It feels like forever, yes, but it was just 150 days ago. That was the last time the Islanders were truly islanders, the last time they actually played a match on the Island, and it was one of the grandest sporting moments we’ve had around here in so, so long.
There were 12,000 true believers in the old house, the Old Barn, Nassau Coliseum, desperate to keep hockey season alive for another few days. That was June 23. The Islanders were two wins away from the Stanley Cup Finals but also only one loss away from their first tee times of summer.
Fort Neverlose was asked to rise to one more occasion.
And did. It took a little extra work. It took Anthony Beauvillier beating Andrei Vasilevskiy 68 seconds into overtime to give the locals a 3-2 win over the Lightning, to send the Old Barn into one last frenzy. In the moment, there was hope there might be still more hockey games at the old address — 1255 Hempstead Turnpike, Uniondale, 11553 — but that dream died on a steamy St. Petersburg night two days on.
One-hundred-fifty days later, at last, the lads come back home.
It hasn’t been an agreeable stretch in between, truth be told. There was the misery of watching Tampa oust Montreal in a five-game gentleman’s sweep in the Cup Finals, every Isles fan extant knowing full well that their team would’ve pounded Les Habitants every bit as fiercely as the Lightning did. There was a long offseason.
And there has been this month-long wait for the opening of the UBS Arena, the sparkling new $1.5 billion playpen 15 miles due west on the Turnpike, in Elmont, where the Islanders will be rooted for decades to come. Delays forced the Islanders on the road for the first 13 games of this season and the road was not kind to them; they will bring a 5-6-2 record, good for dead last in the Metropolitan Division, to Saturday’s 7 p.m. start with the Calgary Flames.
Right now, the Isles feel like one of the long shots that occasionally inch into the starting gate next door, at Belmont Park.
The Islanders will play their first game at UBS Arena Saturday. Getty ImagesBut they will be home, at last.
And that’s a start.
“It was cool,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said the other day, when he and his players officially took to the ice of their new playpen for the very first time. “It has a different feel. So there’s a little pep in the step. Getting lost in it, figuring out every office, every room.”
The Islanders have felt like an itinerant operation for so long, this will be welcome change of pace. From the old-old Coliseum to Barclays Center and back to the downsized Coliseum, they tried to build something worthy of new digs. And did.
The record is troubling, but it also comes with an explanation, for there are few franchises in the sport that traditionally feed off the pleas and pleadings of their home crowd as this one. The Islanders always have been a different team on the Island than anywhere else. Now they will get 41 of their remaining 69 games on the Island.
“It’s an extremely exciting time to be a member of this organization,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said.
Lee was watching in street clothes 150 days ago, the last time the Islanders were truly islanders, the night Beauvillier closed the old joint in style, the night he said, “Going into OT the building smelled like cigarettes. Now it smells like beer.”
Saturday, at the start, it will smell of champagne, of fresh beginnings, of history yet to be written. Saturday night the Islanders are islanders again. They are home again, at last. Let the season begin for real. At last.
