’ve got Goat and the Horn Guy and Capital Spirit, and more imitators on the way.  We yell at the refs.  We bitch and moan about marginal off-side calls and our guys getting thrown out of the face-off.  We get ever more riled up when opposition fans enter our shrine, and we endeavor to drown them out, nudge them in beer lines.  They grate and annoy us, and it provides a fun, charged atmosphere. 

I know I’m biased on this subject, but it was striking, the lack of emotion at ”the Rock” last night.   

The game ended 6-3 for the visitors, and it’s outcome was definitely in doubt well into the third period.  There was plenty to cheer about until the final minutes, if anyone cared. 

Jersey mites kickin' it old school, with the green

I wondered whether the different dynamic here versus, most recently, in Washington has to do with any sort of championship fatigue in Jersey.  As Caps fans, we’ve not yet tasted ultimate victory, and gotten close enough to show up to the SCF (but still not win a game in the final series) only once.  So that drives us.  By contrast, of course, Devils fans have, figuratively-speaking, drank from the Stanley Cup thrice in 13 years.  Perhaps its getting tired now?

More old school - best Devils jersey in the house

A note about the arena itself.  I mentioned “cavernous and sterile.”  The sound system was painfully tinny, and the “jumbotron” a very modestly-sized screen.  Nothing like the sound and video at Verizon.  Uncle Ted Leonsis has presided over a wondrous transformation of the in-game experience in D.C., and this fan appreciated it all the more after having to endure the library-like atmosphere in Newark.

I acknowledge that often times the sound at Verizon, shall we say, augments the expressed passion of the home fan, and our one-of-a-kind PA announcer Wes Johnson stokes the fire in D.C.  But even without all of that, in the old Capital Centre, MC’d then by Marv Brooks, that legendary decibel meter in the corner of the old potato chip of a barn was for real.   

Even this highly-anticipated heavyweight bout didn’t get much of a rise out of the fans assembled, most remaining in their seats, cramming pizza into their maws.

PL3 vs. Riley Cote

To be fair, I was pleased by some of the music selections.  For example, the Devils appropriately skated out to “Hells Bells,” and the third period, with the Devs down a goal, was announced with Rush’s “One Little Victory.”

Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the Devils’ ice girls / dancers situation.  Seems that this year’s squad has lost a bit of coverage in their uniforms since last year.

My friend remarked that their cage-like environment evoked a strip club.  A concourse-level observation revealed that only one of the four of these dancers near us had a tramp stamp. 

In sum, we’ve got a rocking building at Centre Verizón, made even more electric by last spring’s mad dash to the playoffs and increased expectations for this team.  Even in some of the darker ages of Capitals hockey, I’ve rarely felt such a deflated atmosphere, against a divisional and geographical rival, in prime time, as I witnessed last night at “the Rock.”