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What is the legend of the New Jersey Devil?

The New Jersey Devils began their NHL life as the Kansas City Scouts. Their tenure in Kansas City lasted only till 1978, when the NHL approved the team’s move to Denver as the Colorado Rockies. In 1982 the Rockies. relocated once again, this time to New Jersey. After a fan vote, the new team was christened the New Jersey Devils.

Five Hockey Books to Take to an Iceberg

• The Game: A Thoughtful and Provocative Look at a Life in Hockey by Ken Dryden (1983).

• Net Worth: Exploding the Myths of Pro Hockey by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths (1991).

• Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn’t Play by David Adams Richards (1996).

• Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places by Dave Bidini (2000).

• Putting a Roof on Winter: Hockey’s Rise from Sport to Spectacle by Michael McKinley (2000).

Most tellers of the legend of the Jersey Devil trace the tale back to Deborah Leeds, a New Jersey woman who was about to give birth to her 13th child. The story goes that Mrs. Leeds invoked the Devil during a very difficult and painful labour, and when the baby was born, it grew into a full-grown devil and escaped from the house. People in the 1700s still believed in witchcraft, and many felt a deformed child was a child of the Devil or that the deformity was a sign that the child had been cursed by God. It may be that Mrs. Leeds gave birth to a child with a birth defect and, given the superstitions of the period, the legend of the Jersey Devil was born.