Plans move ahead for the arena under the cloud of the Covid-19 virus….
The Islanders and Northwell Health announced a 10-year sponsorship deal for the new UBS Arena at Belmont Park on Tuesday morning.
“It’s an opportunity for two great organizations to come together to do things collectively for the benefit of the community at large,” said Northwell Health CEO and president Michael Dowling, whose company employs 25,000 on Long Island. “We’ve had a 20-year relationship with the Islanders and I think the future looks unbelievably bright for Long Island because of what we can do together.”
On a recent joint Zoom teleconference, Dowling, Islanders co-owner Jon Ledecky and Tim Leiweke, CEO of arena developer Oak View Group, touted how Northwell Health influenced the health and safety precautions — air circulation and ventilation, sanitization, employee checkpoints — being developed for UBS Arena. Northwell Health also is the naming sponsor of the Islanders’ practice facility in East Meadow…
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UBS Arena, which will seat 17,113 for hockey, is scheduled to open in the 2021-22 NHL season. Leiweke said he expects construction of the roof to be completed by “the end of the calendar year.”
He added the arena already has “40 dates on hold,” for concerts and live entertainment in the fourth quarter of 2021….
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Of course, to what percentage of capacity UBS Arena can be filled at the beginning remains in question with the pandemic still in full force roughly a year before opening. The NHL completed its postseason in sequestered bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton without fans in the stands and there’s no date for the start of next season, nor any word on when fans will be allowed back in the arenas….
image…nhl.com