Category Archives: General Hockey

Islanders moving from one of my old neighborhoods to another one of my old neighborhoods

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Here are some jokes I already tweeted. Sorry to repeat myself but it’s really all I’ve got: Brooklyn makes so much sense for the Islanders because the best way to appreciate the Islanders is ironically.

I’ve read a lot about how the Barclays Center is unfit for hockey. What I failed to consider: Neither is Nassau Coliseum.

Seriously, though — and not-tweeted-yet: Good for all us kind-of, sort-of Islanders fans who hang out within a few blocks of the Barclays Center pretty frequently and like going to live sporting events even if we don’t really follow the team that closely. And good for the Islanders for finding a way out of Nassau Coliseum. And good for anyone who works in the vicinity of Nassau Coliseum — my mom included — for not having to suffer the traffic anymore.

Presumably very bad for the franchisee of that one McDonald’s.

Despite growing up about 10 minutes from Nassau Coliseum, I never really took to the Islanders. But I had some great times at Islanders games there regardless. One time I was at Dental Hygiene Awareness night with my brother when play had to be stopped twice due to Dental Hygiene Awareness posters turned into paper airplanes.

After college, a couple of my friends and I discovered the Islanders offered half-price student discounts on Tuesday nights and that our college IDs were still valid. We were all living at home after graduating, mind you, and I think we were all getting a little tired of the arrangement. So even though none of us followed hockey, we’d go to Islanders games every Tuesday night and take out our frustration by booing nearly everything that happened. Also: Eating tons of nachos.

Don’t sleep on the Nassau Coliseum nachos.

The longer the NHL lockout lasts, the more beautiful, unidentifiable animals die by crossbow

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I know I don’t talk hockey here much, and as a dedicated carnivore I’m certainly in no position to open up any ethical debate over hunting. But I did find this Tweet from Canucks winger David Booth a bit upsetting, because he spent time he would presumably be playing hockey killing some massive, amazing looking animal that I honestly cannot identify. And I watch a fair share of Animal Planet. Is that a mountain goat?

Via Adam Rotter.

Nassau County voters fail to support hockey team that Nassau County citizens never seem eager to watch play

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Nassau County voters rejected a referendum to invest taxpayer money in a $400 million overhaul of Nassau Coliseum and its environs. We’ll see what the Islanders do from here, I suppose, and on one hand it’s sad to think this could end with the club leaving for greener pastures. But as the son of a Nassau Community College professor dealing with the fallout from rampant budget cuts, I find it hard to get too broken up about the fate of a woefully mismanaged hockey team that can’t draw well in such a densely populated area.

Literally HUNDREDS of Nassau County bigwigs to end months of “intense media speculation”

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Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano will be joined by hundreds of local business, community and labor leaders on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. in announcing a major Economic Development and Job Creation Plan to build a world-class sports-entertainment destination center. After months of intense media speculation, the County Executive will also announce plans to pursue the construction of an Indian gaming casino.

– Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano, press release.

Well there’s just a ton here.

First off, it’s worth noting that Nassau County executives absolutely love pomp, circumstance and press releases. When I was in high school I won some stupid award for something stupid, and I swear we got a press release announcing that some county politician was coming to present the award, then afterward a second press release announcing that he came and presented the award, then later a signed 8×10″ black-and-white photo of me with the dude. It’s somewhere in my parents’ attic now, unless they threw in out in one of their biannual stuff-no-one-needs purges. For all I know it could have been Edward Mangano.

Anyway, I hope this guy Mangano is actually “joined by hundreds of local business, community and sportsbet leaders” to announce whatever plans are so important that they merit capitalization. That’d be something to see: some 200 suits  set up behind podiums while two reporters from Newsday and some guy representing all the Herald papers sit in an otherwise empty conference room, anxiously biting their nails and tapping pencils on notebooks, desperate to learn whatever it is that the county is doing to quiet all the speculating they’ve been doing.

It should be noted that I got this release through the New York Islanders, which really calls into question the use of the phrase “world-class.” The Islanders, you may know, have finished dead last in their division for four seasons running and shut out a member of the Professional Hockey Writers of America (and the SNY.tv blog network, to boot) from covering their team for entirely nebulous reasons.

But I suppose it is possible that the new “sports-entertainment destination center” planned for Nassau County will be world-class even if the team playing inside it is not, and at least there will also be a nearby Indian casino for betting against the Islanders.

Rangers get a sandwich

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In honor of the Rangers’ playoff appearance, Katz’s Deli has unveiled the Rangers Hat Trick. It is pastrami, corned beef and brisket on rye, apparently with mustard. It looks like this:

Color me only vaguely enthused. Katz’s has an edge on most of the other old-school meatpile New York Deli places because its meat is, if I remember correctly, legitimately juicy, flavorful and delicious. And to this sandwich’s credit, it doesn’t look nearly as gimmicky as the Carmelo Anthony sandwich from the Carnegie Deli.

On the other hand, it costs $18.95, which is one of the problems with Katz’s. It’s not that they make bad sandwiches — anything but, really — but to be worth $18.95 a sandwich has to be pretty much mind-numbingly awesome, and I’ve never found them to be that.