Yesterday, ESPN hockey analyst/unironic mullet-wearer Barry Melrose trashed the Devils' new arena, and added a couple digs at Newark while he was it.  Surprisingly for an ESPN analyst, it turns out his opinions were completely unfounded.  A key selection from the brutal takedown at FanHaus:

Melrose said that the area around the arena is "awful," that "the inside and the outside where it's built is pretty humorous" and warned those who dare see a game to not "go outside if you have a wallet or anything else." … [Melrose later] revealed he had not actually visited the arena yet, basing his comments on "footage aired by Canadian broadcaster TSN before the Devils' first game at the new arena last Saturday."

In all fairness, Newark is way less dangerous than it used to be.  I'll even probably end up there when rising rents push me out of New York City.  But that's just the way I roll: always keeping it real.  Why, as recently as the 1970s, my neighborhood in Brooklyn was pretty dangerous after dark.  Now, just 30 years later, I walk around the streets in brazen defiance of the wealthy white women pushing around massive strollers.  And you can bet that as soon as Newark has enough coffee shops and stylish boutiques, I'll take my mad street cred that way.  Fa real.