Dear Sirs and Madams:

I hope you read English because my French is quite limited. I support your efforts to return NHL hockey to Quebec. I don’t know any of the politics or economics behind it, but to me it’s b.s. that the Nordiques even left in the first place, because obviously Canada is for hockey (and vice versa), and because the Nordiques had a sweet logo that I have on a t-shirt somewhere. I don’t follow hockey much, but I’ll admit it’s a pretty sweet sport. And I know that the Islanders suck and don’t draw well, and that often when I turn on an N.H.L. game I see teams I’ve never heard of before. Has Columbus, Ohio really had a professional hockey team since 2000? Did I just miss that entirely?

Anyway, on behalf of Long Island, Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead, my longtime home, I welcome you to Uniondale. My advice to you is to spend as little of your time in the area in Uniondale, though inevitably you will spend hours on your way into and out of the Nassau Coliseum’s parking lot,  no matter how few people attend the game. I think more people park there than actually go inside. No one can really explain it.

You’ll probably want to eat while you’re in the area. If you have access to a car, drive west down Hempstead Turnpike and gawk at our amazing array of fast food fried-chicken purveyors. But resist the temptation to stop at the Popeye’s, the first KFC, the Kennedy Fried Chicken or the second KFC, and drive all the way down to the very end of the Chicken Strip. There you’ll find Wings N’ Things, the best option for a truly local experience. If you’ve got enough friends with you, I recommend their 80-piece bucket, which is actually on the menu.

And if you’re really looking to sample the best of local cuisine, take a left on Henry St. and proceed south. (I should note now that the drinking age in the United States is 21, so if you have anyone younger than that interested in purchasing alcohol, you might want to stop by Henry Street Liquors, a strange pocket of apparently independent territory where those restrictions are not enforced. You’ll see the big yellow sign.)

Henry Street becomes Baldwin Road and eventually Grand Avenue. On your left, you’ll see a shopping center with an Associated Supermarket. There’ll you’ll find Ferring Deli, one of the area’s very best, plus a good pizzeria and Jamaican bakery. Enjoy. If you pass another KFC, you’ve gone too far.

Enjoy your stay on Long Island, and feel free to take the Islanders with you.

Ted.

With a little more than a quarter of the season gone, the Islanders have the fewest points in the N.H.L. and have fired their coach, Scott Gordon. Attendance at the Coliseum — one of the oldest arenas in the N.H.L. — has averaged 10,773, down 11 percent from last season, as fans react to the team’s poor play and management’s decision to raise ticket prices almost 20 percent this season. Only the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes have drawn fewer fans.

The Islanders continue to be weighed down by misguided draft picks and bloated contracts. Their highest-paid player, Rick DiPietro, has struggled with injuries since signing a 15-year deal in 2006. Josh Bailey, their first-round draft pick in 2008, who has scored just 26 goals in 159 N.H.L. games, was sent to the minors last week.

Off the ice, the Islanders have no president or chief of amateur scouting. They revoked the credentials of a popular blogger who covers the team, and their television announcer, Howie Rose, was inadvertently caught on a broadcast venting about the team’s poor play. This season, the team decided to have its games broadcast on a college radio station.

– Ken Belson and Dave Caldwell, New York Times.

What an embarrassment. Read the whole Times article, there was no one excerpt I could choose to fully convey how damning it is. And I guess I shouldn’t rip the Islanders if I ever hope to get press credentials at the Nassau Coliseum, but the way it is now, I can’t imagine any situation in which I’d want to go watch the Islanders anyway.

It’s a shame because technically the Islanders are my favorite hockey team. And for a while I thought I might get into hockey. I do really appreciate the sport, I loved playing roller hockey on the street in high school, and the Islanders play about a ten-minute drive from where I grew up.

When I moved back home after college, my friends and I had almost nothing to do, so we would occasionally go to Islanders games. Problem was they sucked then, like they suck now, and yet the tickets were still way too expensive, even for the cheap seats. They had student discounts on Tuesday nights, but even then the Coliseum would be empty.

According to the article, the Islanders are keeping two former players on the payroll just to meet the league’s salary minimum. I hadn’t heard that. That’s crazy. You play in New York. Yes, your arena is a hole and the traffic sucks and there’s no way to get there on the LIRR, but it’s situated within walking distance of two colleges and there are 800,000 people in the Town of Hempstead alone.

The NHL has left it up to the teams to determine their own policies on bloggers, and the Islanders are using that wide breadth of a policy to make a determination on Botta. The other problem for Botta, or any writer in the Nassau press box that runs afoul of team management, is that the Islanders’ press credentials clearly indicate the team has the right to pull them at its discretion.

And Botta is a journalist, in the estimation of the PHWA, which has gone to bat for him in this dispute. Sure, there may have been complaints about Botta by the Islanders that go beyond content and speak to behavior or some violation of decorum. (We’ve heard Botta’s speaking to players outside of designated interview areas was an issue raised, which is by no means a credential-losing sin.)

Those problems are minor, and could be hashed out without a “nuclear option.” So this is essentially an issue of censorship, of undermining an important voice in the Islanders media and fan communities.

– Greg Wyshynski, Puck Daddy.

I don’t want to delve too deeply into this since it’s far from settled, Chris Botta is a member of the SNY.tv family, and I don’t want to ruffle any more feathers than have already been ruffled. But a couple of people have asked me why the press hasn’t shown more outrage over this, and I’m not sure that it’s even necessary.

No coverage of the dispute portrays the Islanders in a favorable light, because it’s difficult to see how they’re not shooting themselves in the foot by shutting him out. Botta provides better coverage of the Islanders than anybody. Denying him access to the club only further alienates an already-withering fanbase.

The actual job part of my job includes a decent amount of advocating to get professional bloggers credentialed. I have had no role in Botta’s issue with the Islanders, but I’ve spent plenty of time trying to convince media-relations departments to allow our bloggers to cover their teams from the inside. To me, as long as the content is professional, there should be no distinction between a “blogger” and a “columnist,” since those are just words.

Some teams are way cooler about it than others. The Knicks, for example, have been extremely obliging.

The New York Islanders announced today the addition of a new corporate partner in the unique sponsorship category of cupcakes. The Islanders have signed an agreement to designate Cupcake Gourmet, Inc. as the official cupcake supplier of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the New York Islanders Hockey Club.

“To be the official cupcake supplier of the Islanders and Nassau Coliseum is huge to me,” Amy Brady, Owner of Cupcake Gourmet, Inc. said. “I fell in love with the team when I moved to Long Island 15 years ago and to be a part of their world feels great.”

Justin Johnson, Senior Vice President of Corporate Partnerships & Marketing for the Islanders said: “We are thrilled to launch this partnership with Amy and Cupcake Gourmet as we continually enhance the everyday menu board for our fans.”

– New York Islanders press release.