New York Rangers News: Sather Supports Islanders New Arena

I’m with them, I hate the Islanders and all, but this “rivalry” is awesome, and I don’t want it to go away.

Plus, I live on LI so I go to 2 Rangers at Islanders games every year.

Why not, they’ll vote yes but they still bring in the fans

As a hockey fan, I will vote yes because no man should have to lose their hockey team.

This hasn’t been a rivalry in years. Rangers-Devils and Rangers-Flyers have become far better rivalries.

When I was growing up, in Bayonne, NJ, when there were no NJ Devils, I was surrounded by Islander fans, everyone was an Islander fan. Now they are dead last in attendance in the league.

Dead last. Behind a team that was moved, and two or three teams that may move. Even with an influx of probably 15,000 or so Ranger fans per year they still averaged over a thousand a night less than the Coyotes, the team the whole free world can’t wait to move to __________ (insert city without a hockey team here). Also, the Islanders had one more home game than the Coyotes, who I believe opened in Europe. Is this all to blame on a crappy arena?

I will readily admit to never ever being the smartest guy in the room, but I have asked numerous times for someone to explain to me why we’re so desperate to save the Islanders, and I never get a good answer. I would love to understand why the desperation to save that franchise.

I know there are some very loyal Islander fans out there, and some of them are good people as well. But the Thrashers had loyal fans who were good people too.

but fuck the islanders

i will personally drive the moving truck that takes their dynasty relics to quebec city

Any team that employs resident Neanderthal Trevor Gilles does not deserve a new arena

Forget the hockey-fan angle.
As was briefly discussed at the very end of the Underground Radio Show last night – this is about money and politics.

Instead of giving a green light to the “Lighthouse Project”, the politicians decided that it wasn’t in the best interests of the community. A project that was to be fully funded by C. Wang, at no expense to taxpayers.
Now, he’s saying – fine – you want the team here? Build me a new arena. Since you wouldn’t let me build the “Project” at my expense, that would have been a profitable venture for both of us, you can bear the expense if you want to reap the benefits of the tax revenue from the games/merchandise.

So, because of just another bunch of idiot politicians, the taxpayers of Nassau county are being asked to pony up – at a time when economically it probably doesn’t make sense.

I have a feeling that if I lived there, I’d vote “HELL NO”.

Hamilton or another team in Toronto, they deserve a team and will support a team. The Islanders are a 3rd rate NHL franchise (or 1st tier AHL, take your pick) and will never regain prominence in their current form. The league needs to capitalize on them having a young star* in Tavares and relocate the team north of the border. Having grown up in Long Island, I can say with confidence the loss of the Islanders would only bother a handful of people…and those people are of no consequence.

*Of course it would be an easier sell if he learned to play in the other 2/3rds of the rink and spent more time on his feet and less time crying about non calls.

If the vote fails, the Islanders can move, and they can build an amusement park after the Nassau Coliseum is bulldozed, or collapses, whichever happens first. Then the jobs will be created.

WangLand!

And I love it hahaha

……….I hate the Islanders, but I LOVE to hate the Islanders. If you are a hockey fan in the metropolitan area the last thing you want to see is for a team to move because of lack of interest.

          I don’t know how many of you on here are strictly hockey fans but I happen to be – basketball and football are full of thugs (I would never never NEVER support a league that allows Michael Vick back in. period. end of story) and baseball is well, baseball. I’ma casual fan and that’s really about it.

          Taken from a hockey standpoint, we as fans of the NHL are constantly confronted with media lack of interest and fan lack of interest. Take WFAN: maybe 1% of their overall content has anything to do with hockey, and 75% of that 1% is about fighting and goonery.

          We all have to put aside our hate of the Islanders and what we THINK their fans MIGHT do and band together on this one.

          Jim, we as Ranger fans have been chanting POTVIN SUCKS since the 70’s as fervently as they chanted 1940. (Adam Graves yelling 1940 at the camera on June 14th, 1994 redeemed every last chant that ever polluted our ears so we’re even).

          I for one want three successful teams in the area, with three healthy fanbases. Let Canada mine a team from some other strange southern outpost like Phoenix, where there were NEVER a ton of great fans.

          As for the attendance issues and the shittiness of the team, you can say the Islanders have sucked since the lockout but (and I can’t believe I’m defending them this hard…it doesn’t feel right but here goes) that team gives a gutsy performance every time they play. It isn’t the players’ or fans’ faults that their team is barely above an AHL squad.

         Look how many free agents turn them down. Christian Ehrhoff couldn’t have said ‘no’ fast enough. The culture has to change there and the first step is the new arena.

         There are so many people in the Long Island / New York City area – even across the Sound in Connecticutt – there is bound to be enough of them to support the Islanders in a new building.

          So anyway, I hate the Islanders but I love being able to hate them. I don’t want that to change, because I don’t want to hear it from my shit eating non hockey people about how hockey sucks nobody likes it look the Islanders had to move to Moose Jaw or East Buttfuck.

I live ten minutes from the Coliseum, in nassau, town of hempstead. These two local governments are by far THE most corrupt, back-door dealing screw-the-residents governments in the US. We have been fleeced before, and we will be fleeced again, its just the way it is here. I, as a life-long Rangers fan who remembers a time before the Islanders existed, like having the NHL in my backyard. In the late 70’s-early 80’s, when both the Islanders and the Rangers had great teams, this area was booming with hockey year-round. The battles on the ice, the battles with friends and neighbors, it was an amazing time. And don’t let anyone fool you, the Islanders won 4 cups in a row because they were the best. If not for John Davidson in May of 1979, the Islanders probably would have won 5 in a row. It took an Edmonton team with young Gretzky, Messier and the like to dethrone them. I’m not an Islanders fan or supporter but to take away from that team back then is ill-informed.

We here in Nassau and the TofH are taxed at or among the top 3 highest taxed areas in the US. Asking us to pay another 57 dollars a year for a new arena and a baseball park (?) is not an easy sell. But as I see it, at least its not for yet another shopping mall.

I like the rivalry. The real problem with the Islanders is not the arena. Yes, the Coliseum is past its prime and has many issues. But if the team on the ice was better, the fans would come. It’s really that simple. Who would say “you know, I like the Islanders, their team is really good, but I don’t go to the games because the arena is old”? I just hope that the Islanders’ management/ownership understands that no matter how nice the packaging, if the product is crap, its still crap, and people do not like paying top dollar for crap.

I will be voting for the proposal, in spite of the local government’s corruption, because I realize the arena is pretty bad. I realize they should have more well-designed suites and stuff like that, to encourage local business investment, etc. But the Islanders need to do their part as well, and do everything possible to field a competitive team, that is the one tried and true way of attracting fans, generating revenue and tax, which helps everyone involved. And maybe in 30 years the residents won’t feel as fleeced as we do. Somehow though……

The isles move, and they’ll move the bruins into our division.

Rangers, Devils, Penguins, Flyers, Bruins.

I grew up on LI (Port Jeff Sta.) in the 70’ and 80’s, and at that time the Ranger / Isles rivalry was huge. We used to get “Lets go Rangers” chants going during lunch. Islander fans would try to do the same. One time before a big game, I got one going during a school assembly. There were a lot of Islander fans around. I guess the rivalry has died out, but I would not want to see the Isles move. Then again “Potvin Sucks” and “Beat your wife Potvin” would lose their meaning. Irony… moving down to Fla and having Potvin announce games here.
Having the Coliseum afforded us the ability to see that many more Ranger games per season. Hockey was a big part of my growing up, and the Ranger / Islander rivalry was a part of that, hate to see it go, but I really don’t have a dog in this fight.
Besides, I thought the Coliseum came down during the Metallica concert I saw there in 92 or 93? So many parts of the Coliseum were flying through the air, I though we were gonna die. Also, the Coliseum is where my eyes had their first heart attack, but I wouldn’t want to piss Greschner off by telling that story. Too many hockey stories to tell…… BTW forgive my post, Friday happy hour started early!!