Earlier this month, the Barclays Center unveiled its bid for a revamped Nassau Coliseum, spearheaded by developer Bruce Ratner and CEO Brett Yormark. The plan includes six Islanders games in a new, scaled down 13,000 seat arena back in Nassau County — with owner Charles Wang’s blessing — with the hope that the team should stay connected with its Long Island fanbase.
Yesterday, in an interview with Chris Botta of the Sports Business Journal(subscription required), Yormark acknowledged that his group had conducted polling among Long Island fans via marketing agency CSE, which according to its website “works with Fortune 500 companies, emerging businesses, and individuals looking to differentiate and grow their brands.”
CSE is different than IC International, which was reported last month by the Riverhead News-Reviewto be conducting focus groups with Islanders fans. According to Point Blank sources, IC International’s focus groups were not connected to Yormark and the Nets.
“It’s their team,” Yormark told the Sports Business Journal, referring to the team’s Long Island fans. “It’s important for the Long Island fan base to stay connected to the Islanders. We also feel that it’s a big differentiator for our group in this bid.”
The only Bridgeport Sound Tiger to forgo the call-up to skate around with the big club during the playoffs, Nino Niederreiter took the call from his country and headed to the IIHF Men’s Hockey Championship in Scandinavia. In six games so far, Niederreiter and his countrymen have impressed and are second in Group S out of eight teams, behind only Canada. The Swiss are also the only team in the tournament that hasn’t lost yet, with five regulation wins and one in overtime.
Niederreiter leads the Swiss team in goals with four, tying him with NHLers such as Matt Duchene and Paul Stastny in goals during the tournament (Russia’s Ilya Kovalchuk leads all scorers with eight). The Islanders prospect is helping lead Switzerland’s top line along with Martin Pluss and Simon Moser.
“We have a good team and great chemistry,” Niederreiter said to Martin Merk reporting for the IIHF. “Moser and me are kind of new here but we both [have] the same style of a power forward while Plüss has lots of experience.”
The Swiss team may have a certain advantage over other teams in the tournament. Many of the teams were quickly created with mostly NHLers whose seasons had just ended. For the Swiss, they had been playing and training together for weeks, adding only Niederreiter and Nashville’s Roman Josi at the end of the NHL regular season.
Niederreiter spent the entire 2012-13 season in Bridgeport, notching 28 goals and 50 points in 74 games. In an interview at the World Championships with RTS Sport, he expressed that he would have liked to have been called up by the Islanders this season.
“Yes, especially as I had a very good start in the farm club in Bridgeport and I competed in the All-Star Game in AHL. But not everything is in my control, it’s like that.”
SNY.TV recaprlooks back at the coverage of the Islanders’ loss to the Penguins.
In less than two minutes, recapr covers the media’s reaction to New York’s sports stories, pulling together multiple angles and viewpoints – from Twitter to text to talk radio – giving you the whole story in one place.
After the red light went off on Saturday night, eliminating the Islanders and sending the Penguins to the second round, it marked the end of the Islanders magical run to the playoffs. After a 17-game run in late-March and April followed by two wins and two overtimes against the Penguins, the Islanders garnered praise both locally and nationally from fans and media. They stepped out of the darkness and into the limelight of media attention. Everyone, it seemed, took notice. The Islanders were the team everyone wanted to see win. At long last, the rebuild had accomplished its first goal of making the playoffs.
This was only a shortened 48-game season, but it seemed like we learned a lot more about this Islander team than those in seasons past.
For the final 17 games of the regular season plus six playoff games, this was a completely different team. One that couldn’t hold a lead and seemed to fold in the clutch for much of the first two months (and previous seasons) all of a sudden pulled a 180-degree turn. Early on, the coach didn’t have the answers, certain players didn’t appear to have the heart and then all of a sudden they were a strong-willed team that had guts, determination and a killer instinct. To read more of this story, click here
UNIONDALE, N.Y. – After the final buzzer the Islanders took one final spin around the ice at Nassau Coliseum, with the fans behind them chanting, “lets go Islanders” and chanting “M-V-P” at Hart Trophy finalist John Tavares.
It was all that was left to do after the Islanders fell to the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 in overtime, in a game that ended their season.
“It’s just tough to put into words,” Colin McDonald said after the defeat. “Losing a game like that. Losing a series like that, it’s just tough.”
It was Brooks Orpik who scored 7:49 into the overtime period and ended the Islanders magical run that saw them shock pundits around the league who had given them no chance.
Original Story, 1:51pm — Tonight at the Coliseum the Islanders face elimination against the Penguins, down 3-2 in the best-of-seven series. Both prior games at the Coliseum came down to the wire and were absolutely crazy in terms of the fans noise, and hopefully tonight won’t be any different. Despite Thursday’s clunker in Pittsburgh, the Islanders are very much alive in this series and have played well at home.
Saturday’s Game Six at the Coliseum will be simulcast on WFAN 660AM and 101.9FM. It will also be broadcast on the normal 88.7 WRHU. In some radio justice, the game will pre-empt WFAN’s Steve “Icelanders” Somers.
UNIONDALE, N.Y. – After the final buzzer the Islanders took one final spin around the ice at Nassau Coliseum, with the fans behind them chanting, “lets go Islanders” and chanting “M-V-P” at Hart Trophy finalist John Tavares.
