UBS Arena represents the end of an endless, unlikely journey

If you were reading cartoons in the early ’80s, you might remember ads for an upcoming limited series with a vague character called Rocket Raccoon.

Art of an angry looking raccoon a one-piece swimsuit and thigh-high boots firing at something appeared in almost every Marvel Comics book published at the time. Few had heard of Rocket before that series (he had only a handful of appearances, mostly in Hulk comics), and his limited edition of four issues didn’t actually set the world on fire when it was released in the summer of 1985. He’s barely seen after that.

Fast forward for about 30 years, and the same obscure character is now a fundamental part one of the most popular installments an unprecedented cinematic juggernaut that generates several billion dollars a year. He has voted absurd handsome award nominated actress. Kids dress up as rockets for Halloween. She has toys and collectibles and stuffed animals and t-shirts, and she now appears in comics monthly in both her team books and her own much more successful solo series.

Absolutely no one in 1985 could have seen this coming. I never thought for millions of years when I saw those ads when I was nine years old that I would see Rocket Raccoon on the big screen or that my wife and kids would even know who she is. Of all the Marvel characters woken up through the MCU, Rocket is the one that still blows my mind every time I see him.

It’s a very long-inch and nerdy way of saying that sometimes things can happen that you never expect to happen. That’s what UBS Arena is all about.

It’s something that I and probably many other people thought would never happen in our lifetime. Only during the lifecycle of this blog have readers and commentators waded through the birth of the Lighthouse Project era, a failed arena referendum, a move to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, a return to the renovated Nassau Coliseum, and then approval and construction at UBS Arena in Belmont Park.

It’s all in just one 13-year episode (which is an eternity in the blog years) and would be enough to drive all the fans crazy. But it’s still only a fraction of the reversal in the story, where the Islanders finally – IN THE END – build a new arena just for them on Long Island.

I can still imagine a high school student sitting on my parents ’porch reading the annual“ if islanders don’t get a new arena, they could change ”story that seemed to appear on Newsday before the start of each season. In the early 1990s. The move or mere contraction was possible because the situation was in the crown jewel of the NHL disposable.

Yes, their home was over 20 years old at the time. But the problems were not just aesthetic. The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum was a magical place that witnessed a lot of history and held many memories for many people. Outside the ice, it stifled franchising. Few other teams in the NHL paid rent and expenses to play in their arenas. For the most part, they owned their own venues and used them to generate revenue in the form of unreasonable parking fees, license fees, and everything else they could squeeze into paying audiences.

Every owner of the Islanders over the past 30 years knew that the only way to make the team profitable was to acquire a new building. And all but Scott Malkin and Jon Ledecky failed.

I was on the same porch when John Spano took possession of the promise of a new arena, and when he was arrested for fraud and eventually tracked down from the Cayman Islands and dragged back to Nassau County to court. Within a year, all of Spano’s big plans rose to a cloud of false faxes and strange excuses.

Ownership passed back to absent check signer John Pickett, a full-time Florida resident who had been trying to dismantle Islanders for years. The next buyers were New York Sports Ventures, a bunch of fake tough guys straight from the Cohen Brothers movie. Major owners Steven Gluckstern and brothers Howard and Edward Milstein bought the team cheaply and expected to resell it after building a new arena, at which point they made a good profit. From day one, they tried to get Nassau County to pay the bill for the new building, citing the dangerous conditions at the Colosseum. While that might have been true (watch out for that roof tile!), The realms saw no reason to spend taxpayer money on the new Colosseum. Owners who ruthlessly sold players for change and stripped the list could have played their part. Things got so bad that County Director Tom Gulotta infamously called Gluckstern and Co. “Pigs at the Trough.”

When it was obvious they didn’t get what they wanted, NY Sports Ventures rescued and sold to Charles Wang, a Long Islander, through China. He wanted his adopted home to retain the only professional sports franchise company. Wang was a businessman, not a hockey fan. He knew the arena was the key. But he was stuck with a lease with the county, which he could not get rid of and which made it difficult for his team to severely limit how much money they could generate from the Colosseum. And the lease was still valid for 15 years.

After initially spending money to update the list, Wang decided to find a way to build a new Colosseum. Join The Lighthouse Project, an extensive, expensive project that would turn Nassau’s “center” behind everything anyone could have ever imagined. Plans for the arena and housing, as well as businesses and medical buildings, were completed. The funding was apparently secured. He only needed county approval to get to work.

So he waited. And we waited. And waited. And waited. All the while, Hempstead’s mayor, Kate Murray, stopped and defeated me until she finally said okay … to a greatly reduced version of the project. It was crushing. This led to a referendum in Wang’s arena in which the public was voted. When the votes came, “no” won, and decided not to take out a municipal bond to fund the arena for the Islanders.

This is a rough summary of the failure and frustration of three decades towards politicians, owners, and many other clowns in a seemingly endless circus. There was always another Lucy who was ready to grab a football from Charlie Brown. And the real dudes were us, the fans who were constantly hoping this time it would finally happen.

Even after the move to the Barclays Center and the 25-year lease of “Iron Clad” advertised at Wang’s press conference, the drama never stopped. Before their first season in Brooklyn was over, rumors began to fly that the Islanders and the new venue were not happy with their relationship. The Barclays Center paid the team a healthy amount for co-tenancy, which was great for the Islanders and less good for an arena that didn’t make as much money from hockey games as predicted.

This was perhaps the most annoying turn of the story. The Islanders had found a home that, despite their poor fit for the sport and fan base, put at least money in their pockets. It looked like we could finally breathe. And yet the stories of the new owners Malkin and Ledecky watching Willets Point in Queens or Belmont Park across the border were all anyone could focus on.

Looking back, the last performance was quick, relative to the rest of the story. Islanders played their first regular season game at the Barclays Center in October 2015. Nearly two years later, in September 2017, the owners made an offer to build a complex in Belmont Park that would include an arena, hotel, shopping village and other projects. . By December, they were declared the winners. In September 2019, after a year and a half of planning and community meetings and threatened lawsuits, a groundbreaking ceremony was held and construction work began. Now, in November 2021, the building that Islanders fans have been waiting for for 30 years is finally opening.

If you’re a regular Lighthouse Hockey player or an Islanders fan, you already know the story. But those outside of this bubble may not understand the seriousness, enormity, and eternity of this timeline and what UBS Arena means.

This is not a profitable and lucrative team moving from the old arena to the new that can help them make money more efficiently with this popularity. This is not about adding a facelift to an old building, changing the font on the walls, or adding aluminum foil to the roof.

This is the end of a story that has lasted for generations. For a lifetime. This is about a team that has been on the verge of extinction for decades and is finally getting something from almost every professional sports franchise: a stable, viable and modern home. Sitting in the stands this season are people who have never in their entire lives been familiar with a version of the New York Islanders that was not looking for a solution to “arena problems.” Imagine a lifetime of games, favorite players, screaming and shouting, joy and heartache, all done “but where will they play next year?” And imagine it ends as soon as you step into a building.

When the Islanders began their search for a new arena, there were 21 teams in the NHL. There are now 32 franchise agreements. Five teams have relocated. This could all have ended at any time if someone had just said, “Power this up. Just move the bastards.”

Somehow, throughout this saga, the islanders are still standing, only about half an hour away from their place of departure.

What used to be impossible to think about is now a reality. And it’s not far from the planet. It’s here. On Long Island. Right next to Cross Island Parkway.