The New Jersey Devils began their NHL life as the Kansas City Scouts.
Their tenure there 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.
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 thirteenth child.
The story goes that Mrs. Leeds invoked the Devil during a very difficult and painful labor, 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.
