STUCK IN THE MUD SOMEWHERE IN THE SWAMPS OF JERSEY: Both of the winter sports teams that call the Meadowlands/Continental Arena home, the New Jersey Devils and New Jersey Nets, are in the finals of their respective sports- and even though both of those teams play their home games just a few miles ("just a few exits!") from where I'm sitting right now, I'll be cheering enthusiastically for both of their opponents.
There's plenty of superficial reasons to hate both teams: the Devils are always in the mix for the Cup, have won twice in the last few years, yet still keep firing coaches all the time, and frankly, by now I'm sick to death of them. Oh, and they almost followed the first championship in franchise history by moving to Nashville. The Nets' best player (Kidd) beat his wife, their second-best player (Martin) is a notorious thug, and they have one of the league's most entertaining characters (Mutumbo) and don't even play him. On top of that, both teams play in a dump of an arena that nobody wants to go to, and their grand scheme to alleviate the problem is to move to (?) Newark.
Here's the reason why I consider it an affront to both logic and economics that New Jersey even has teams: during Game 4 of the Nets-Pistons series in East Rutherford, one of the ESPN announcers mentioned that the building was in fact sold out, and it marked the Nets' fourth home sellout of the season. Not of the series. Not of the playoffs. Their fourth home sellout of the season.
Yes, a relatively exciting, championship-caliber team in the nation's #1 media market has managed to sell out a grand total of four home dates, out of 50-something this year, including three different playoff series. How embarrassing is that? And it's not like baseball where they have to fill 50,000 seats- the capacity at Continental Arena, as of last year, was around 14,000. Then again, what do you expect when you employ Joe Piscopo as your primary halftime entertainment?
Still, regardless of what I think of the New Jersey teams, I still hate the Yankees more. Did you ever think you'd see the day when the Nets were on a 10-game playoff winning streak, while their brethren within YES, the Yankees, were in the midst of an eight-game home losing streak?
(Oh, and $1 to the first person who e-mails me with the Springsteen song that the subject comes from. And no Googling).