Arena #1: The Prudential Center aka The Rock

 

New Jersey Devils host New York Rangers  

April 5, 2025

Final Score NJD 4- NYR 0

The Prudential Center is truly a beautiful arena, we had been here in May of 2024 because Rachel's graduation from MSU was held here and got a taste of how the other half live with the seats we sat in that day. They were very luxurious, spacious, and close to the floor. We did not have these seats for the game and were terribly disappointed, in our next life, we are going to be wealthy.

Building 10/10

The Food

TPC is an odd place for food. We were completely puzzled by the way everything worked. They had a lot of options, but it seemed there were stations for each item. There was not a traditional "concession stand" where you could get hot dogs, pretzels, popcorn, beer, etc. Each item had its own kiosk unless you wanted more of a restaurant style "to go" meal like tacos or chicken sandwiches. They had a "boardwalk" style food court, but it was absolutely mobbed, so we didn't take part in that food, plus we thought it a bit odd to eat funnel cake at the game. 
The hot dog was...not great. I have no idea the brand, but I know the condiments were from Mike's. Chris and I both had a dog, my favorite part of any game, whether it be hockey or baseball, is the hotdog. Underwhelming and sad.

We wanted a beer, but drinks were in a kiosk and again, just a truly weird set up, you could enter by tapping your card and take what you wanted but, you had to show proof of ID to the worker, so the whole concept of grab and go was negated by that. Why not just have a normal concession stand. We wound up with Pepsis. Also, Pepsi.

Would have loved to have had a pretzel, but couldn't find that kiosk. Popcorn kiosk was only found after the game.

No vendors walking the arena.

Food situation 2/10

The Seats

 One word: TIGHT.

After this game we decided only aisle seats, once we were in our seats, we stayed the entire game, we didn't feel free to get up because of the disruption to the others in our row.

Absolutely FANTASTIC view though, wow, it doesn't seem like there is a bad seat in the house regardless of where you are located in the bowl. The rafters are low, so you can see everything and the seats are situated so that you are looking down into the game. Holy shit it was STEEP though, another reason to be on the aisle. (and probably the reason that they don't sell beers and snacks in the bowl)

View from our seats

 

Seats: 6/10

Cleanliness

Like I said at the start, this building is beautiful and we found it to also be immaculate. Chris had one complaint in the men's room, that the Devils logo was emblazoned on the facilities. There was no such markings in the ladies room. But everything was clean and well stocked and there were PLENTY of options, you couldn't go 10 feet without a bathroom being there.

Good quality TP and paper towels instead of blowers. Thumbs up.

Cleanliness 10/10

The Souvenir Shops

So we couldn't find the souvenir shop, what we found was a kiosk. We think maybe we were on the wrong level and the real shop was on Level 1. Regardless, we decided that we would be collecting pins from each team to commemorate each visit. We are very excited!

Souvenir Kiosk(since we couldn't find the shop) 10/10

The Jumbotron

The Jumbotron at The Rock is HUGE! We were very excited to see what it could do and it did not disappoint. It could not only display graphics on the ice, but it could display actual photos. It was very cool and the beginning of the game, though long, was very entertaining.

See video here 

Additionally, though this is not exclusive to TPC, something magical happens when kids are featured on the Jumbotron. The place just goes wild as do the kids.

Jumbotron 10/10

The Staff

From the moment we entered we were greeted by the friendliest people. The woman who checked my bag wanted to know where I got my sweater, the girls that checked us out at the souvenir shop were chatting us up about the game and we got stuck behind the custodian afterwards and he was so great getting us through the crowd. NJ has a bad rep, but we are super nice to each other at least.

Staff 10/10

The Goal Song

Not a great horn, which was odd because the horn before the game was awesome. They yell something during the song that we could not make out no matter how closely we watched people's mouth's. What were they yelling??? They do this super cute thing, though, after the song, there is a call and answer of "woo's" from the announcer and crowd. They do a woo for each score on the board, so for the first score, there was only 1 woo, but by the fourth score, they wooed 4 times. Again, it was super cute.

How did the crowd react when the Ranger's scored? We will never know.

Goal Song 7/10 Wooing 10/10

The Atmosphere as visiting fans:

Being this was our first game away from home ice we really weren't sure what to expect. We chose not to wear our Ranger's gear because we didn't know how we would be received. We didn't need to be worried though, about 1/4 to1/2 of the crowd were NY fans. Of course there were a lot of boo's and the Jumbotron people had a lot of fun at our fan's expense, but we didn't feel unsafe in the least. I do think, had the score been different, it could have become almost a home ice crowd.

Atmosphere 8/10 (we were the visiting team after all)

Some additional bullet points

~The black "Jersey" sweater is a thing of beauty and it depressed me that I cant have it, as I am not a fan of the team, but of the state.

~As a NJ lover, a lot of the call backs were truly awesome. We are a proud people, that's for sure.

~Children should NEVER be booed, it doesn't matter who they're rooting for. I was disappointed that 2 little girls that were doing a "Lets go Rangers" chant were booed by the entire stadium to quiet them. It was a bad look.

~We did not understand the Ric Flair stuff, why is he the mascot?

~I have to admit, when I think of the teams I don't like as a Ranger's fan I never really even consider the Devils. I truly hate the Penguins and the Flyers, but I don't hate the Devils, I'm just not a fan. The Devil's fans, though, really hate the Rangers.

Period Breakdowns

The Boys take the ice

Period 1- Uneventful. No score. Hot dog toss.

Period 2- NJ scores 2. Smoothie toss is an INSANE concept.

Period 3- NJ scores 2 more, one on an empty net. We were freezing, losing and done with The Rock.

Chris's thoughts

Not enough "general" food places i.e. where you can get dogs, beers and pretzels. Traditional game day fare.

Clean

Nice scoreboard, the opening of the game was good

Weak part were the cheerleaders, they were not coordinated (he is a dance dad)

Parking pass was a good idea, but I thought it was too expensive (it wasn't compared to what I could have paid) Made it very easy though because we were connected to the arena.

On the way home

Have a great summer, see you next season! C&K