'Now, the team is learning a lot from what the Coliseum gave them. 'When the Coliseum opened, the President of the NHL, Clarence Campbell, visited and said, ‘This is the best place to watch a hockey game.’ And I know of a couple of club owners who built their arenas based on the pure noise that they’d heard inside the Coliseum,' Fischler recalled. They’ve also come up with a resolution, in the form of the new UBS Arena that will open next season in nearby Elmont, NY. In the meantime, the Isles kept circling back to the classic old building on Hempstead Turnpike. There was also a short-lived stint at Barclays Center in Brooklyn which failed because the Isles’ fan base preferred staying out in the burbs, and because, well, it was so clearly a basketball arena. Then the feeling was that they would get the hell out of the metropolitan area and move to somewhere like Houston or Kansas City – places that wanted a team.' 'As the building got older, there was a clamor to have it renovated, expanded or build a new one, but it always got bogged down by bickering politicians. 'I covered the team since the mid-70s, so I was on top of all the moving stories,' said the 89-year-old Fischler, who still covers the sport and team via The Fischler Report and Maven's Haven. The franchise flirted at various times with other locations on Long Island and even considered leaving the New York area altogether. Major League Baseball (Wrigley, Fenway, Dodger Stadium) and the National Football League (OGs like Lambeau and Soldier plus 70s classics in Buffalo, Kansas City and New Orleans) still offer some gems that are worth a visit, but it’s hard to call massive, 40-80 thousand-seat structures 'barns.'Īnd look, it’s not like the Islanders' various owners over the years even wanted to be around this long. NBA arenas as a collective are even newer, with the Timberwolves’ Target Center (1990) the second-oldest after MSG. No other buildings even date to the ’80s.

The next oldest, I was frankly shocked to learn while doing this story, is the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta the Flames home since 1983. The only active NHL arena older than Nassau Coliseum, which was built in 1972, is Madison Square Garden, which has been around at its current address since 1968 and is of course awesome, but went through extensive renovations a few years ago that makes it feel quite new. I understand owners need bigger buildings with bigger luxury boxes and all that, so when old barns get retired, they won’t be back.Īnd that’s pretty much where we’re at with the NHL and NBA. It was my first indoor game since the Big East Tournament on March 11, 2020, aka The Day The Sports World Stopped, and this was a welcome return.īut thanks to the Coliseum, this game would have felt special no matter when it happened.

I have been to a ton of big games in all four major American sports and I’m not sure I’ve been to one that had a more entertaining package than what I experienced last week. Between the screaming fans and some well-chosen tracks, (' Black Skinhead' before the puck dropped ' Seven Nation Army' deployed throughout ' Our House' late in the game), there was also extensive organ playing by the Islanders’ longtime organist, Paul Cartier.

Islanders new arena