You have to understand that for the Islanders, we've been dealing with pretty much 25 years of shoddy ownership, on-ice product, mismanagement, and the worst arena in all of major pro sports.
It's a commonly known fact that if the Islanders sell out every game, they still lose money. So why am I going to line SMG's pockets with my money if it won't lead to us investing in the team?
If the Town of Hempstead, Nassau County and everyone else said "We will approve a new arena for the Islanders if they hit an attendance mark of ________," there should be no doubt that we'd hit it.
But barring that, it makes no sense to support the team financially when it makes no difference. We're hostages to the lease/Town of Hempstead. But there's millions of us out there waiting in the woodwork for the team to be liberated.
When we had the #1 draft pick, we had 10,000 people show up to watch us take John Tavares.
When the new arena opens, we'll see how many straight games sell out. But when things have been exactly the same for so long, we're going to remain in the woodwork until there's a shovel in the ground.
After years of talk and false starts, County Executive ________ urged today that the county get started this year on construction of a new arena for the New York Islanders and other sports teams as the centerpiece of a tourist and entertainment hub in central Nassau.
Besides the arena, which would replace the outdated Nassau Coliseum, the county-hub plan envisions a convention center, hotels, museums, shops and recreation sites.
That story is NO DIFFERENT than Mangano's Casino story that came out last summer. Except the one quoted above continues:
In his State of the County address to the County Legislature here today, _________ said he wanted plans for the new arena made final this fall, with an opening date set for the 2001 hockey season.
We've been hearing "we're trying to get a new arena, but politics are holding up the works" since Pat LaFontaine was our best player.