Islanders Move to Brooklyn

[revo]

buh bye Hempstead, hello Brooklyn! Long Island really screwed the pooch on this one.

[swampdragon]

I think that Brooklyn Nets is weird - How about Brookyn Islanders?

[Roto Rooter]

Well technically Brooklyn is part of long island.

Here's the number one thing against them. Their fanbase is deeply rooted in LI. They are not going to poach Rangers fans as they are as die hard as they come. Will they sell well in Brooklyn is the huge question mark.

[Judge Jude]

team name will remain New York Islanders, says owner Charles Wang.
move comes in 2015.

Long Island is broke, and Nassau County voters felt they couldn't afford to build Wang an arena.

[BuckyBuckner]

Well technically Brooklyn is part of long island.

Here's the number one thing against them. Their fanbase is deeply rooted in LI. They are not going to poach Rangers fans as they are as die hard as they come. Will they sell well in Brooklyn is the huge question mark.

Plus there is next to no parking by the Barclay's Center so all the folks from the Island won't be able to drive to the game and I don't think the train system can accommodate 13,000 fans. I also heard that the rink is going to be off center cause it's not that big of an arena so one end will not have that many seats, it will look like a U shaped seating arrangement. Could be interesting. But more importantly, I just want the NHL back.

[Roto Rooter]

team name will remain New York Islanders, says owner Charles Wang.
move comes in 2015.

Long Island is broke, and Nassau County voters felt they couldn't afford to build Wang an arena.

That seems incredibly dumb and par for the course with Wang. How can you not cash in on the Brooklyn thing? Better off trying something new with a Brooklyn themed team rather than status quo with the lowly NY Islanders moniker. How about the Brooklyn Fuggedaboutit's?

[Judge Jude]

I think Wang for now is hoping to keep as much of his fan base as possible taking the LIRR, so why tick them off with a name change? But he can always change his mind.

Yes, a couple of years ago the Nets reconfigured the arena design because they had $ issues and did not plan on bringing on an NHL team. So on one end you can't have that many seats. Seating capacity would be 14,500 for hockey, although NHL Commish Bettman today said they were trying to get to 15K - that would match Winnipeg as league's smallest.

Isles have great TV deal with MSG, which needs them because they lost Yankees and Nets years ago. They have to have enough programming to force rival operators like Time Warner and Comcast to pay big bucks to carry the channel. TV is why Isles in 14.5K capacity in Brooklyn as 2nd tenant is still better than moving out of the region.

[Roto Rooter]

[BuckyBuckner]

That seems incredibly dumb and par for the course with Wang. How can you not cash in on the Brooklyn thing? Better off trying something new with a Brooklyn themed team rather than status quo with the lowly NY Islanders moniker. How about the Brooklyn Fuggedaboutit's?

I read that the NHL forced them to keep the Islanders name, not sure about the NY part, but I would assume its as JJ said, not to piss off the Long Island fans. This way they can say they are just moving to a new stadium, it's not a location move, but it's possible they will pick up some Brooklyn fans, but they'd have to be new to hockey cause there's no way in hell a Rangers fan is going to become an Islanders fan.

[Judge Jude]

"there's no way in hell a Rangers fan is going to become an Islanders fan."

well, hundreds of thousands of such new allegiances happened in the early 1980s, but there was a special reason for that.

coincidentally, there were more Mets fans than Yankees fans in NYC in the mid-1980s.

[Erik]

That seems incredibly dumb and par for the course with Wang. How can you not cash in on the Brooklyn thing? Better off trying something new with a Brooklyn themed team rather than status quo with the lowly NY Islanders moniker. How about the Brooklyn Fuggedaboutit's?

The New York Brooklynders.

[Erik]

I read that the NHL forced them to keep the Islanders name, not sure about the NY part, but I would assume its as JJ said, not to piss off the Long Island fans. This way they can say they are just moving to a new stadium, it's not a location move, but it's possible they will pick up some Brooklyn fans, but they'd have to be new to hockey cause there's no way in hell a Rangers fan is going to become an Islanders fan.

Luckily Brooklyn has tons of hipsters.

[Roto Rooter]

How about the Brooklyn Hipsters and the players will be contractually obligated to grow handle bar mustaches.

[BuckyBuckner]

Luckily Brooklyn has tons of hipsters.

Why? I don't think hipsters like hockey.

[revo]

How about the Brooklyn Schmears?