I was born wearing a New York Rangers one-piece, a little seven pound and one ounce baby girl adorned in the colors of the “best hockey team in the league”. My grandfather was the epitome of a die-hard hockey fan, and his team was of course, none other than New York’s best. It was no surprise that I came into this world as a well-seasoned hockey fan given my surroundings.

Long before I was even a consideration to my parents, long before my parents were even a consideration to each other, my mom grew up in a house where a Rangers game was never missed. My grandfather had his jerseys, his season tickets, even his own pairs of roller skates and ice skates. He passed on his love for hockey and the New York Rangers to my mother and my uncle. My mom tells me stories of how my grandpa would set up a net in the driveway and he would play street hockey for hours with my uncle and his friends. This was a man who loved hockey so much that he made sure he tuned into the radio at my mother’s wedding reception to keep up with the Rangers game in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals. You could most definitely say that the New York Rangers, hockey itself, ran through his veins.

My grandpa died in 1997 before I ever got to meet him, but his love of hockey and of the Rangers did not die with him. Though I did not enter the world to meet my wonderful grandfather who most likely would’ve sat me in a baby swing right in front of the TV during a Rangers game, I did meet my uncle. The apple did not fall far from the tree at all, my uncle had inherited everything he felt and knew about hockey from my grandfather. Of course my mother was also an honorary Rangers fan, she would watch the games and she had her jersey hung neatly in her closet, but my uncle was just a younger version of my grandfather. We have photo albums littered with countless pictures of me; in a white Rangers jersey, standing between my uncle’s legs with a pair of roller skates on. I was brought home from the hospital to find a Rangers teddy bear perched in my crib. Growing up with a game on in the background as I played was nothing out of the ordinary.

Around the age of eleven I attended my first NHL hockey game and I loved it. In the years to follow I would go to countless games, each one better than the last and it was something I just loved more and more as I grew. The catch is, I grew up to be a New Jersey Devils fan and anyone who knows hockey, or even has a common knowledge of sports rivalries, knows that the New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers are one of the most pertinent rivalries in the NHL.

So where does that leave me? Well, my household is indeed a Devils household, with the exception of my mom who tends to teeter in neutrality. Though my cousins grew up in a different household under the nurturing thumb of my Rangers loving uncle. It is a constant battle whenever we see each other. Which team is the better team? Who is doing better in the league right now? Who has the best goalie? It could go on for days. I think that one of my uncle’s favorite hobbies is teasing me about my switchover and how I used to root for the “right team”. I even get the occasional joke of how my grandfather is probably “rolling over in his grave” due to my choice of teams. There is one thing I do know though and that is that my grandfather is not disappointed. Although I may root for his most hated hockey team, I know that my love of hockey is something my grandfather passed down to me through generations. I know that he is proud to see that a piece of him exists in me and I am surely proud of that. Though I never got to know my grandfather, there is not a time I feel closer to him than when I am watching a hockey game and that is something special I will carry with me for the rest of my life.