New York Islanders - NHL Gypsies

This just in. The operators of the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn have all but told the New York Islanders that they will not be playing there after the 2018-19 season. What's more, the owners of the Islanders, who paid $485 million for the team knowing they were moving the team to "New York City" after the 2014-15 season, have no intention of moving the team back to Long Island where a freshly renovated but significantly smaller Nassau Coliseum awaits.

Apparently  there is so much cache to having a franchise west of the Nassau County line that the Islanders new owners won't consider moving the team back to "Long Island". They claim they're committed to New York and not Long Island per se yet their team is called "Islanders". Don't waste time trying to figure this out. Long Island's relationship with the City of New York is a weird one. It's as if Long Island is the annoying little brother to the City that just won't go away. 

So, where will the Islanders play after 2018-19? Rumor and speculation is running wild that the Islanders will either share Madison Square Garden with the New York Rangers or, get this, another arena will be built in Greater New York for them. Some say in the area of Citi Field where the Mets play. That's in "New York" by the way less than ten miles west of the Nassau County, or "Long Island" line. I don't know which rumor is more implausible but the bottom line is the Islanders are, once again, in big trouble.

First off, there's no way the Islanders will share a building with the Rangers and New York needs another major league sports venue like Youngstown, Ohio needs another meth lab. Worst is, not only should the Islanders never have left "Long Island", Brooklyn, like Queens where the Mets play, is on the same land mass as Long Island but it's not considered "Long Island" (it's a New York thing, you wouldn't understand) the Islanders shouldn't even exist in the first place. That's not mean spirited "Rangers fan" speak either. It's the truth.

The Islanders were founded in 1972 for no other reason that to block the World Hockey Association, a rival league to the NHL, from getting a toehold in the New York area. The brand new Nassau Coliseum having language in its leases that prohibited minor league teams from calling the venue "home". Since Nassau County deemed the WHA a "minor league", it was able to block out the WHA from putting a team there. What about the ABA you say? That's a good question. What do you get when you combine Nassau County, City of New York and NHL politcs together? A mindless circus. That's what.

The whole notion was bunk because the WHA was able to put a team in Madison Square Garden, home of the mightily entrenched New York Rangers, of all places. The New York "Raiders" moved out of midtown after just two seasons to the leafy confines of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia. Incidentally, the Raiders became the New York Golden Blades for their second season in NY and became the "Jersey Knights" when they moved south. The Knights moved to San Diego after 1974 and the whole franchise folded after the 1976-77 season. The WHA merged with the NHL in 1979. Some threat to the NHL, right?

Meanwhile, back at the Nassau Coliseum, Long Island is stuck with the worst team in NHL history. That's saying a lot to in the era of early NHL expansion given that there were a lot of really, really bad teams in the NHL back then.  That dreadful start, however, meant the Islanders got the first overall draft pick of amateurs in the spring of 1973. Having the first pick overall not necessarily a guarantee of future success but the  Islanders got lucky. Denis Potvin, a highly touted 19 year old defenseman from Ottawa was available. Islanders GM Bill Torrey would make a number of astute, some would say lucky, draft picks over the next several years and built what was without question one of the greatest teams in sports history. That team goes largely unnoticed because it was just a hockey team.

You can't argue with success; it is what it is. However, in the case of the Islanders, after the team stopped winning, they became literally victims of their own success. Had they not won like they did early on in their existence, they would have left the Island and become like the California Golden Seals, Minnesota North Stars, Hartford Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, Atlanta Flames et al. NHL gypsy teams looking for a home.

Wait, isn't that what they are now?