The Islanders’ home arena uncertainty continues

From the Nassau Coliseum to Barclays Center and someday Belmont Park, the New York Islanders’ have had the NHL’s most tumultuous home arena situation over the years.

To say the Islanders have gotten the runaround when it comes to finding a permanent home arena is an understatement, and the adventure continued on June 16, 2020, when Mikhail Prokhorov of Onexim Sports announced he would be shutting Nassau Coliseum indefinitely, leaving the team in turmoil once again.

Prokhorov — the former owner of the NBA’s Nets — is looking for someone to take the newly renovated Nassau Coliseum and its remaining $100 million worth of loans off his hands.

The silver lining for the Islanders’ arena unrest will be the $1.3 billion arena at Belmont Park, which is expected to be finished by the 2021-22 NHL season. Since 2018, the team has split their home games between Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

An Islanders game at Nassau Coliseum is an experience like no other. When the “The Barn” is rocking, it is literally rocking.

“They were great to us in Brooklyn, but the Coliseum is where you get that true Islander experience,” Islanders forward Matt Martin said in 2019. 

On Feb. 28, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the Islanders would play the remainder of the 2020 season and all of the 2020-21 season at the Coliseum until Belmont is ready — abandoning the Barclays Center, which has been the team’s primary home since 2015.

However, just when the Islanders thought they escaped a disaster with the Barclays Center, it appears they might be thrown back into the fire until 2021.

This isn’t the first time that the Islanders have been sold a bill of goods, only to soon again become the person calling their friends asking to crash on their couch until they find a permanent situation. To fully understand this roller coaster, let’s look at a timeline revolving the Islanders’ arena anxiety.

The ’90s: The Islanders were once considered the gold standard in hockey. They won an NHL record 19 straight playoff victories from 1980-84, a record that may never be broken. But their glory days faded quickly and by the mid-’90s the franchise was in shambles and so was Nassau Coliseum. Once, it was raining outside and the ceiling was leaking to the point where fans in the stands opened umbrellas in the arena during the game.

Islander fans prayed someone would buy the team and build them a new arena on Long Island, and in 1996, John Spano bought the team and promised to do just that.

Spano was labeled as a “Texas Tycoon” who would save the team, however, he was bankrupt. He tricked the NHL into thinking he was a billionaire and finessed his way into buying the Islanders, legally owning them for four months until he voluntarily gave up ownership. This is a long story itself, but for more on it the ESPN 30 for 30 Big Shot is worth a watch.

The ‘2000s: After the Spano debacle, businessman Charles Wang came along and bought the team in 2000 for $190 million — $25 million more than Spano. Wang’s top priority was to keep the Islanders on Long Island, which sparked “The Lighthouse Project.”

The Lighthouse Project was a proposal by Wang in 2006 to refurbish Nassau Coliseum and surround the area with restaurants, homes, shops, and a five-star hotel, which was expected to cost around $3.74 billion. 

Wang went back and forth with Nassau County for about four years trying to get the project approved. Isles fans were on the edge of their seat for years worried that if the project was denied by Nassau County officials, the team would eventually move to Kansas City.

The 2010s:  

In 2011 Nassau County decided that negotiations would end once and for all by leaving it up to residents to decide if they wanted their taxpayer money going towards keeping the Islanders on Long Island.

The final verdict: no.

The project was voted down by Nassau County citizens and the Islanders had four years to find a new home, as their lease on Nassau Coliseum was expiring at the end of the 2014-15 season.

Then on Oct. 24, 2012, Isles fans exhaled when Wang reached an agreement for a 25-year lease with the Barclays Center, which the Islanders would start to call home in October 2015. Although Brooklyn isn’t Long Island, it was a relief to know that the team would remain in New York and not 2,000 miles away in Kansas City.

Although during the Islanders’ first season in Brooklyn the team won its first playoff series since 1993, the Brooklyn fever faded fast.

The Barclays Center provides a multitude of problems for the Isles. Traveling from Long Island to Brooklyn is such a schlep that the team stays in Brooklyn hotels after games instead of taking the Long Island Rail Road back home. The Islanders still practice at the Northwell Health Center which is roughly a 5-10 minute drive from Nassau Coliseum, which is why many Islanders’ players and coaches still live on Long Island and not in Brooklyn.

Since the Barclays Center was originally built only for basketball, many of the seats in the arena have obstructed views when set up for hockey, the scoreboard isn’t centered, and warm weather around playoff time causes horrid ice conditions due to the fact the arena doesn’t have an NHL standard floor piping system (the pipes are plastic).

In 2016 Islanders forward Cal Clutterbuck had this to say about the Barclays Center’s ice, ” [It’s] the worst ice I’ve ever seen in my nine [NHL] years.”

Not only were the Islanders fed up with the Barclays Center, but the Barclays Center was fed up with the Islanders. However, there was an opt-out clause in the lease after four years at the Barclays Center. Both sides eyed that clause as the Isles were averaging about 70 percent capacity during games, and the Barclays Center wasn’t making a profit housing the Islanders.

Right after the team left Nassau Coliseum for Brooklyn in 2015, the Coliseum underwent a 20-month $165 million renovation, which finished in 2017. However, the arena’s capacity went from 16,234 before the renovation to 13,900 after — the lowest capacity in the NHL.

On December 20, 2017, the Islanders had beaten out NYCFC of Major League Soccer for the rights to build an 18,000 seat arena on the grounds of the Belmont race track. As previously mentioned, this is the permanent arena solution the Islanders yearned for.

In early 2018 it was announced that the Islanders would play 20 games in Uniondale during the 2018-19 season. That format followed suit for 2019-20 and then in February 2020, the Islanders ditched Brooklyn to head back to Long Island for good.

The reason the Islanders couldn’t permanently move back to the refurbished Coliseum — and ditch Belmont — is that the NHL does not consider Nassau Coliseum a “major league facility.” Not only because the attendance capacity is the lowest in the league, but Nassau Coliseum only has 11 luxury boxes. The Barclays Center has 100.

So here we are once again, the Islanders are essentially homeless. The most likely scenario for the 2020-21 Islanders is they head back to Brooklyn for one season until Belmont is ready. If the 2020-21 season is played with no fans due to COVID-19, going back to Brooklyn may not be that bad. Maybe by the time next season comes around, an investor takes Nassau Coliseum off Prokhorov’s hands and the Islanders’ original plan goes unscathed.

But the uncertainty around the Islanders right now is nothing new. It’s all part of the uniqueness of being an Islanders fan.

When the Islanders finally open Belmont and/or hoist the Stanley Cup for the fifth time in franchise history, all the anxiety Islanders nation dealt with for nearly four decades will make the return to glory much sweeter.