Story of '334 Club' lives forever in Devils lore

Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as "The Hockey Maven," shares his humor and insight with readers each Wednesday.

This week, Stan turns back the clock to a day 37 years ago, when a mean-spirited blizzard that blanketed the Northeast threatened to force a cancellation of a game between the Calgary Flames and New Jersey Devils. The nasty storm also came close to deleting Fischler's telecast on SportsChannel.

The following is Stan's personal tale. The Maven reveals how he, the home team, the visitors from Calgary and 334 fans managed to defy Jack Frost -- and the extremely late game finally was played.

It would be rather appropriate if a light snowfall had dusted East Rutherford, New Jersey, this coming Sunday.

I'd love it because I'm reminded of a blizzard, a daredevil drive and a hockey game I'll never forget. Here's my story about 334 of the most intrepid hockey fans and a game that refused to be cancelled because of a Nor'easter 37 years ago.

On the morning of Jan. 22, 1987, managers in the New Jersey Devils ticketing department estimated that 11,247 fans would come through the turnstiles for the game against the Calgary Flames. It was a reasonable guess since that's how many tickets had been sold.

The ticket department would be off by a mere 10,913 disappointed bodies.

The official count eventually would be 334 diehards, each of whom deserved some form of a hockey Purple Heart for their courage and loyalty to the Devils. The miracle would have been if only one of them had made it to Brendan Byrne Arena.

I happened to be among the other diehards although I didn't have a ticket. I had to be there because it was my job to do a SportsChannel telecast of the game. At the time, I was color commentator for the Devils with play-by-play man Al Albert. Along with a bunch of behind-the-scenes techies, our job -- call it duty -- was to be there come hell or high water or, in this case, a blizzard to end all snowfalls. My saga began innocently enough after breakfast.

By the time I finished my morning coffee in our Upper West Side apartment, I heard a somewhat nervous call from the living room. "Look outside," my wife Shirley chirped. So, I looked.

It was a storybook midwinter scene. It reminded me why Felix Bernard and Richard Bernhard Smith wrote a tune called "Winter Wonderland." Crystalline snowflakes were blowing in from the Hudson River and turning West 110 Street into a pretty white carpet.

"This looks like it could be a bad one," Shirley warned, "Why don't you leave early? The Honda is parked right across the street."

As usual, my wife was right. By 2 p.m., what started as a sweet little dusting metamorphosed into a no-kidding-around blizzard.

Warnings -- "Stay home if you can" -- were everywhere to be heard, from WINS news radio to my now terribly concerned wife.

Trouble was that I had to wait for my 3 p.m. ride provided by SportsChannel techie Dave Katz. He was driving from Brooklyn and was impeccably dependable. However, the same compliment was not available for his 1985 Plymouth.

My phone rang at 2:55. "It's me, Katz," he snorted. "I tried, but I can't get out of Brooklyn,"

A quarter second after hanging up, I grabbed the car keys, kissed Never-Wrong-Shirley au revoir and dashed down to the Honda. I then asked myself a simple question: "If Katz can't get out of Brooklyn, how will Fischler get out of Manhattan?"

As I wheeled onto Broadway, I realized it was a reasonable question. Cars were skidding all over the boulevard like water bugs on a pond. Yet, somehow, the tiny CV Wagon took me to the ramp leading up to the West Side Highway and then the George Washington Bridge.

Wisely, I took the snow-repelling lower roadway that coupled me to New Jersey. From Fort Lee to East Rutherford, my blizzard-blitzed Honda was roughly equivalent to a pinball caroming from side to side down to the flipper, but we made it.

When I reached the arena parking lot, I looked around and saw no one, not a soul. For all I knew, the rink might as well have been in the middle of Antarctica. But what about the players? Many were stranded, not stranded and stuck again in the white hurricane.

Would they show?

One player-filled SUV caravan included Ken Daneyko, Joe Cirella, Pat Verbeek, Kirk Muller and John MacLean. They lived in the Madison, New Jersey, area. "Normally," Verbeek later said, "the drive to the arena is relatively easy. This time it took many hours before we got there."

Getting there was half the agony. Forward Peter McNab, later my Devils broadcast partner,never reached the arena parking lot.

Learning that an 18-wheeler had turned over near the Lincoln Tunnel, McNab realized that he was stuck. With the arena vaguely in view, he left his stranded vehicle and walked 1 1/2 miles to the ice palace.

Defenseman Bruce Driver was one of the luckier Devils. He decided to leave early and got to the parking lot by 4:30. Ditto for the Flames, who were berthed at a nearby hotel. Their charter bus left early and deposited the visitors with hours to spare.

"Once we got to the arena," Flames forward Jim Peplinski said, "we just hung out in our dressing room and waited."

It would be the longest of waits. Since the NHL had not officially cancelled the game, the opening face-off kept being pushed back and back and back. After all, you can't have an opening face-off without a referee and two linespersons to preside, not to mention the stickhandlers.

One linesperson, Dale McCourt, figured he never would make it and yet arrived a few minutes before nine. "The Flames were all there and ready," McCourt said, "and pretty soon a bunch of Devils arrived."

Said Daneyko: "It seemed like four or five hours to get there. At times when we got stuck in the right lane, we'd have to drive on the other side and then back again in order to keep going. We took every imaginable road and pathway before we made it."

The crazy conditions meant nutty maneuvering. When forward Doug Sulliman's car approached an impenetrable snow drift, he crossed into the opposite lane and adroitly drove his vehicle backwards to the rink.

Meanwhile, inside the arena, a couple of cups of hot Java warmed me in the press room along with SportsChannel director Joe O'Rourke.

"I've never seen anything like this in my life," O'Rourke said. "This game may never be played."

Al Albert and I were told that if the visiting team happened to be at the rink ready to play, then the game should not be deleted. Fortunately, at about 9 p.m., enough Devils had arrived to instill hope that the show would go on.

The precious few fans who trickled in wouldn't stand for a cancellation. One of the most inspired was Robert Miller, who somehow managed to drive from his Long Island home -- via assorted car-marooned parkways -- to the GW Bridge and, finally, the arena.

"We made it in time," Miller remembered, "but once we walked inside and looked around, it was weird. The rink was almost empty."

Flames forward Nick Fotiu walked out of the dressing room and did a double take.

"I was surprised to see anyone there," he said. "I figured that those fans deserved a reward, so I went back to the dressing room, got a pail of pucks and tossed the pucks to them in the seats."

The referee, linespersons and enough Devils eventually showed up 105 minutes after the original game time. Two ushers also reported for duty, but there was so little to do one of them just stretched out on a chair and fell asleep.

Among the onlookers were Devils vice president and general manager Max McNab and veteran New York Post hockey guru Larry Brooks, then Devils public relations director and vice president of communications. Sitting in the press box with McNab, Brooks got the bright idea of taking an exact word count of the scant "crowd" and -- better still -- got their names and addresses for future contacts.

"When I suggested it to Max," Brooks said, "he was all in for me doing it and he deserves much of the credit."

Brooks followed through on his brilliant idea and when all was said and done, it came to the grand total of 334 spectators. He got their names and contact information so the Devils could stay in touch with them, which they did.

As for the game, it was appropriately exciting, starting with a New Jersey goal by Perry Anderson, an original scratch but pressed into action to fill out the lineup.

The home team gifted its 334 loyalists with a stirring 7-5 come-from-behind win against one of the more powerful teams in the NHL. Sulliman scored a once-in-a-career hat trick after driving backward to make it forward to the arena.

"There were hardly any hats tossed on the ice," he chuckled. "Then again, I wouldn't have wanted to throw my hat away with a blizzard like that outside. But I did have a baseball cap on my own on the bench, so I tossed it out just to make it look good."

The Devils later honored their valiant fans with a letter: "You are hereby inducted and given lifetime membership to a club that cannot grow -- the 334 Club." Years later, they followed up with a spate of annual parties where many members were treated to dinner and drinks, not to mention endless schmoozes about their sagas in the snow.

From a television viewpoint, our SportsChannel crew had a blast. It was a game like no other and, in its own inimitable way, a historic one.

There was, of course, one problem for The Maven -- getting home.

To that end, I drove my Honda onto the New Jersey Turnpike toward Manhattan and almost was detoured by a long, skid-inducing incline leading to the GW Bridge. Somehow, I managed to deke around the stalled vehicles and arrived home safe, sound and snow covered.

P.S. I should add that there was, in fact, some sound in our apartment upon my return. It was Shirley's punchline that -- 37 years later -- still reverberates in my ears.

"Didn't I tell you to leave early!"