End of the Islanders?

Given the fact that there is a state of the art facility ready and waiting in KC, it is almost certain that there will be A team there soon, and NYI is the prime candidate

beedub wrote:Given the fact that there is a state of the art facility ready and waiting in KC, it is almost certain that there will be A team there soon, and NYI is the prime candidate

However, and yes, the source is Ek, he figures the league is going to expand two more teams soon, if that is the case, could it be that they will leave the Isles where they are and just put one of the two new teams in KC? I don't think they should be expanding, if anything, contracting, then moving a couple teams to Canada, Winnipeg and Quebec City as I stated before.

SensFan71 wrote:

beedub wrote:Given the fact that there is a state of the art facility ready and waiting in KC, it is almost certain that there will be A team there soon, and NYI is the prime candidate

However, and yes, the source is Ek, he figures the league is going to expand two more teams soon, if that is the case, could it be that they will leave the Isles where they are and just put one of the two new teams in KC? I don't think they should be expanding, if anything, contracting, then moving a couple teams to Canada, Winnipeg and Quebec City as I stated before.

If Bettman looks at expansion right now,he truly is a fool. not with the economic climate the way it is.

Contraction makes way more sense. We could see the cap descend below 50 million two years from now.

beedub wrote:

SensFan71 wrote:

beedub wrote:Given the fact that there is a state of the art facility ready and waiting in KC, it is almost certain that there will be A team there soon, and NYI is the prime candidate

However, and yes, the source is Ek, he figures the league is going to expand two more teams soon, if that is the case, could it be that they will leave the Isles where they are and just put one of the two new teams in KC? I don't think they should be expanding, if anything, contracting, then moving a couple teams to Canada, Winnipeg and Quebec City as I stated before.

If Bettman looks at expansion right now,he truly is a fool. not with the economic climate the way it is.

Contraction makes way more sense. We could see the cap descend below 50 million two years from now.

am agreed upon contraction, its the only thing that makes sense, Expansion right now would be like GM saying we are going to open two more plants in North America while our others could be failing or will be failing.

I voted, sadly, to move this team to Canada. I grew up in the glory years of the franchise, which seems a long time ago now. They were great but the garden has been unweeded for years. From poor management to a delapitated building, this team is in shambles.

In any event the future of the league rests in Canada. Wake up Gary, the American's ain't buyin' what you're sellin'. Plain and simple hockey is not a major sport to the average american and never will be. Accept that and let the league thrive in the markets that it will thrive in. Let the 10 fans from Nashville and 12 from Carolina and 17 from Tampa and 14 from Miami come up to Canada and watch a game in a great atmosphere. Drop the salaries and ticket prices accordingly and its a win-win...

According to Islanders blogger Chris Botta, it's pretty much game over for this team unless Charles Wang moves it, or sells it, or both.

From his blog Point Blank:

LIGHTHOUSE PROSPECTS DIM: Stalling for a year, Hempstead will let Wang’s October deadline pass

May 21st, 2009

Barring a dramatic turn of events, Charles Wang’s October 3 deadline for approvals on the Lighthouse Project is almost certain to come and go with little action from the Town of Hempstead. And when it does, the Islanders owner will have no other choice but to open conversations with other municipalities interested in Long Island’s National Hockey League franchise.

Community leaders in Queens, start preparing your pitches. Bruce Ratner and the people of Brooklyn, if you want an NHL team to join the Nets, the Islanders are mostly-unrestricted free agents in just over four months. If you have a plan and land in Suffolk, County Executive Steve Levy, here’s a chance to maintain the heritage of the Island’s only major professional franchise.

Kansas City, Mr. Balsillie - opportunity knocks.

And if you have a few hundred million to spare and want to commit to keeping the Islanders in Nassau County under this lease and without a development deal, here’s a chance to get yourself on the front page of Newsday. Declare that you have real money and a sincere desire to want to save the Islanders.

*

On January 23, Charles Wang visited the offices of Kate Murray, the Town of Hempstead Supervisor. The rhetoric was starting to get a little nasty behind the scenes, in the media and on the blogs. Wang sat down with Murray and called for a spirit of bi-partisan cooperation. The Islanders owner urged Murray to make time for meetings “so we can talk about process.” The developers of the Lighthouse Project came away more encouraged than they had in a long time.

That was four months ago. Wang has not heard from Murray since.

(Murray did not even make it to her own Town Hall)

The Town Supervisor has skipped all meetings related to the development of the Coliseum property, including a recent summit with union leaders she had committed to. Seven planned meetings, no Murray. No discussion of process. Aren’t elected officials supposed to lead?

In mid-April, the project developers were confident they had addressed all issues in the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS). Their feelings were confirmed in a positive letter from Town attorney Joseph Ra. Suddenly on April 24, after a 45-day deadline for revisions had passed, the Lighthouse Development Corporation was contacted by the Town’s planning consultant. A whole new list of issues to address was presented by F.P. Clark & Associates. The letter arrived late on a Friday night.

When one business wants to send another business a chilling message that there will be no spirit of cooperation, they send over work post-deadline on a Friday night.

On May 8, Clark & Associates wrote another letter detailing additional issues with the DGEIS and warning that more letters were coming. There has been no correspondence since.

“The Town wants nothing to do with this,” one major player told Point Blank. “They wish it would all go away so they can go back to whatever it is they do over there. It’s sad.”

And so it goes with the Town of Hempstead and the Lighthouse Project, the development of Tom Suozzi’s HUB that Nassau County has tried for decades to get off the ground. So it goes for the revitalization of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, as set forth by a Request For Proposals by Nassau County and approved by a 16-2 margain.

Wang, who is said to be completely satisfied by the stewardship of the proposal by Suozzi and the County, has set a October 3 deadline for Town approvals for obvious reasons. The Islanders lease expires in 2015. A “transformed” Coliseum would take four off-seasons to complete. The math is simple. Wang has to decide if he’s finally done losing at least $20 million a year with no development deal in sight.

There’s an election in November for the Town of Hempstead Supervisor, with Murray’s opponent expected to be named very soon. Even if Murray is defeated - in reality, she enters a heavy favorite - there is no guarantee Lighthouse approvals will be fast-tracked. Like all of us, Wang has been promised plenty by politicians before. As a businessman, he is left with no other options but to explore another site for his team.

*

What should Islanders fans do? Continue to let your community leaders know how important this is to you. Call Kate Murray. Call Hempstead attorney Joe Ra, an Islanders season ticketholder. When election season arrives, let the politicans know how you feel with your vote.

Revel in the drafting of future star goal scorer John Tavares (you deserve the No. 1 pick after enduring last season). Support the franchise in any way you can. If the Islanders are a big part of your life and/or you’re one of the fortunate in New York to have some disposable income, buy a ticket package for the 2009-10 season and even the one after that. The Islanders will play those seasons at the Coliseum, at the very least.

Hope for the best. Hope that the Town of Hempstead wakes up. Hope that Wang, after 9 years of waiting in Nassau, first looks locally for an alternative. It would be consistent with his actions so far.

Islanders... Coyotes... welcome to SOUTHERN ONTARIO!

YEEEHAW!!!!

The amount of $$ that Wang stands to gain from the Lighthouse is staggering. If he can't do it in Long Island, he'll do it somewhere else for sure. With the league's approval as well - as he has money to burn and is quite powerful.

shabbs wrote:Islanders... Coyotes... welcome to SOUTHERN ONTARIO!

YEEEHAW!!!!

Sure. Let's say both of those teams move. Neither comes to Ontario. Lets say other teams start looking for buyers afterwards. None of those will come to Ontario. There are a lot of cities in the United States that Bettman hasn't even considered yet that would slide ahead of any Canadian city with a cash buyer.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

shabbs wrote:Islanders... Coyotes... welcome to SOUTHERN ONTARIO!

YEEEHAW!!!!

Sure. Let's say both of those teams move. Neither comes to Ontario. Lets say other teams start looking for buyers afterwards. None of those will come to Ontario. There are a lot of cities in the United States that Bettman hasn't even considered yet that would slide ahead of any Canadian city with a cash buyer.

Bah! No faith..

shabbs wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

shabbs wrote:Islanders... Coyotes... welcome to SOUTHERN ONTARIO!

YEEEHAW!!!!

Sure. Let's say both of those teams move. Neither comes to Ontario. Lets say other teams start looking for buyers afterwards. None of those will come to Ontario. There are a lot of cities in the United States that Bettman hasn't even considered yet that would slide ahead of any Canadian city with a cash buyer.

Bah! No faith..

No, it's a good thing. The sooner the NHL continues to weed out the Dung teams and put them in better US markets, the better the NHL will thrive.

Let's face it, Hamilton can wait for an NHL team and the fans will still be lined up. Portland? Not so much. The game is growing, cultivate it in the US first, Canada second.

504Heater wrote:

shabbs wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

shabbs wrote:Islanders... Coyotes... welcome to SOUTHERN ONTARIO!

YEEEHAW!!!!

Sure. Let's say both of those teams move. Neither comes to Ontario. Lets say other teams start looking for buyers afterwards. None of those will come to Ontario. There are a lot of cities in the United States that Bettman hasn't even considered yet that would slide ahead of any Canadian city with a cash buyer.

Bah! No faith..

No, it's a good thing. The sooner the NHL continues to weed out the Dung teams and put them in better US markets, the better the NHL will thrive.

Let's face it, Hamilton can wait for an NHL team and the fans will still be lined up. Portland? Not so much. The game is growing, cultivate it in the US first, Canada second.

BAH! All of you BAH! BAH! I say!

From Allan Muir at Sports Illustrated, today May 22/09:

Islanders: Coyote Ugly

Now that Gary Bettman has expertly doused that little brushfire in the desert, setting new standards of charm, transparency and efficiency in the process, perhaps he'll be able to turn his attention to a little flare-up that's appeared closer to home.

The New York Islanders -- not part of his Sun Belt footprint, but apparently a legitimate NHL franchise nonetheless -- took another step toward vacating Long Island when owner Charles Wang announced an Oct. 3 deadline for the Town of Hempstead to approve the long-delayed Lighthouse Project.

If that deadline passes, it's a near certainty that the Islanders won't be islanders for long.

Not that anyone can blame Wang (the man who recently bemoaned in public his decision to buy the team) for drawing this provocative line in the sand. The franchise has been bleeding cash at a nearly Coyote-like pace ever since he purchased it nine years ago, to the tune of $15-$20 million last season, and there's no chance of staunching the flow. Well, no chance without the Lighthouse Project, a large-scale multi-purpose plan that includes a new arena (good for the Isles) but also a high-end hotel, luxury residences, a convention center, a minor league ballpark and an entertainment district.

While there's support for the arena, it's the larger scale project that's leading to the political foot-dragging in Nassau County. And that's a problem because these "peripherals" are what will prove to be the actual money generators for Wang.

At a time when development has stalled around the country, this should be a no-brainer for the good folks of Nassau County. It's not just a job creator, both in the short and long run, it's a quality of life issue.

But the chance to bring Bruce Springsteen and the Shriners to a modern facility in Nassau County hasn't swayed Kate Murray, the Hempstead town supervisor who appears to gain as much senseless personal satisfaction from stonewalling Wang as Bettman does from poking Jim Balsillie. The plan now has been stalled for more than a year and, by all accounts, won't get past her desk.

So now Wang has put a deadline on the proposal. Pass it by Oct. 3, or the project is dead. And with it, the doomsday clock on the team's residency on Long Island begins to tick. The club's lease runs out in 2015. Approaching that, Wang certainly would enjoy the full support of the league as he explores his options, much as the Penguins did when they allowed Kansas City to come courting while trying to get a replacement for Mellon Arena approved.

Of course, there are options open to the Islanders that are far less drastic than having them become the new Monsters of the Midwest. There's been talk of sharing space in a building in Brooklyn with the NBA's Nets. Queens is said to be a possibility. There may even be an opportunity to build an Islanders-first facility elsewhere on the island.

But if Lighthouse fails, Kansas City becomes a legitimate option.

If Balsillie's end-around is thwarted (unlikely, from this perspective), there's Hamilton. Or Houston. Or Las Vegas. Or any of the other usual suspects. But the one place the Islanders likely won't be is on Long Island...at least, if that deadline passes.

Which is where Bettman comes in...only this time, he's wearing a white hat for a change.

There's an election coming in November, one that could see a shake-up of the make-up of the political scene in Hempstead. One of the outstanding civil servants who needs to defend her record before the hoi polloi? Yep -- Kate Murray. If she's returned to the private sector (a possibility if not a likelihood), Wang's plans may finally fall on a more sympathetic set of ears.

Or they may not. We'll never know, because Wang's deadline is before the election...unless Bettman convinces him to extend it another couple of months.

Seems like a simple stop-gap measure, doesn't it? If Murray stays in office, Wang can look into finding a new home, a buyer or both. If she's removed, maybe the Islanders have a chance to stay and build towards a future worthy of their storied past.

So let's hope Bettman focuses some of those charismatic healing powers of his on Wang. After all the miracles he's worked in Phoenix, that isn't too much to expect, is it?