It has come to our attention that the Devils don’t get their due (see what I did just there?) when it comes to hot players. The following is a full and complete list of the cute, the hot and the scrumptious in the noir, blanc et rouge. In order of uniform number (Lou wouldn’t have it any other way):
#30 Marty Brodeur
In this organization, everything begins and ends with Marty. It’s a rite of passage for all Devils fangirls to fall for Marty — and then move on. Yes, he’s funny, personable, laid-back, uber-punky, and perhaps the greatest goalie of all time, but seriously? He used to sport a spit curl, he slept with his wife’s sister-in-law and he admits to drinking 3 Sprites a game. But, he’s the greatest goalie of all time. That’s worth at least a bit of consideration. If you’re into that kind of thing. Around here? We take the winning for granted.
#29 Johnny “Johnny Handsome” Oduya
This rookie was a pleasant surprise — on the ice and off! He’s sneaky hot. If you like your handsome defensemen smooth-skating, silent and Swedish, he’s your man. We once caught a glimpse of him in street clothes and he was so Euro-cool all he was missing was the bistro table, beret and cigarette.
#28 Brian Rafalski
Not hot, although our ex-roommate had her picture taken with him at an autograph session; he’s perfected the art of looking like a prom date for his fans, which is pretty sweet of him.
#27 David Clarkson*
Here at Interchangeble Parts, we believe Clarkson was sent back to Lowell for bringing our hotness quotient too close to “Smoking” for Lou to be entirely comfortable. He looks like if a young Johnny “Mac” MacLean, a nicer-looking Jim Dowd and Tom Brady all (somehow) had a child. He’s also taller than most of our hotties, so he gets a leg up there.
*A Lowell Devil as of this writing.
#26 Patty Elias
His hands look like he stole them from Michelangelo’s David. His accent his adorkably cute. He’s so endearingly whackadoo (except when he decides it’s a good idea to order oysters at the Moscow Airport). He’s our best skater nine tenths of the time. And he’s our fearless captain. Of course, how hot you think Patty is depends largely on how captive you are to the Devils. There’s definitely some Stockholm Syndrome going on here. (There is no pictorial evidence on the interwebs of the hot elements of Patty; you’ll just have to take our word on this.)
#25 Cam “Click!” Janssen
Not hot. He’s directly responsible for the team’s recent schnide but more on that later. And Pookie’s going to lose her mind the next time she hears an out-of-town media person call him “Janssens”.
#23 Scott “Gomer” Gomez
So not hot. When he came to his first training camp as an 18-year-old he had all the hotness potential in the world. He was so cute even Boomer noticed him during a preseason game, and Boomer is not one to normally pay mind to the jailbait guys. We spent that season anticipating his return from Juniors, and when the wonderful day rolled around the next season with Gomer in the lineup as a full-time Devil… he wasn’t cute at all. What happened during that year in Tri-Cities? Who’s responsible for this terrible loss of cuteness? Is there legal action that can be pursued?
#21 Brad “Chocosnitch” Lukowich
Choco looks so much like a friend of ours, it’s distracting. But he gives us an excuse to call a guy “Chocosnitch” so he’s allowed to grace the team with his un-hotness.
#20 Jay “Pando” Pandolfo
Schnookie’s love for Pando transcends petty issues like hot or not hot. He is the truest Devil of all the True Devils. The concept of hot is tangible. Pando is entirely about the intangibles. PandoNation is a meritocracy, not a hot-ocracy.
#19 Travis Zajac
Travis is a hot mystery wrapped in a hot-hot puzzle wrapped in a hot-hot-hot enigma. There’s a class of player who looks drastically better or worse depending on his state of helmetness. Travis en chapeau looks like a dim, dullardly turtle. Travis sans chapeau looks like a big, tall drink of gentled-eyed, shy, dreamy cuteness. As if to further drive home the helmet issue, he insists on wearing one that is 3 sizes too small, leaving a red mark on his forehead — a constant reminder that at any moment, he can turn from hot to not hot in the blink of an eye.
#18 Sergei “Sarge” Brlyin
Not hot, unless you’re into snack sized elves.
#17 Mike “Folk Hero” Rupp
Not hot, unless you’re into 6’5″ Deadheads who scored the Cup-winning goal in 2003 (thus the “Folk Hero” moniker).
#15 Jamie “Langer” Langenbrunner
Langer has all the pieces to be hot — even features, youthful face, clutch-goal scoring, 2 rings, good personality — but he never seems to want to grab that brass ring of hottitude.
#14 Brian “Gio” Gionta
Take all the same problems Langer presents, apply them to a guy who’s three apples high and built like the Incredible Hulk, and you’ve got Gio. He was distinctly hotter when he was scoring 40 goals. Seriously, if you like punky plays and clutch goalie-pulled-7-seconds-to-play goals to tie it up, there’s no one better than Gio.
#12 Jim “Jersey Jim” Dowd
Not hot.
#11 John “Maddog” Madden
Ugh. Not. Hot. There’s not enough Stockholm Syndrome in the world to make us think Maddog is hot.
#10 Erik “Rasser” Rasmussen
Not hot. Even before the pucks to the face.
#9 Zach Parise
The rebirth of hot on the Devils. This golden boy has it all — shining white teeth, dimples, just the right amount of aw-shucks shyness to make up for the I’m-hot-shit arrogance, and a motor that gets the whole team going. Last season Zach suffered from what we like to call Trapper Keeper Syndrome. If a player seems too much like his name could easily pop up as the username on HFBoards attached to the word “chick” (e.g. PariseChick9), he counts as a Trapper Keeper Hottie and is thus too embarrassing to love. But this season Zach somehow overcame that. Maybe it was the 31-and-counting goals. Maybe it was the turning the 2nd line into the 1st. Maybe it was the habit of scoring that all-important first goal so many times. (Certainly it wasn’t the getting 2 teeth knocked out in one of the only HD games we’ve seen of the Devs all year.) Whatever the reason, Zach’s the flagship of hot for this team. (In dissecting Zach’s hotness, any Devils fan worth her salt wouldn’t dare overlook the fact that both the Rangers and Islanders passed up on drafting him — now that is hot.)
#7 Paul “Paulie” Martin
Okay, yes, there is no denying that Paulie looks, in profile, exactly like the Old Man Of The Mountain. But from every other angle? He is only the most adorable human embodiment of an Edward Gorey drawing ever to grace the ice. He looks like he should be lurking in desolate pen-and-ink gothic ruins, wearing black tie and tails, strangling winsome women in flapper gowns. Or, when wearing his off-ice wire-rimmed glasses (Eeeee!) he is just one bushy handlebar mustache away from being the surprisingly well-built professorial type in tweeds. He is one of very few current Devils we have seen in person, and oh my is he tall, strapping, and oozing the alpha-jock swagger (we agreed, after hours of discussion on the topic, that he walks like Homer Simpson impersonating a 1970′s-era NYC pimp). Furthermore, his eyes are midnight blue, and when he was in college he drove an ancient Buick named “White Lightning”. What more could you ask for?
#6 Andy “Bubble bubble bubble!” Greene
This all depends on your idea of “hot”. Basically the essence of Andy Greene boils down to this: his presence on the blueline turns even the most boring defensive snooze-a-thon into a French rococo genre romp.
#5 Colin “Whitey” White
Not hot. Heinous, heinous clown tattoo makes him even (impossibly) less hot. To fully express how not hot Whitey is, let’s put it this way: Pookie refuses to wear the sweater of any guy on the team that she thinks is cute, for fear she will be taken for a fangirl. She bought a Whitey sweater after the 2003 Cup (for lack of a better choice, and how can you not buy a sweater with a Cup patch for a year your team won?), but he’s sooooo not hot she’s now embarrassed to wear it to games for fear that someone will think she’s a fangirl with the world’s worst taste in men.
#40 Scott “Clemmer” Clemmensen
Of course, numerically he should have gone first here, but come on. Anyway, Clemmer is shockingly hot. Boyfriend admits to having spent $30,000 on his teeth alone. He has gotten exponentially cuter with every passing month he’s spent on our bench. We think he gets plastic surgery every few weeks just to keep us all guessing. He’s said that his post-NHL-career plans involve a desk job back home in Iowa, and let this be said: Ladies of Iowa, your office crush awaits!
Honorable Mention (in Lowell, never to get a whiff of NHL action): Jordan “Jordy” Parise.
Lou loves to collect the younger, less talented brothers of his Devils, and this season sees a record number of them in our various minor-league affiliates. Mike Pandolfo, Steven Gionta, and the shockingly older-than-Zach Jordy. And dude. Wow. Everything that’s physically perfect about Zach is present with Jordy, but edgier. Dirtier. Hotter. Maybe it’s just the sisters-as-best-friends thing we’re rocking that draws us to the Parise boys, but seriously, yum. And the best thing about him? Our favorite hockey quote of the year; when asked about his going undrafted he said, “I know why I wasn’t drafted. I wasn’t good enough to be drafted.” Oh, Jordy. Since you’re not going to be seeing any action on the ice with the Devils this spring, why not spend them watching your darling brother here with us?
So there you have it. Eight hotties out of 20? That’s not bad at all! Plus there are a couple more that could go either way, depending on your taste. The Devils get a bad rap for a lot of things, and deservedly so, but there is no excuse for anyone to impugn their hotness. After several dry years of having to rely on the Gomers and Martys for our fangirl sighs and eyelash-flutters, we’re finally back on track.
Wow. The hotness primer is required reading. I’m ready for the season to begin, please.