Byline: RICK HAMPSON USA Today
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Sometimes sports is more than a game. Sometimes it seizes hold of a community, enthralling it, uniting it, making fans and non-fans feel part of something bigger than themselves.
That's how it was in New York in 1969, when the Mets, after years of epic futility, won the World Series. Years later, the columnist Pete Hamill said it was the last time when everyone he knew was happy.
That's how it should be here in the Meadowlands, where the New Jersey Devils and the New Jersey Nets have a chance to become the first teams from the same place to win NBA and NHL championships in the same season. It's a chance to step out of New York's shadow, to stop those stupid New Jersey jokes about the mob and the air, to give an amorphous suburban region with dozens of cities, boroughs, towns and villages a common cause.
But it's just not happening.
The problem isn't on the ice or the floor. It's on the airwaves, at the bars, on the streets. Devils-Nets fever is not highly contagious. For every one person excited by the confluence of possible championships, there seem to be seven who don't care.
Listen to Matt Angrist, a senior at Northern Valley Regional High School in Demarest: ``Every year near this time I see the Devils hanging around. After a while, it just gets monotonous seeing them always win. As for the Nets, I hope they lose. Every Nets fan jumped on the bandwagon and probably couldn't name five players three years ago. Disgusting.''
If Angrist had spoken like that about the Pirates in Pittsburgh in 1960, or about the Bruins in Boston in 1970, he would have had to eat dinner with a spoon.
But even the mayor of the town where the Nets and Devils play sees little sign of Jerseymania.
``It's not like the times the Giants were in the Super Bowl,'' says James Cassella, referring to the NFL team that plays in the Meadowlands but still has ``New York'' in its name. ``People who had no interest in sports were interested. You had the office pools, the parties. I'm a Nets and Devils fan, but this year just isn't like that.''
This year the Devils are leading the Anaheim Mighty Ducks three games to two in the NHL's best-of-seven-game Stanley Cup finals. The Nets, meanwhile, as of press time, trail the San Antonio Spurs one game to none in the best-of-seven NBA Finals.
Both New Jersey teams play at Continental Airlines Arena, whose site occupies a vast swath of this borough of about 9,000. It's the first time in a decade that teams from the same place have made the NBA and NHL finals in the same season.
Mayor Cassella says his constituents are excited by the prospect of dual titles, then adds: ``We're just as excited that the high school baseball team is playing for the state championship on Saturday.''
``The average man in the street in Jersey isn't caught up in this,'' says Serge Krikorian, an insurance agent who holds Devils and Nets season tickets. ``It's a disgrace. It breaks my heart that these things happen. I've discussed this with hundreds of friends. ... And I still can't figure it out.''
Not mall talk: There are many explanations for why the Nets and Devils aren't the talk of the mall. Some of the more prominent scapegoats:
Their arena. Continental Airlines Arena is a charmless, cramped, early Reagan-era building that somehow manages to strike many visitors as sterile as well as decrepit.
Rarely has a facility been so vilified. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman calls it ``outdated and inaccessible.'' NBA Commissioner David Stern says it ``needs to be replaced.'' New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority president George Zoffinger says it ``just doesn't work.''
Their location. The arena is surrounded by a sea of asphalt and a river of highways. It is virtually unreachable by mass transit, and thus a tough commute for Manhattanites, many of whom are too cool to drive.
Their attendance. Despite having the NHL's second-best regular-season record this season, the Devils had 3,622 empty seats at their home playoff opener against the Boston Bruins. They logged only three sellouts during the regular season.
The Nets averaged about 14,000 fans a game in the 20,000-seat arena, making them 25th out of 29 NBA teams in home attendance.
Nets forward Richard Jefferson has noted that the team plays before more people on the road than at home.
Their owners. Both teams are owned by YankeeNets, a company headed by New York Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner and partners. They have said they want to move the teams to a new arena in nearby Newark partly financed with public funds. That has tended to undercut local support.
Asks Billy Willets of Teaneck, who says he has gone to 10 Nets games and 10 Devils games this season. ``Why should we support a team that's going to move?''
Their community. Or rather, their lack of one. Unlike most big-league teams, the Nets and Devils have no substantial local or regional political entity with which to identify. Although the arena is in East Rutherford, the borough's population could fit inside it two times.
Rob Lang grew up in New Jersey. Now he's an expert on urban areas. His observation: ``It's hard to be Titletown, USA, when there is no town.''
Their competition. In the northern part of the state, the Devils and Nets compete for fans with the New York Rangers and Knicks; in the south, they run against the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers.
The city teams have been in their present locations longer. The Devils hear it all the time: ``You're great, but I'm a Rangers fan.'' Others aren't as subtle. Devils fan Mike Miserendino of Staten Island says Rangers fans ``will try to jump on anything. 'You can't even sell out a playoff game. Your style of play is boring. You don't know anything about hockey.' ''
Their fans. There are Nets fans and there are Devils fans, and rarely do the twain meet. You see relatively few Devils bumper stickers at Nets games, and vice versa, and there's not much overlap between season ticket holders.
Themselves. Why should fans be swept up in cross-sport enthusiasm when the players aren't?
Although some Devils know something about basketball, the Nets seem particularly disinterested in hockey.
``I always wonder why they fight so much,'' the Nets' Dikembe Mutombo says of pro hockey players. ``I wouldn't want to leave my house and go to work where someone beat me up in my face and I end up in the surgery room every night.''
Nets guard Lucious Harris says he never has been to a hockey game. He'd like to go, sort of, but says ``most of the time, on your day off, you just want to rest. You say you're going to go, but all of sudden that day off looks a lot better.'' Mutombo said he thought about going to the second Devils-Ducks Stanley Cup finals game but decided he was too tired.
Pro athletes often attend pro games as guests of the house, and get a nice hand when they walk in. They probably don't even have to buy their own popcorn. If they don't want to go, why should anyone else?
Stuck in the middle: New Jersey always has been caught between New York and Philadelphia -- ``a valley of humility between two mountains of conceit,'' as Ben Franklin put it. Somewhere along the line, a sense of humility became one of inferiority. ``We're used to playing second fiddle,'' says Mayor Cassella.
The arrival of the Nets in the mid '70s and the Devils in the early '80s promised at least to raise the state's sports profile. But it didn't happen immediately. The Devils were denounced by none less than the great Wayne Gretzky as a ``Mickey Mouse'' organization. The Nets, much worse for much longer at the Meadowlands, were known for piping canned crowd noise into the arena.
But the concurrent championship series promised to bury those memories like a mobster in cement.
Gov. James McGreevey has hailed the arena as ``the center of sports greatness'' and said its teams ``will bring increased pride and distinction to the state.'' According to state Sen. Paul Sarlo, who represents the Meadowlands' district, ``The eyes of the nation are looking here, at the crown jewel of winter sports.''
Forget the eyes of the nation; Mike Wallstein of Fair Lawn says the state, ``with the Nets and Devils, is the center of the universe. ... Jersey finally is getting its due.''
Even Wallstein's business partner is coming around. Drew Paterno moved to New Jersey from New York about 25 years ago, but never fully reconciled himself to the fact. He's apt to tell people he's really a New Yorker -- just staying here for the time being.
But with the Nets' and Devils' success, he says, ``I'm tempted to tell folks I'm from Jersey!'' USA Today reporters Roscoe Nance, Jill Lieber, Tom Pedulla, Kevin Allen, Melissa Geschwind, Ian O'Connor, Michelle Oh and Julie Gordon contributed to this report.
