To piggyback on Sebastian’s post yesterday, is this not-so-subtle dig coming from the same franchise that threatened to move their team to Nashville after winning the Stanley Cup in 1995? Look, I know you run the risk of being knocked loopy when you play hockey, but I figured the front office/marketing folks would have a better grasp of their own history before deciding to come across like a bunch of Lindsay Lohan-esque mean girls.
For starters, in terms of distance, it’s not like Brooklyn is on the other side of the globe. I work with plenty of people who live in New Jersey and commute into lower Manhattan every day. I’ve gone to bars on the Lower East Side that have been invaded by the Garden State (and to be fair, Long Islanders). It’s not like the Nets are threatening to move their team to Los Angeles. If you actually want to follow the Brooklyn Nets while still living in New Jersey, you should be able to with no problem and you might even get the chance to go to a game in a new, state-of-the-art arena. How awful.
And like Sebastian said, it’s not like the state of New Jersey hasn’t had ample opportunity to embrace the Nets. As a New Yorker, the Izod Center isn’t the most accessible arena in the world, but that hasn’t stopped New Yorkers and New Jerseyians from packing Giants Stadium for Jets and Giants games, which is part of the same sports complex. You can’t not show up for games for years, and then all of sudden act betrayed by the thought of moving a train ride into NYC away.
I’m glad the Devils have so much Jersey-pride. But I do hope all of the Garden State folk out there who are given them a big “atta boy” remember that the Devils, at one point, were as disenchanted with Jersey as the Nets are now. He who lives in glass hockey rinks, shouldn’t throw pucks at the Nets.
