Starting in the 2015-16 season the Islanders will be moving from Nassau County to Kings County and there they will stay for 25 years. But shockingly (!) not everybody is happy that ice American football hockey is coming full-time to the Barclays Center. What about the traffic? And the old Coliseum? And won't somebody think of the fact that the Islanders logo doesn't actually include Brooklyn? Clearly they should just scrap this plan right now rather than spend the next two years hammering out the details, right?
Hell no! Islanders owner Charles Wang has been trying for years to get his team a better home and has been shot down left and right by both politicians and voters. Barclays may be small, but it is clean and new and very "hot" right now. And it wants the Islanders.
Does it suck that Wang's "iron clad" commitment to move to Brooklyn is going to cost Nassau County millions in revenue and thousands of jobs? Sure does, but it also shouldn't be a surprise after the past decade of wheeling and dealing. Nassau County made its bed.
Will traffic be, as Gridlock Sam points out, a problem? Initially, yes it probably will. But fans from further out will quickly realize that it will be far easier just to take the LIRR directly to the arena's door. And a little advertising to that effect will also help.
As for fans upset about the move? If you are still a fan of Islanders so far from their heyday just stop pretending you won't follow them a few miles down the island. And before that happens we hope the team will tweak their logo to actually include the city it is moving to.
