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NEWARK — It starts with a big hit.

A New Jersey Devils player lays out a member of another team. The crowd at the Prudential Center cheers wildly, but disjointedly.

For a group of Montgomery High School students, it’s time to go to work. Their drumsticks strike their polyethylene drum heads in perfect rhythm.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack-thwack-thwack. Let's go Dev-ils.

This group of teenagers, who two months ago hadn’t played to an audience larger than a high school football game, now lead a crowd of 17,625. And tonight, they’ll do it for hockey’s marquee event — the Stanley Cup Finals.

"It’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me," said Andrew Hill, 16. "To hear 16 to 17 thousand people follow what I’m doing, it’s just amazing."

Since the beginning of the National Hockey League playoffs, Hill and four other members of the Montgomery High School marching band’s drum line have become the head cheerleaders during Devils home games. They parade around the arena before and after games, with hordes of cheering fans in tow. During games, they are perched above section 108 and have led chants for the crowd at all but one of the Devils’ home playoff games as the team has made its first run to the Stanley Cup Finals since 2003.

The team has only lost one game since the drum line began appearing at The Rock.

"It has really made a difference," said James Cole, a longtime season ticket holder from Verona who sits above the boys in section 208. "Since they came in, there’s a new sense of motivation in the crowd. I feel like they’ve brought not only our section, but the entire crowd closer together. It’s like a family, and we’ve adopted them."

The partnership began in April at the start of the playoffs, when Devils’ staffers were looking for ways to amp up the crowd during home games. The NHL prohibits music while the puck is in play. But drums? They’re just fine.

The Devils arena entertainment team remembered that the Montgomery High School marching band had played at a game in March. By the end of the first round against the Florida Panthers, Hill, Sean Bates, Alex Jolly, Karthik Boominathan, and Robby Stegman had become a fixture.

"It started off as an experiment," said Bob Sommer, a spokesman for Devils arena entertainment. "But every element of this has been great. It is an experiment that has exceeded beyond everything we could possibly have imagined."

The feeling is mutual.

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"It’s an opportunity that’s almost once in a lifetime," said JL Marshall, the assistant band director and an English teacher at Montgomery who leads the drummers during games. "Some of them were fans already, but the kids who weren’t, I’ve watched them grow to become Devils fans."

Stegman said at first he thought playing the games would just be another gig.

"It turned into something none of us ever expected," he said. "Now it just fills us all with so much excitement to be here. It has turned me into a Devils fan."

Hill, on the other hand, has been a fan since 2006. He has never seen the team advance past the second round of the playoffs.

But tonight, he’ll not only be watching the Devils compete in his first Stanley Cup Finals, he’ll be beating the war drums for an army of thousands lined up behind him.

"It’s the best feeling in the world," he said.