It's an absolute disgrace.

The Nets' home arena is completely filled with fans for only the second time this season, and everyone is cheering for the visiting team.

The Devils, like many teams in the NHL, are struggling with poor attendance.

To make matters worse, neither team can agree which New Jersey town to call home, instead of addressing their biggest common problem that a move might not even solve: poor attendance.

Why is no one coming to the games? You can't really say it's the teams. True, the Nets are bravely digging themselves out of a hole this season, but real sports fans know that under-dogs provide some of the game's best dramas. The Devils, though they haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1995, have finished first in the Eastern Conference every season since then.

The Devils' rivals, the Rangers, haven't won a Cup either since 1994. Plus, the only reason one may say they haven't "choked" in the first round - it's simply because they haven't even made the playoff rounds. And yet, somehow, the Broadway Blues manage to fill the Garden anyway.

What's their secret?

Location, location, location.

Not because poor New Jersey suffers from the "Mercury syndrome," getting lost in the shadow of the Big Apple's sun.

It's just because Madison Square Garden is located at the nexus of an urban public transportation hub that happens to be one of the country's best. Whether you're coming from across town, across the country or even across the ocean, there's a bus, train or subway heading right to Penn Station.

It kills me when I see Ranger and Knick fans on their way to and from games on NJ Transit's Raritan line, avoiding traffic jams, parking headaches, and DWI stops. Meanwhile, Devils fans must schlep across the river to Port Authority to catch a game bus that runs erratically, if at all, to the Meadowlands.

Often they have to settle for a racetrack bus and a trek across the vast parking lots and through a pedestrian bridge to reach the Arena. But they're still better off than Nets fans - there isn't even a the option of a game bus for them. Plus, since games start at 7 or 7:30 p.m., there's always the likelihood that the game/racetrack buses will get stuck in the glut of traffic that always fills the Lincoln Tunnel every evening.

Even a child would wonder why on earth, when they're the New Jersey Devils and New Jersey Nets one has go to a New York transportation hub to catch a ride to the games.

Why has New Jersey Transit never provided options at their three major New Jersey hubs - Newark Penn Station, Hoboken Terminal and Jersey City's Journal Square - to reach the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority's Meadowlands Sports Complex? Is it so hard to create a direct bus route there?

Is it so hard to extend a light-rail or subway line there? Would it really be so hard to create a siding (or a junction a la Princeton) off NJ Transit's Bergen/Main line, which crosses south of - and within view of - the Sports Complex?

These simple solutions could accomplish so many goals. It would help fill seats with hometown fans.

It would give kids a wholesome activity for the evening, instead of hanging out in the streets or aimlessly playing video games.

It would increase revenues for the public transportation lines. It would increase revenues for the teams and their affiliated food and merchandise vendors. It would cut down on traffic, air pollution and drunk driving.

I'm not so naive to think that this cause should be taken up in the name of some lofty goal, like supporting our teams. Or refusing to let our home state be treated like a second-class citizen. Or even for the sake of the environment. I know money makes the world go 'round.

But it doesn't take sophistication in the ways of the world to figure out a way for mass transit and major league sports to put together a money-making venture that would create the vaunted "win-win situation" businessmen seek more eagerly than knights sought the Grail.

It doesn't take a sale of a team. It doesn't even take new arenas disrupting established neighborhoods. It simply takes some good, old-fashioned common sense.

Nora Devine,
Hoboken

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