Sadly, the big headline wasn't focused on something the team did on the ice or even in a roster move - instead, the news revolved around the Islanders' pending departure from Long Island and the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. To the average sports fan, a move from Uniondale to Brooklyn, separated by a distance of only 28 miles by car, probably doesn't seem like much of a shift; even the Los Angeles Lakers' move from the Great Western Forum to the Staples Center was a 10 mile trip. Culturally, though, this represents a big shift among New Yorkers. The Islanders have always been a blue collar, suburban team. Whereas Madison Square Garden's Rangers catered to the wealthy city-dwellers, Nassau Coliseum was the home of Long Island's Average Joes - a place for fans to share their hockey-related inferiority complexes. While Brooklyn isn't far away geographically, the sleek new Barclay's Center doesn't exactly fit the team's working class image.
The Islanders will keep their name and logo, but if they change their minds . . .
From that perspective, the move is unfortunate. As I've written about before, the Islanders have a uniquely Long Island vibe that no other New York area team can replicate. In a perfect world, Nassau County would have gotten a deal done to build a new arena in Uniondale, providing the team with a state-of-the-art venue while preserving the franchise's Long Island presence. I've heard a lot of grumbling from disgruntled Islanders fans about how disappointing the move to Brooklyn is, and in a way that's true. After all, being a fan of the team was always more about being an "Islander" than it was was about being from "New York," and the move to Barclays is definitely going to change that. While the rivalry with the Rangers will undoubtedly be recharged in a mostly positive way, it will never be the same. Rather than white collar vs. blue collar, we'll have bankers vs. hipsters - potentially cool, but decidedly different. Throw in the fact that the new arena isn't really made for hockey (see below), and the solution is far from ideal. So, no, in my mind the move to Brooklyn wasn't the perfect outcome for the Isles.
A U-shaped NHL arena, coming to Brooklyn in 2015.
However, I'm realistic enough to know that a perfect outcome was not a realistic one. After years of trying unsuccessfully, it had become painfully obvious that the Islanders were never going to get a new arena on Long Island. Because the team couldn't possibly make money playing at the Coliseum - I've gone on the record calling it "one of the worst venues in professional sports" - they had to go somewhere else, and for a while it looked like that new place would be either Kansas City or some random town in Canada. So, compared to the realistic alternatives, I'm happy with the Brooklyn solution. It's going to be a lot easier for me to get to games, the smaller capacity should help the team move more tickets, and the draw of Brooklyn and the Barclays Center should help attract top-tier players. Yes, it would have been great to have kept the Isles on the Island for another 40 years. But no, that was never going to happen, and after judging the alternatives a move to Brooklyn seems like the next best thing.
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