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Devils owner regrets moving team to Newark, won’t leave

Jeff Vanderbeek, New Jersey Devils

Newark Mayor Cory Booker hasn’t been shy about voicing his displeasure with Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek over an arbitration ruling that ordered the city to pay the club $2.7 million a year in parking revenues. Booker claims Vanderbeek hasn’t lived up to his promises and called him a “high-class, highfalutin’ huckster and hustler.” The mayor also resorted to using rhymes to make his point because...

Anyways, in the wake of all this, Vanderbeek says he should have listened to friends when they told him not to move the team to Newark. (The Devils’ former home was in East Rutherford, N.J.)

That being said, now that he’s in Newark, Vanderbeek isn’t leaving.

“We plan on being here. The mayor can say whatever he wants,” Vanderbeek said. “I’m a big boy.”

Vanderbeek thinks Booker is targeting him to score political points, while Booker says that he’s merely fighting for the taxpayers. Meanwhile, the Devils will open up their first-round series against the Florida Panthers on Friday.