‘Rangers Suck, Flyers Swallow!’ and ‘You Suck’ after goals chants are old and tiresome — and it’s time for them to be retired

The Canessa Commentary
By Kevin Canessa Jr.

I’ve been a fan of the New Jersey Devils since 1986. I fell in love with the team after I realized Gary Thorne, whom I’d admired as a Mets broadcaster, was the TV play-by-play voice. It was a strange way to grow to like a team, but it’s really how it happened for me.

I’ve spent years following the team, at home and on the road.

Between 1993 and 1997, when I was away at college in Newport, R.I., I saw more road games than home games — in Boston and in Hartford. I loved the team that much, that I’d often even prefer to see them playing in enemy territory — though games in Hartford and even Boston back then weren’t exactly risky for opposing fans.

Yet as much as I love this team — and will defend it to death — there are some aspects of being a Devils fan I despise — and a lot of it surrounds the home-game experience, the chants and the use of the word “suck” and “swallow.”

I realize I will not be popular with this post, but I couldn’t care less anymore.

I want to say it all started during the 2000 Stanley Cup Finals — Game no. 1 on ABC at the Continental Airlines Arena.

Bob Arsena, then PA announcer, was introducing the Dallas Stars — and it was one of those rare moments where the network actually showed them live.

After each non-starting Star was introduced, the crowd would loudly say “sucks!” after Arsena called their names. In the background, Thorne, doing the game for ABC, could be heard on cue.

“Welcome to New Jersey,” Thorne said, not realizing his mic was live.

Welcome to New Jersey, indeed.

This tradition continues to today.

And a few years ago, some geniuses in the upper tiers decided that when the Devils’ goal song, “Rock and Roll Part II,” (which really, really needs to be replaced) plays, after “Hey!” is screamed, it would be OK to now scream “You Suck!” afterward.

The Prudential Center isn’t the first place this has happened — in fact, it happens in some other arenas for college games, etc. But it’s the only NHL arena where it happens. And it’s downright stupid.

And to make matters even more juvenile, the Devils in-game entertainment staff put on the message boards, “You Rock!” as the song plays after every Devils goal.

It’s as asinine as anything else I’ve ever heard at a hockey game. And it just makes Devils fans look stupid, childish and juvenile.

The team would be much better suited simply changing the goal song, which has, in one form or another, been in place since the 1990-91 season. (It was taken away twice — once in the final season at the Meadowlands and once in the first year at the Rock). Yet it always finds its way back.

And it’s now at an embarrassing point.

But it’s not just this.

Regardless of whom the Devils are playing, at least five — usually more — times a game, the new chant is: “Rangers suck, Flyers swallow!”

I understand the hatred for the Rangers and Flyers. I detest both teams more than anything else I detest in the world — honestly. But the chant is beyond vial. It’s getting old. And again, it makes Devils fans look downright stupid and juvenile.

I could even understand it when it was just “Rangers suck!” But the “Flyers swallow” addition to the chant is even more asinine than the “You suck” after the goal song is played.

Sure. I am nit-picking. But that is what this site is about.

It’s about what happens outside the actual game. It’s about what happens off-ice and elsewhere. It’s about what happens in the stands.

And it’s right there — in the stands — where the time has come to get creative.

And to find something new an innovative.

The old chants, at this point, are just that — tiresome and old. And they make all Devils fans — all of us — look the fool.