New York Islanders moving to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center

The lockout may have cancelled their attempt to christen Barclays Center with a preseason hockey game last fall, but the New York Islanders announced Tuesday that they’ll play the first NHL game at their future Brooklyn home against the New Jersey Devils on Sept. 21, 2013.

It’s the same matchup that was canceled due to the lockout, this time with the added bonus of knowing that the Isles are planning to permanently move to Barclays Center for the start of the 2015-16 NHL season. When the canceled game was originally scheduled, speculation ramped up that the team was looking at Brooklyn as a long-term relocation option. The team then announced the planned move at a press conference during the lockout in October.

Barclays Center is awesome. Like, really freakin’ awesome.

And if you didn’t hear, the first event at the brand new, state-of-the-art home of the Brooklyn Nets was supposed to be a New York Islanders preseason game. The ongoing NHL lockout forced the cancellation of that game, but even without the scheduled test run, Charles Wang has opted to move his Isles to Brooklyn.

Brooklyn has a hockey team.

The New York Islanders announced at a press conference Wednesday that, after months of courtship from Barclays Center ownership, they’ll be moving to the brand-new arena in 2015. The Islanders lease at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. expires following the 2014-15 season.

The Islanders have long been trying to secure a new arena in Nassau County but couldn’t find an avenue to make it come to fruition. Now, the team will be calling the Barclays Center home along with the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, who relocated from New Jersey this year.

Arena officials say the Barclays Center will hold approximately 14.500 seats for hockey, making it the smallest NHL arena.

The New York Islanders will announce at a 1 p.m. Wednesday press conference that they’re moving to Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

The move, still three years down the road when the Isles’ Nassau Coliseum lease expires in 2015, is the long-awaited solution to an ongoing arena saga that’s seen relocation threats, stalled plans for extravagant new buildings in Nassau County and its fair share of nasty local politics.

According to Chris Botta at Sports Business Journal, TSN’s Bob McKenzie and the New York Post, an announcement on Wednesday afternoon will be made that the Islanders are headed to the Barclays Center in 2015.

Those present for the big day include developer Bruce Ratner, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Islanders owner Charles Wang, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

The New York Islanders and Barclays Center are set to make a “major announcement” at the arena in Brooklyn at 1 p.m. Wednesday.

There’s been speculation for several years that the Islanders could leave the New York area, as attempts to build a new arena in Nassau County have fallen flat. Their lease deal with the aging Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum ends in 2015.

According to prospective Seattle team owner Don Levin, the answer is no. Via ESPN’s Craig Custance:

Islanders fans have long been worried about the potential that their cash-strapped, arena-poor franchise could leave it’s historic roots on Long Island and find itself elsewhere. Brooklyn may not be the greatest alternative for Isles fans based further west on the Island, but it goes without saying that the new Barclays Center would be a much more desirable location for Isles fans than Seattle, Quebec City or elsewhere.

State investigators have begun a probe of the Coliseum after several complaints from workers, who went as far as to say the problem may have caused cancer in some of their colleagues, according to NBC New York. One worker reportedly gathered samples of a white substance from various areas around the arena, sending them to several labs for testing. The results confirmed “dangerous levels of potentially airborne asbestos.”

The Islanders, the only major tenant at the County-owned, SMG-operated arena, have asked for a full review of the asbestos complaints.

The local politics surrounding the story are absolutely fascinating -- although if you live in Nassau County, you might just have a different opinion on that -- and are outlined well in the article. We won’t try to delve into them here, because we’re certainly ignorant in comparison. Instead, we’ll stick to the implications for the hockey team.

There are plenty of options for the Islanders on Long Island, and Wang has proven that he wants both Nassau County and Long Island to be the home of his club for the very long-term future. He could have sold the team years ago to a group from Winnipeg or Kansas City or Quebec City if that weren’t the case, and he would have saved a ton of money in the process. Just as True North did with the Atlanta Thrashers, ownership from Quebec City would open the wallet for the chance to purchase the Islanders, and Wang could take that right to the bank if that was his priority.

“We feel Brooklyn is an untapped hockey market that offers the Islanders with an exciting opportunity to grow its fan base,” Yormark said in the press release. “Barclays Center will also afford current Islander fans with great accessibility, as the Long Island Rail Road and nine subway lines will come directly to the arena at the Atlantic Terminal transit hub.”

Yormark’s building was built for the New Jersey Nets of the NBA, but it’s part of his job to make sure it’s filled as often as possible throughout the year. An NHL team calling it home goes a long way towards that goal, and the one true weakness of the Nassau Coliseum location at which the Islanders currently reside is the lack of public transportation. There’s a reason Yormark mentioned the transit hub at the door step of Barclays Center, and this is likely why.

As a result, fans have worried about the future of their team on Long Island. But is there new found hope yet again? Via Newsday comes details of a new proposal, put forth by a group called Association of a Better Long Island, which calls for a minor league baseball park, an outdoor ice rink a parking garage and retail space on the land that surrounds the Coliseum.

The $346.5 million proposal would also include $100 million in renovations to the Coliseum itself, which Newsday says “would make the structure large and taller, with new seats and suites.” The paper also reports that the plan would be privately financed, a huge detail in the wake of the failed referendum that hit the ballot on August 1.

Voters there are flocking (?) to the polls on August 1 to vote on a referendum that will allow Isles owner Charles Wang, in partnership with the county, to build a new, state-of-the-art hockey arena on the current site of the dilapidated Nassau Coliseum.

A YES vote from the public would be the first step towards allowing Nassau County to spend $400 million on bonds towards building a new arena. $350 million of that would go towards the arena, while $50 million would go towards a new minor-league baseball stadium. A NO vote would be devastating to the Isles chances of staying on Long Island, and Wang has said before that if that’s the case, he’ll have to look to other options surrounding the future of his team.