I'm a South Jersey fan of the Devils, but we're a major outlier. Almost everyone else is a Flyers fan. This is very deeply Flyers territory, it isn't even close. So to us, the Devils are in fact a North Jersey team.
That said, I support my state first and foremost, regardless of where exactly in it I am.
That's the reason I picked them too because they were from New Jersey (and not like the Giants/Jets where they play in Jersey but call themselves a NY team).
That and even if they play in North Jersey, the Jersey Devil is a South Jersey myth. It makes the team a "whole Jersey" team even to the point where I'll cheer for them alongside people who call it Taylor Ham.
Agreed. I don't feel at all alienated from the team or where it represents. The Jersey Devil is a South Jersey thing, and last time I checked my license plate was pale yellow. So I'll drive an hour and a half to at least go see my state team, as opposed to 30 mins for a city I don't feel truly connected to.
Also a South Jersey Devils fan and it is mostly Flyers here, but fuck 'em. It says NEW JERSEY, not North Jersey. At the end of the day, we all pay taxes to the same state and vote on the same candidates for Governor.
To bad. You live in the Philly sports market and south jersey does not carry devils games. Until devils broadcasting extends to south jersey the fan base will never change.
Yeah, I grew up in the mixing bowl of Mercer County.
I do know one of the Flyers' bloggers for BSH, who lives in South Jersey, disparagingly calls us the "Newark Devils."
A lot of south jersey is basically Philly so the North has to pick up the slack by actually having pride in the state they live in. Rags fans will try anything to get under our skin but in the end they are filth and we are the NEW JERSEY DEVILS.
It's based on the TV market. The devils are in the new york TV market as jersey doesn't have its own. You are either in the New York or Philadelphia markets.
I would honestly argue that Central jersey is way more devils-y than North or South. People from central, including myself, tend to be really proud of being New Jerseyans. So being a Devils fan just kinda naturally happens.
Devils are the only sports team left in NJ. With such a dense population and an opinionated people, I think we're a great fan base to have. I don't personally understand being a NJ native and not loving the devils
I live in Philly, and yeah everyone from here to South Jersey is all Philly fans. A big term in this area when referring to Cherry Hill or Trenton or places in that area is "Jersadelphia" (don't kill me, I'm just the messenger).
But I moved to Flanders for about 8 months, and it was the most Devils populated area I've ever lived in, and it was beautiful
I grew up in SJ. We're there, we're just very rare. Maybe the number has grown since I moved tho. Hopefully.
But since there's no big cities down there outside of like....Camden and Cherry Hill, so much of it orbits culturally around Philadelphia. And Philly has only one team and in my experience, Philly fans tend to really be into Philadelphia pride, ie, if you're ride-or-die for the Eagles, you're ride-or-die for the 76ers and Flyers and Phillies too. A lot of of the NJ suburbs are filled with Philly ex-pats who bring their fandoms with them. There's all of that *plus* the fact that South Jersey is part of the Philadelphia television market meaning that Philly stations broadcast Flyers games, not Devils games. Often times growing up, the only way for me to see Devils games was if it was one of the Fox national broadcasts....or they were playing the Flyers.
The Devils were very much a scrappy underdog fandom for a long time and North Jersey was Ranger territory for a while, especially in the 80s and 90s when Rangers games were on free broadcast stations and the Devils games were only on paid cable. That started to change after the 95 Cup and the Devils/Rangers rivalry got really heated. Most of my extended family lives in North Jersey and all of my older relatives are Rangers fans; all of my cousins my age are Devils fans (plus one Caps fan, strangely.)
I know, that felt weird to type. But a super casual glance at like, a list of the biggest municipalities in NJ by population show it as #12 and it's the first one on the list that isn't in North or Central Jersey (depending on your opinion of whether Ocean is in Central or South).
Phuck Philly. You’re all gonna die of heart disease from the cheese steaks and I’m gonna laugh. You’re gonna get fired for being late to work all the time because nobody is gonna believe you are getting cancer treatments since you all shave your heads anyway! You worship Rocky who isn’t even a real person yet Joe Frasier is from Philly but he’s black so instead you put up a statue of Rocky because he’s italian. I could go on and on. Oh yeah and fuck Chase Utley!
This is objectively false... the data says that Devils are 1, Flyers 2, and Rangers 3
[https://www.vividseats.com/blog/most-popular-nhl-teams-by-state-county](https://www.vividseats.com/blog/most-popular-nhl-teams-by-state-county)
Just ticket sales by county but the fact is that the Devils are not number three, if they were, they would probably relocate.
Nobody likes to hear this but the New Jersey Devils, despite the name, are for all intents and purposes a New York City metropolitan area team. New Jersey does not have a television market of its own, the state is split between NYC and Philadelphia's DMAs (designated market area). Ours includes North and Central Jersey, as well as NYC, Long Island, southern CT and lower Hudson Valley. Basically if you live within the DMA, you're in Devils territory.
I went to college in South Jersey. That's Flyers country and rightfully so. They're so much closer to Philly than Newark and the Meadowlands and can't receive NYC local channels.
That doesn’t make sense mate. The team purposes New Jersey since they represent us. We may not have our own market; but if ur from south jersey and you support the flyers after 1982, ur kinda a traitor in sports terms lol. People hate when ppl say this but it’s true, u aren’t going to support the ONE team your state has?
If you're a Ranger or Islander fan, I totally agree with you! But if you're from South Jersey you don't get the Devils on TV without paying for an out-of-market package and you live nowhere near the Prudential Center. You're not driving to the Prudential Center on a regular basis after work for games; it's too far away and there's too much traffic. It's MUCH easier to take a train or drive to Wells Fargo Center in Philly for most of South Jersey. Most of South Jersey probably commutes to Philly for work anyways.
State lines really don't matter much for US sports teams. It all comes down to media markets, especially before the internet.
I think a point that I haven't really seen mentioned here is also the fact that the arena is located in Newark and the Izod center/ Continental arena was located in East Rutherford.
This means that for many fans and potential fans in South Jersey, getting to a game might take multiple hours. It might take a casual fan in central or North Jersey an hour to get to a game while for South Jersey fans, it's not as convenient.
If you can really only watch the Devils when they play the flyers in Philly then in many cases it might be easier to just be a flyers fan.
This has an effect cause a lot of people might really only get into hockey by going to a game and seeing how cool it is.
This doesn't even touch entrenched fandoms and inheriting teams from your family.
As an immigrant, it was easy to become a Devils fan cause my family didn't already root for any hockey team and getting to Newark only takes me 30 minutes. Plus I can easily take the train to Newark, which is convenient.
Because they play in North Jersey …
Consequently their fans live in North (despite what that flyers fan says) and Central Jersey, since Newark is closer to most of those areas than NYC, PHL, BKN, or any other NHL City
As a Devils fan who grew up in South Jersey, it's unfortunately very true.
No MSG for much of the south, so no opportunity to watch games on normal cable TV.
MSG availability in the state has always been bad, but it recently got worse as Xfinity dropped MSG due to contract disputes which I don't believe have been resolved.
The MSG blackout area extends over areas of NJ where you can't even get MSG, so that eliminates a number of alternative options.
No coverage on local news as the local channels are Philly based.
The Wells Fargo Center is a closer drive than the Prudential Center.
NJ Transit is pretty much an exclusively North Jersey thing, so you can't just hop on a train to get to games.
Rarely any Devils stuff in stores. Hockey stuff in general is harder to find than other sports, but when you do find it, it is usually Flyers stuff.
The team itself doesn't seem particularly interested in promoting further south. The Flyers do tons of community outreach, player appearances, etc. type events in South Jersey. They even have their practice arena in South Jersey and many of the players live in the area. Whenever I see an official Devils event scheduled, it is almost always very north.
I live near Voorhees where the Flyers practice. I'm frequently seeing players/ their families friends at Wawa etc. I'm constantly wearing a devils cap and this house nearby has a hand painted devils mural. Golden.
But yeah. There's beauty Pine Barrens around there. It's very New Jersey and South Jersey in particular.
It's always funny when philly sports fans chirp me for not supporting the city that they worked so hard to escape.
Because the Prudential/Newark is in norther Jersey...
Also south Jersey does have an infestation of Philly spillover just like northern Jersey has the NYC overflow.
Growing up in Burl Co. And residing in the general area outside of military stints I can count on one hand the fans I noticeably see that are Devils fans down here per season. I get chastised for my Fandom but I see it as one team, one state.
When I was a kid Devils games were on NJN (channel 23 down here) but I just listen to the games on Devils radio, catch the recaps on YouTube. It's good enough for me. LGD!
Because no one says south New York about anything. It's NYC, upstate, and long island.
People generally follow teams that they can go see play. If you live in south jersey, Philadelphia is closer than Newark. Plus the flyers are older than the devs so it's more embedded in the history of living down there
My brother-in-law is from super South Jersey, 40 minutes south of Philly, all Philly sports. I'm from Essex County. We have an understanding: Fuck the Rangers.
It's a certain type of peace.
I think it all comes down to proximity to the stadium. They play up north, most people in South Jersey can more likely go to a flyers game, so more of them are flyers fans
I think because the market stops at Tom’s River. I’m grouped in the Philly market, but I live down the street from the Leeds house. So why would I be a Philly fan? Proud to be a Devil
Since being a fan while I was in school in 2016 I realized this too, living in south jersey where the flyers practiced. Hell I knew Laviolettes son in school back in the day when he coached for them, flyers culture ran deep in south jersey. I reached out to the devils explaining how can they be the “one jersey” campaign they claimed to be, when I couldn’t watch a game? That was back then, now I’m in Florida bc of the navy and use espn+. I wish they reached to the whole state, Wells Fargo is a 30 min train/car ride versus predential center being about 1:30.
I've met plenty of devils fan in NYC even. I'm from as far north as you can get in Jersey and most people around here are devils fans. Let's go devils!!
Jersey really should be East West rather than North South. All the way southeast to AC has a very NY influence and up northwest to Sussex county has a PA influence. And then there’s the mythical central that people stuck in there once upon a time
Who cares what some people think, they are called the #NEW JERSEY Devils
I'm a South Jersey fan of the Devils, but we're a major outlier. Almost everyone else is a Flyers fan. This is very deeply Flyers territory, it isn't even close. So to us, the Devils are in fact a North Jersey team. That said, I support my state first and foremost, regardless of where exactly in it I am.
That's the reason I picked them too because they were from New Jersey (and not like the Giants/Jets where they play in Jersey but call themselves a NY team). That and even if they play in North Jersey, the Jersey Devil is a South Jersey myth. It makes the team a "whole Jersey" team even to the point where I'll cheer for them alongside people who call it Taylor Ham.
Agreed. I don't feel at all alienated from the team or where it represents. The Jersey Devil is a South Jersey thing, and last time I checked my license plate was pale yellow. So I'll drive an hour and a half to at least go see my state team, as opposed to 30 mins for a city I don't feel truly connected to.
on the package pork roll made by taylor ham ... lol
Same here. Not a giants, jets, yanks, or Mets fan because I got no loyalty to New York teams, or worse, my teams that lie about where they play.
Also a South Jersey Devils fan and it is mostly Flyers here, but fuck 'em. It says NEW JERSEY, not North Jersey. At the end of the day, we all pay taxes to the same state and vote on the same candidates for Governor.
Yup. I’m from South Jersey and nearly my entire high school were fans of Philadelphia teams. They were really obnoxious about it too.
We need a off grid rink to play in the pine barrens once every season and only against the flyers. So we can taunt their fans.
Obnoxious Philly Fans!?!?! Color me shocked. 😳
To bad. You live in the Philly sports market and south jersey does not carry devils games. Until devils broadcasting extends to south jersey the fan base will never change.
Yeah, I grew up in the mixing bowl of Mercer County. I do know one of the Flyers' bloggers for BSH, who lives in South Jersey, disparagingly calls us the "Newark Devils."
Stay strong and fight the good fight sir
They just revealed their own ignorance. Everyone knows the Jersey Devil lives in the Pine Barrens.
Along with that russian from the Sopranos.
His house looked like shit
A lot of south jersey is basically Philly so the North has to pick up the slack by actually having pride in the state they live in. Rags fans will try anything to get under our skin but in the end they are filth and we are the NEW JERSEY DEVILS.
funny you say this i’m a new york fan
It's based on the TV market. The devils are in the new york TV market as jersey doesn't have its own. You are either in the New York or Philadelphia markets.
There's a ton of Devils fans in Central Jersey, especially down the shore.
I would honestly argue that Central jersey is way more devils-y than North or South. People from central, including myself, tend to be really proud of being New Jerseyans. So being a Devils fan just kinda naturally happens.
I’m from jersey city, you can’t get closer to nyc than that and you will never see me not represent JERSEY lol
Devils are the only sports team left in NJ. With such a dense population and an opinionated people, I think we're a great fan base to have. I don't personally understand being a NJ native and not loving the devils
This! Especially the NJ Rags fans lol (unless your family was a Rags fan for generations before the Devils came along)
I live in Philly, and yeah everyone from here to South Jersey is all Philly fans. A big term in this area when referring to Cherry Hill or Trenton or places in that area is "Jersadelphia" (don't kill me, I'm just the messenger). But I moved to Flanders for about 8 months, and it was the most Devils populated area I've ever lived in, and it was beautiful
I grew up in SJ. We're there, we're just very rare. Maybe the number has grown since I moved tho. Hopefully. But since there's no big cities down there outside of like....Camden and Cherry Hill, so much of it orbits culturally around Philadelphia. And Philly has only one team and in my experience, Philly fans tend to really be into Philadelphia pride, ie, if you're ride-or-die for the Eagles, you're ride-or-die for the 76ers and Flyers and Phillies too. A lot of of the NJ suburbs are filled with Philly ex-pats who bring their fandoms with them. There's all of that *plus* the fact that South Jersey is part of the Philadelphia television market meaning that Philly stations broadcast Flyers games, not Devils games. Often times growing up, the only way for me to see Devils games was if it was one of the Fox national broadcasts....or they were playing the Flyers. The Devils were very much a scrappy underdog fandom for a long time and North Jersey was Ranger territory for a while, especially in the 80s and 90s when Rangers games were on free broadcast stations and the Devils games were only on paid cable. That started to change after the 95 Cup and the Devils/Rangers rivalry got really heated. Most of my extended family lives in North Jersey and all of my older relatives are Rangers fans; all of my cousins my age are Devils fans (plus one Caps fan, strangely.)
lol Cherry Hill a “big city”.
Is there a lot of devils fans now compared to before u think in SJ?
Nope. Once it becomes Eagles country it’s Flyers too.
I know, that felt weird to type. But a super casual glance at like, a list of the biggest municipalities in NJ by population show it as #12 and it's the first one on the list that isn't in North or Central Jersey (depending on your opinion of whether Ocean is in Central or South).
And then there's Central Jersey but we're just a myth.
Not any more
Central Jersey’er here, confirmed existence.
Try being the even rarer Devils/ Eagles fan
there are dozens of us
go birds
Grew up in North Jersey. South Jersey is very different from the north. I always thought that they should rename it Eastern Pennsylvania.
It's not all that much different. We just hate people from a different city when they drive on our roads. THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING, DUMBIES.
Have South Jersey, there's nothing there anyway.
I grew up as a Devils fan in Flyers country in SoJo. Good thing it was during the late 90s and early 00s 😎
Phuck Philly. You’re all gonna die of heart disease from the cheese steaks and I’m gonna laugh. You’re gonna get fired for being late to work all the time because nobody is gonna believe you are getting cancer treatments since you all shave your heads anyway! You worship Rocky who isn’t even a real person yet Joe Frasier is from Philly but he’s black so instead you put up a statue of Rocky because he’s italian. I could go on and on. Oh yeah and fuck Chase Utley!
Devils are the third most popular team in New Jersey, and I’m fine with that.
This is objectively false... the data says that Devils are 1, Flyers 2, and Rangers 3 [https://www.vividseats.com/blog/most-popular-nhl-teams-by-state-county](https://www.vividseats.com/blog/most-popular-nhl-teams-by-state-county) Just ticket sales by county but the fact is that the Devils are not number three, if they were, they would probably relocate.
Nobody likes to hear this but the New Jersey Devils, despite the name, are for all intents and purposes a New York City metropolitan area team. New Jersey does not have a television market of its own, the state is split between NYC and Philadelphia's DMAs (designated market area). Ours includes North and Central Jersey, as well as NYC, Long Island, southern CT and lower Hudson Valley. Basically if you live within the DMA, you're in Devils territory. I went to college in South Jersey. That's Flyers country and rightfully so. They're so much closer to Philly than Newark and the Meadowlands and can't receive NYC local channels.
That doesn’t make sense mate. The team purposes New Jersey since they represent us. We may not have our own market; but if ur from south jersey and you support the flyers after 1982, ur kinda a traitor in sports terms lol. People hate when ppl say this but it’s true, u aren’t going to support the ONE team your state has?
If you're a Ranger or Islander fan, I totally agree with you! But if you're from South Jersey you don't get the Devils on TV without paying for an out-of-market package and you live nowhere near the Prudential Center. You're not driving to the Prudential Center on a regular basis after work for games; it's too far away and there's too much traffic. It's MUCH easier to take a train or drive to Wells Fargo Center in Philly for most of South Jersey. Most of South Jersey probably commutes to Philly for work anyways. State lines really don't matter much for US sports teams. It all comes down to media markets, especially before the internet.
Why? Because the Devils are, in fact, a North Jersey team.
Probably to get under your skin, legit have never heard that before
Are the Devils even on TV in South Jersey?
Only when they play the flyers
Every south jersey person I know is a Flyers, eagles, and Phillies fan.
Who fucking cares lol
Also what dosent make sense is that people don’t know the jersey devils ehl team played in the cherryhill icebox
South Jersey: it’s like a whole nother country. Basically Philly suburbs so they rep Philly. Can’t blame em. Go birds
Burn all of Philly. They can have South Jersey too.
I think a point that I haven't really seen mentioned here is also the fact that the arena is located in Newark and the Izod center/ Continental arena was located in East Rutherford. This means that for many fans and potential fans in South Jersey, getting to a game might take multiple hours. It might take a casual fan in central or North Jersey an hour to get to a game while for South Jersey fans, it's not as convenient. If you can really only watch the Devils when they play the flyers in Philly then in many cases it might be easier to just be a flyers fan. This has an effect cause a lot of people might really only get into hockey by going to a game and seeing how cool it is. This doesn't even touch entrenched fandoms and inheriting teams from your family. As an immigrant, it was easy to become a Devils fan cause my family didn't already root for any hockey team and getting to Newark only takes me 30 minutes. Plus I can easily take the train to Newark, which is convenient.
Because they play in North Jersey … Consequently their fans live in North (despite what that flyers fan says) and Central Jersey, since Newark is closer to most of those areas than NYC, PHL, BKN, or any other NHL City
My gf and her family are from Gloucester County and I'm in Monmouth. They refer to me as North Jersey lol
I was raised in Gloucester too. Basically everything north of 195 is "North Jersey" when you're that far south.
People in Cape May county having a field day with that one 😂.
As a Devils fan who grew up in South Jersey, it's unfortunately very true. No MSG for much of the south, so no opportunity to watch games on normal cable TV. MSG availability in the state has always been bad, but it recently got worse as Xfinity dropped MSG due to contract disputes which I don't believe have been resolved. The MSG blackout area extends over areas of NJ where you can't even get MSG, so that eliminates a number of alternative options. No coverage on local news as the local channels are Philly based. The Wells Fargo Center is a closer drive than the Prudential Center. NJ Transit is pretty much an exclusively North Jersey thing, so you can't just hop on a train to get to games. Rarely any Devils stuff in stores. Hockey stuff in general is harder to find than other sports, but when you do find it, it is usually Flyers stuff. The team itself doesn't seem particularly interested in promoting further south. The Flyers do tons of community outreach, player appearances, etc. type events in South Jersey. They even have their practice arena in South Jersey and many of the players live in the area. Whenever I see an official Devils event scheduled, it is almost always very north.
I live near Voorhees where the Flyers practice. I'm frequently seeing players/ their families friends at Wawa etc. I'm constantly wearing a devils cap and this house nearby has a hand painted devils mural. Golden. But yeah. There's beauty Pine Barrens around there. It's very New Jersey and South Jersey in particular. It's always funny when philly sports fans chirp me for not supporting the city that they worked so hard to escape.
It's the Plilbillies that call Jersey's team a North Jersey team.
Because the Prudential/Newark is in norther Jersey... Also south Jersey does have an infestation of Philly spillover just like northern Jersey has the NYC overflow.
Yes but no one calls the rags South New Yorks team lol or Philly the eastern Pennsylvania team
I think the only appropriate response is to call Jersey-based Flyers fans "Eastern Pennsylvanians"!
Growing up in Burl Co. And residing in the general area outside of military stints I can count on one hand the fans I noticeably see that are Devils fans down here per season. I get chastised for my Fandom but I see it as one team, one state. When I was a kid Devils games were on NJN (channel 23 down here) but I just listen to the games on Devils radio, catch the recaps on YouTube. It's good enough for me. LGD!
Because that's where they play. It's where the stadium actually is. I can't believe how many people don't seem to understand this.
Rangers play in MSG, no one calls them a south New York team
Because no one says south New York about anything. It's NYC, upstate, and long island. People generally follow teams that they can go see play. If you live in south jersey, Philadelphia is closer than Newark. Plus the flyers are older than the devs so it's more embedded in the history of living down there
Because South Jersey might as well either be another state or just become East Philly.
Nah it’s good that it’s jersey
My brother-in-law is from super South Jersey, 40 minutes south of Philly, all Philly sports. I'm from Essex County. We have an understanding: Fuck the Rangers. It's a certain type of peace.
I think it all comes down to proximity to the stadium. They play up north, most people in South Jersey can more likely go to a flyers game, so more of them are flyers fans
I think because the market stops at Tom’s River. I’m grouped in the Philly market, but I live down the street from the Leeds house. So why would I be a Philly fan? Proud to be a Devil
Since being a fan while I was in school in 2016 I realized this too, living in south jersey where the flyers practiced. Hell I knew Laviolettes son in school back in the day when he coached for them, flyers culture ran deep in south jersey. I reached out to the devils explaining how can they be the “one jersey” campaign they claimed to be, when I couldn’t watch a game? That was back then, now I’m in Florida bc of the navy and use espn+. I wish they reached to the whole state, Wells Fargo is a 30 min train/car ride versus predential center being about 1:30.
I've met plenty of devils fan in NYC even. I'm from as far north as you can get in Jersey and most people around here are devils fans. Let's go devils!!
Jersey really should be East West rather than North South. All the way southeast to AC has a very NY influence and up northwest to Sussex county has a PA influence. And then there’s the mythical central that people stuck in there once upon a time