The NHL Hockey Team will have a new home this fall in Elmont, Long Island….
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s fondest memory at Nassau Coliseum took place May 24, 1980. That’s when Bob Nystrom’s overtime winner against the Flyers marked the beginning of a legendary dynasty, as the Islanders won their first of four straight Stanley Cups.
Bettman, a young lawyer at the time, recalled feeling overwhelmed as he watched then-league president John Ziegler hand the Cup over to Islanders captain Denis Potvin, as the rest of the team swarmed around them.
Back then, the NHL was the only sports league that had such a ceremony, in which the trophy was presented to the championship team in front of the fans. To Bettman, it was spectacular.
Standing outside of the Islanders’ nearly completed new home on Wednesday, the $1 billion dollar-plus UBS Arena next to the Belmont Park race track, it was difficult for Bettman to fathom that it took 41 years since that storied moment at the Coliseum for the team he grew up around to move on from “Fort Neverlose.”
There were great memories at the Coliseum, he said, but the due date for the arena that opened in 1972 had long expired.
The Isles will take the ice for a potential second-round, series-clinching Game 6 against the Bruins on Wednesday night at the Old Barn, a building that has been eroding for years and whose welcome signs read, “DANGER: ASBESTOS – may cause cancer.”….
…
“Looking to [Wednesday night], I don’t think there’s been a higher get-in price on ticket websites and that’s because everybody in New York wants to be a part of this experience.”
With the Islanders’ emergence as a consistent playoff contender the past three years under the Lou Lamoriello-Barry Trotz regime, the demand has exceeded expectations.
The Islanders are already nearly sold out (over 95 percent) of its season tickets for UBS Arena’s inaugural season in 2021-22. Premium seating, which is a little over 80 percent sold out, and season tickets is expected to account for approximately 15,000 of the 17,500 seats….