Still a Mickey Mouse Organization?

Earlier this year, my girlfriend a couple of buddies and I went to see the Sens play the Devils in game 1 of their playoff series. We had tickets right on the red line but also as high up as you could get in Continental Airlines Arena. I was pretty psyched, since I'm from Ottawa and love the Sens. And I couldn't believe that we could get seats like this the day of the game. My buddy Jon (who's also from Ottawa) decided he wanted to watch the warm up and he and our friend Rich stayed at rink level while Monica and I went to find our seats. In the middle of the first period, we were wondering where they were. Then Jon called me and told me there were loads of empty seats at ice level and we should come on down. Sure enough, there was no security and we watched the rest of the game (which the Sens won) from six rows up. At the time we couldn't stop talking about our luck and the lameness of the Devils fans and organization for not even selling out a Stanley Cup quarter final game.

Flash forward ahead to the present day. The Devils have put East Rutherford behind them and are planning to move in to a shiny new arena in Newark. Their opening night opponent are the Sens and I figured it would be great to get tickets for this. Only problem? They're not actually selling individual tickets. Sure if you go the Devils site you can buy season tickets or even a 20 game plan. But no single game tickets. I'm not sure if Lou Lamerillo and the rest of the Devils brain trust thinks there's going to be a swelling of state pride now that their located in the murder capital of New Jersey. But obviously, somebody thinks they're going to fill that arena with season ticket holders. Even though they were never able to do that when the team was winning Stanley Cups on a regular basis (and before they lost their star center to the Rangers). I personally would have thought they would open up their doors to New York City hockey fans who would hop on the PATH to see their favorite team. But no, the Devils would rather play in front of an empty house than make the kind of money that might have allowed them to keep Scott Gomez from wearing Broadway Blue.

Back in the day, Wayne Gretzky called the Devils "A Mickey Mouse organization." The team may have one a few championships since then but from everything I've seen, that assessment still holds true.