Super Flop

This was supposed to be New Jersey's moment in the winter sun.  This year's Super Bowl is being played at the stadium at the Meadowlands sports complex in East Rutherford, and several New Jersey towns, including Montclair, where my father's family lived and where I still have a lot of connections, were preparing to be host towns.

Then the NFL suddenly realized that the Super Bowl was being played in New Jersey.

No one cares about New Jersey.  But New York City, in the next state just across the river, with its media outlets, its glamour, its globally famous attractions, and its distinction for not being Newark - that was the perfect place to organize Super Bowl events.

So references to the game being played in New Jersey were downplayed, or just ignored.  Local New Jersey events sponsored by the NFL were scaled back or canceled altogether.  Even Montclair, with its art museum, famous residents (like Stephen Colbert), and attractive downtown, wasn't spared any indignity.  Montclair had a winter festival today that was ostensibly connected to the Super Bowl, but the game itself couldn't be referred to in its banners. And to top it all off, a dinner at for bus drivers bringing folks to the game at a medieval-themed restaurant in Lyndhurst, a short distance from the stadium, was also canceled when the NFL suddenly stopped caring about it.  In the end, after all, no one from either the Seattle Seahawks or the Denver Broncos is going to brag about winning the NFL championship in the Garden State; it's not sexy.  Because no one ever sang, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere, it's up to you, East Rutherford, New Jersey!"   

Come on, fellow New Jerseyans, did you really think we'd be the center of attention for the Super Bowl?  Especially when Springsteen isn't involved?  Besides, the only thing about this state worth paying attention to at this time is the fact that, apparently, according to former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official David  Wildstein . . . Chris Christie likely knew about those George Washington Bridge lane closures after all!