Devils fan hires Etsy witch to break curse and win Stanley cup: the bizarre true story behind New Jersey’s supernatural solution
When your hockey team loses its superstar to a freak accident involving glass at a team dinner, suffers through eight significant injuries before Thanksgiving, and plays above a 19th-century cemetery, even the most rational fan might start questioning the spiritual realm. For one 41-year-old Devils devotee from New York, identified only as “MC,” enough was enough. In early November 2025, she did what modern problems require: she logged onto Etsy and hired a witch.
The move came after defenseman Brenden Dillon half-joked, “We need to sage this place or something!” following yet another injury to a key player. MC took the suggestion more literally than Dillon likely intended, spending $35.13 on a digital spell from a seller promising to "Remove Curses, Reverse Hexes, and Banish Negative Attachments.” Her request was simple—that her beloved New Jersey Devils would overcome whatever dark forces plagued them and hoist the Stanley Cup this summer.
The curse behind the devils fan hires etsy witch to break curse and win stanley cup decision
Mummies beneath the prudential center
The supernatural speculation isn’t purely fan paranoia. In 2005, forensic archaeologist Scott Warnasch discovered over 2,000 bodies buried at the future site of Prudential Center, the Devils’ home arena. Among them were two extraordinarily rare 19th-century cast-iron coffins containing perfectly preserved 150-year-old mummies.
“I remember thinking, ‘Well, it’s probably a pipe from the drainage system for the parking lot or something like that,’” Warnasch told NJ Advance Media in November 2025. “I had no idea iron coffins existed. Nobody on the site did at that time, because they're very rare. My jaw dropped.”
The larger casket held William Pollard, a crime-fighting fire chief and police captain from Jersey City who died of cholera in 1854. The smaller contained Mary Camp Roberts, a descendant of the Puritans who founded Newark in 1666, who died of old age in 1852. Both bodies retained their hair and clothing in remarkable condition.
Warnasch, now serving as the accidental historian of this macabre foundation, finds the sports curse theory amusing. “If you’re gonna name yourselves the Devils, then you might as well have some corpses go with it,” he said with a laugh. When asked directly if the mummies might be responsible for the team’s injury troubles, he was clear: “I don’t think so.”
A season plagued by bizarre injuries
The 2024-25 campaign has tested Devils fans’ sanity despite strong on-ice results. Through mid-November, New Jersey sat atop the Eastern Conference standings at 13-4-1, yet ranked fourth league-wide in man-games lost to injury. Seven players nursed ailments before the unthinkable happened: Jack Hughes, the team’s 21-year-old franchise cornerstone, severed a tendon after slipping on a piece of glass at a Chicago restaurant during a team dinner.
Hughes’ injury—requiring surgery and an eight-week absence—represented a breaking point for a fanbase already stretched thin. The incident was so strange it felt either cosmically unfair or, perhaps, cosmically targeted. When Dillon suggested saging the arena, he tapped into a growing undercurrent of supernatural suspicion among the faithful.
How devils fan hires etsy witch to break curse and win stanley cup
The Mariners precedent that inspired magic
MC didn’t invent the Etsy witch phenomenon. She was inspired by a strikingly similar story from Seattle, where Mariners fan Steven Blackburn purchased a $15.99 curse-lifting spell from an Etsy shop called SpellByLuna during a September 2025 slump. The results were immediate and dramatic: Seattle scored 28 runs across two games the next day, embarked on a 17-wins-in-18-games streak, and rode the “Etsy Witch Era” to their first American League Championship Series since 2001.
“I was aware of the Mariners and their Etsy Witch adventure and I loved it,” MC explained to The Hockey Writers. “Which is why I felt comfortable 'hiring’ one of my own for the Devils.”
The Mariners' official X account even acknowledged the phenomenon, posting “shoutout to the etsy witch” after a victory. Blackburn was invited to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, and a game announcer declared, “The Etsy Witch is real!” following a walk-off win. The shop reportedly stopped taking new orders, claiming to have expended all magical energy on Seattle’s success.
Meet PaigeLovesMagic: the Etsy witch behind the Devils spell
MC chose a different practitioner: PaigeLovesMagic, an Etsy seller with a 96% satisfaction rating across more than 24,700 spells cast in four years. The digital purchase promised to remove curses, reverse hexes, and banish negative attachments—exactly what MC felt the Devils needed.
For $35.13, MC received confirmation that the spell had been performed along with instructions on how to support its effectiveness. The witch’s guidance was philosophical: “Think of a spell like planting a seed: when you place it in the soil, you don't dig it up every day to check if it's growing—you water it, give it sunlight, and trust the process.”
The energy would need one to six weeks to manifest, depending on the situation’s complexity. With Hughes slated for an eight-week recovery, the timeline aligned suspiciously well with the team's needs.
The spell’s specific intention
MC’s request wasn’t vague. She asked for the curse—if one existed—to be lifted and for the Devils to win the Stanley Cup this year. The specificity matters in both magical circles and sports fandom. It represented not just hope, but a definitive act of faith in a season that still held promise despite mounting adversity.
She shared the witch's confirmation proof in a Devils Reddit group, where fellow fans largely embraced the gesture. “Thank you for your service,” one commented. Another wrote, “Well done!” The post became a rallying point for a community desperate to feel proactive rather than helpless.
Inside the mind of a fan who hires an etsy witch
A lifetime of devils devotion
MC's connection to the team runs deep. She grew up in a hockey household where her father cheered for the Islanders, but the easy commute to Devils games won her over. She fell in love with “all three Scotts”—Gomez, Niedermayer, and Stevens—and now harbors a "soft spot” for current defenseman Brett Pesce and breakout forward Arseny Gritsyuk.
Her fandom extends to family pets: a dog named Emrick after legendary announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick, and another called Chico after former Devils netminder Glenn “Chico” Resch. These aren't casual reference points—they indicate a fan who lives and breathes the franchise’s history.
The psychology of sports superstition
What drives someone to spend real money on a digital spell? MC's background offers clues. She previously studied to become a death doula and maintains special interests in Irish mythology, folklore, and spirituality. “I believe in the concept of the Otherworld,” she explained. “I believe our ancestors and loved ones who have died aren't necessarily above or below us, but that they walk alongside us.”
Her perspective on the mummies beneath the arena reveals nuance. “I don't think they're cursing us necessarily, but I also think it's just a nice thing to maybe light a candle or two for them every once in a while,” she said. “So long as they weren't completely awful, irredeemable people, of course.”
This isn't blind superstition—it's a form of narrative control. When statistics show the Devils' Stanley Cup odds at just 3.7% according to Moneypuck, magical thinking offers an alternative framework for hope. As one Reddit commenter noted, “The goal of spells like these is to take the positive energy and put them towards results…for fans, it can be very good to just create a positive atmosphere around the team and cause us to reframe things in a more positive light.”
What happens when devils fan hires etsy witch: reality check
Expert perspectives on magical intervention
While fans embrace the story, experts remain skeptical but amused. Warnasch, the archaeologist who literally unearthed the Prudential Center’s dead, maintains scientific distance: “I'm not a sports fan, so I don't really know the psychology of blaming the mummies for the Devils’ injuries.”
His unintentional role in creating this modern legend fascinates him. The discovery of Pollard and Roberts’ remains provided a true historical anchor for what might otherwise be dismissed as pure fan fiction. The mummies are real. The arena built over them is real. The injuries are real. Whether those facts connect causally is another question entirely.
The witch's business model and track record
PaigeLovesMagic’s Etsy shop represents a fascinating digital economy of belief. With nearly 25,000 spells completed and a 96% satisfaction rating, the service clearly fulfills a customer need—whether supernatural or psychological. The $35.13 price point sits higher than the Mariners fan’s $15.99 spell, suggesting market demand influences magical inflation.
The shop's promised turnaround of 1-6 weeks creates a perfect ambiguity. If the Devils improve during that window, credit goes to the spell. If they don't, the energy simply hasn't matured yet. It's unfalsifiable by design, which mirrors how sports superstitions operate in general.
From superstition to community ritual
MC's lighthearted proposal has already sparked tangible fan behavior. She noted that a fellow Devils fan pledged to “raise their pregame beer to the mummies” at their next game. This small act transforms private superstition into shared ritual—the lifeblood of sports culture.
She's even pitched a marketing opportunity: “It could be fun to have a 'Newark Mummies’ night at the Rock…we should change the team name for a night and have Mummies jerseys made up for the event.” The idea echoes minor league baseball's promotional gimmicks while acknowledging the very real history beneath their building.
The Mariners' story shows how these narratives can take on lives of their own. When a team performs well, the magical explanation becomes part of franchise lore. If the Devils can maintain their conference lead through Hughes' absence and mount a playoff run, MC's Etsy witch could become this generation's version of the “Curse of the Billy Goat” or the “Curse of the Bambino”—except in reverse, a blessing purchased for $35.13 plus tax.
What it means when devils fan hires etsy witch to break curse and win stanley cup
The story reveals less about paranormal activity than it does about modern fan psychology in an age of analytics and algorithmic predictions. When Moneypuck's cold calculations give your team a 3.7% championship probability, and injuries keep mounting despite world-class training staffs, magic offers a narrative where hope doesn't have to be rational.
MC's background in death work and folklore makes her unusual but not unique. Every fan base has members who wear the same unwashed jersey for months and refuse to shave during playoff runs. The Etsy witch simply updates ancient superstition for a digital marketplace era where you can one-click purchase curse removal like it's a vintage t-shirt.
For the Devils organization, the phenomenon presents an opportunity. The team has embraced viral moments before, most recently with the “Mrs. Fields” mascot that coincided with a winning streak. A “Mummies Night” could generate merchandise revenue while acknowledging the legitimately fascinating history beneath their building.
Most importantly, the gesture gave a suffering fan base agency at their most helpless moment. Whether the spell works is almost irrelevant. The act of casting it—of doing something, anything—reframed the narrative from victimhood to action. In sports, where fans have zero control over outcomes, that psychological shift matters more than any potential magic.
As MC's witch might say, you plant the seed, water it with belief, and trust the process. For Devils fans watching their injured stars heal and their team continue to win despite everything, that might be enough. The Stanley Cup odds remain long, the mummies remain buried, but the energy around the team has shifted. Sometimes that's the only spell that needs casting.
What happens when devils fan hires etsy witch to break curse and win stanley cup
The story reveals less about paranormal activity than it does about modern fan psychology in an age of analytics and algorithmic predictions. When Moneypuck's cold calculations give your team a 3.7% championship probability, and injuries keep mounting despite world-class training staffs, magic offers a narrative where hope doesn't have to be rational.
The Devils organization aims to harness viral moments and fan energy to sustain momentum. The witch phenomena represents how modern fans seek agency and narrative control in uncertain seasons.
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Par Mike Jonderson
Mike Jonderson is a passionate hockey analyst and expert in advanced NHL statistics. A former college player and mathematics graduate, he combines his understanding of the game with technical expertise to develop innovative predictive models and contribute to the evolution of modern hockey analytics.