Historic Storm Produced History for Devils in '87
The New Jersey Devils were an embarrassment to the NHL for the first several years after the Colorado Rockies moved there in the early 1980s. Wayne Gretzky even had one of his very rare intemperate moments as a professional hockey player at that time, when he referred to them as a "Mickey Mouse organization" after the Oilers scored 13 goals against them in one game.
But they slowly improved through the later years of the decade, and finally made the playoffs for the first time in 1988. The article above was published around the anniversary date of one of the most bizarre games in team history in early 1987, when a blizzard dropped two feet of snow on the New York City area and some of the players took hours to get to the arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The visiting Calgary Flames were staying at a hotel not far away, so they made it there on time. But the Devils didn't have enough players to field a team at game time, so they delayed the start until after 9:00PM.
There were 11,000+ tickets sold for the game, but only 334 fans showed up. They soon became legends in Devils history. The team gave them all kinds of free merchandise at the game, and even 30+ years later they have periodic reunions and are still remembered as the "334 Club."
You may even see one or two of them at Devils games today. They're the ones who wear what looks to be a regular Devils jersey from the front, but on the back it has the number "334" instead of a player's number. LOL!
I don’t think I was ever at a game with less than a 1000 fans. That must of been an experience! I will say there were only a few thousand people at Penguins games when I started going.