While I am 100 percent a New Jersey Devils fan, I’m not someone you’d call a die-hard “hockey fan.” I fell into my love of the New Jersey Devils the same way I fell into loving any sports team growing up: They were the team near me. [Ed note: “Near” is the Philly-Jersey-New York area. I live in Central Jersey, right outside of the capital, if we’re really keeping score.] To be honest, my earliest memory of the Devils was admiring the horns on the NJ in their logo as an elementary school student; I didn’t know who played on the team until I started playing NHL ‘95 on the Genesis. As I got older, the idea of rocking a hockey jersey as a regular piece in my wardrobe was always appealing, given what guys like Snoop Dogg were rocking on Arsenio Hall, but I didn’t actually come to owning a Devils hockey jersey until a few years back. I sniped a red home jersey on eBay (I’m too quick to dirty white road jerseys), and during the quarantine, I dove headfirst into the vintage market, grabbing throwback hats and random pieces of nostalgia from sports teams in my era, primarily from the Devils. Why? Jersey pride, plain and simple. I could rock some dope colorways from other teams in the NHL (and I do, at times), but as I get older and realize what I’m about, rocking a Devils jersey just says it all, regardless of the box score. That same pride is what made me fall in love with the New Jersey Devils’ first third jersey, which was designed in part by Devils legend Martin Brodeur, considered by many to be one of the greatest goalies in NHL history. Brodeur tells Complex that this third jersey was one of the Executive VP of Business Development’s first jobs in his new role.
“I got back in with the Devils organization in late 2018,” Brodeur explains. “I only played hockey; I’ve never really understood or thought about the business of [hockey]. They kind of put a project on my desk, saying, ‘Listen, we’re really looking into creating a third jersey for the franchise. Would you like to be part of it?’ I was like, ‘Wow, this is kind of a big undertaking.’ I wasn’t sure exactly how much I was going to be able to help. Obviously, with Jillian [Frechette, Senior Vice President of Marketing for the New Jersey Devils] and the group that we have, we kind of went in there, started the process of it. It took a while, like two and a half years, three years or so. And it makes you understand how hard it is to get stuff done.”
