FILE - In this June 9, 2003, file photo, New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur hoists the Stanley Cup after the Devils defeated the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 3-0 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in East Rutherford, N.J.. Brodeur is retiring to take a front office job with the St. Louis Blues. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson)

They call my home state of New Jersey the “Garden State.” I always imagined it was the runner-up to the rejected original winner, “Constant State of Inferiority.”

We’re a punch-line. We’re a weird growth on the ass of New York. We’re trash heaps and smoke stacks and odd odors that creep through your vents while traveling down I-95. We’re Snooki and The Situation and Joe Piscopo and Chris Christie and clichés about Springsteen songs and where everyone looks like Tony Soprano.

When you’re from Jersey, you always hear about the concept of “Jersey Pride.” It’s this notion that we’re something more than the jokes that define us, something more than the being “The Garbage State.”

It’s a difficult concept to grasp for many reasons, being that we’re a collection of self-deprecating jerks half the time. It was especially difficult growing up as a sports fan in New Jersey during the 1980s and ‘90s, because nothing that was good about Jersey sports was actually ours.

The Giants and Jets, playing their home games in the swampy Meadowlands? New York’s NFL teams. The Nets’ most cherished player had his number hanging from the Brendan Byrne Arena rafters, yet Dr. J only played three years with the franchise, all of them in New York.

Same story with the Devils. Peter Stastny, who would go on to be the first Hall of Famer that played in New Jersey, was a Nordique. Slava Fetisov had played roughly 15 years for the Red Army before he showed up in New Jersey, and then didn’t win a Cup until heading to the Red Wings. Scott Stevens was a Capital and a Blue before coming to the Devils, the product of a fortunate arbitration hearing decision. And then he didn’t want to be there for the first few seasons.

This is what made Martin Brodeur special. Drafted by New Jersey, No. 20 in 1990. Nurtured by New Jersey. Played every game with New Jersey, save for a regrettable seven-contest coda with the Blues this season.

Set records with New Jersey. Won Cups with New Jersey.

Suddenly Jersey Pride wasn’t an obtuse concept. You could see it, touch it, marvel at it. He wore No. 30, and his mask was adorned with one primary image: A ‘J’ with Devils horns and a tail attached.

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Scott Mackie was a Devils fan I knew back in the day, who once penned this about the experience of being one:

“To be a Devils fan …especially one IN the area, by nature you pick up a certain hostility and a good bit of ‘f--k you’ attitude about things. All you hear all this time ‘your team has no fans,’ ‘your team doesn't belong here,’ ‘the Devils are a nice story, but we'd talk about it 100 times more on WFAN if it was the Rangers,’ ‘your team's boring style is ruining the sport,’ and all that kinda stuff. And it builds up.

“And yes, this team has been THE dominant franchise in the East the last 10 years, and maybe some of that is why you hear the RANGERS SUCK chant all game or why ‘we're classless to other team’s fans.’ Or your little goalie has to hear 19,040 yell SUCKS at him before each game. But being a Devils fan in this area almost REQUIRES that level of attitude, and you don't get it if you're not FROM here and have to live through the day to day stuff like that. Just try to understand that we DO, and it's part of that fighting spirit and the constant feeling of it's the world against US.”

All of this was to say that we were the most defensive, angsty fan base in hockey. In Brodeur’s early years, that was embodied by Scott Stevens and Ken Daneyko breaking bones, and an “interchangeable flock of forwards” who would just as soon punch you in the mouth as they would beat you with a goal.

But Brodeur was a combination of defiance and elegance. His goaltending style was picturesque – a controlled, confident technique augmented by an unprecedented ability to play the puck. His focus was incredible, given the Devils’ ability to suppress offense with their system. If a shot got through on him, it was going to be a quality one. He’d stop them all, when called upon. He was Charlie Watts with the Stones – the backbeat of the Devils classics, carrying the tune when necessary.

He orchestrated a system that frustrated foes, NHL management and television executives. Think of the Devils’ trap like a video game: Once you battle your way through dozens of levels of difficult opponents, the Big Bad at the end is the hardest Big Bad in the game. Beat the forward, beat the defense and there was Brodeur. It was exhausting.

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