Owner Charles Wang slapped a "not for sale" sign on his Islanders Thursday night, asserting his commitment to both the area and the team, even as it struggles badly on and off the ice."We are working very hard to try and keep the team on Long Island because that's my home," he said in a rare, nearly hourlong interview on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. "That's where it belongs."
But what if the Lighthouse Project that Wang has championed as part of a renovation of Nassau Coliseum never comes to fruition?
"If it doesn't work out on Long Island [at the current site], I'd like to be close enough so I can commute to the game and go to all the home games as best I can," he said. "If it's Queens, great. If it's Suffolk, great. Obviously we want to be in this area because it's our home."
So, Wang is not looking to sell the team? "No," he said. "It's not for sale."
That last question was asked by National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman, who conducted the interview of Wang and Islanders general manager Garth Snow in a studio at the NHL Store in Manhattan.
The Islanders executives also took calls from fans, most of whom had pointed questions about both the franchise's future and the team's current last-place standing.
"We are playing in the Coliseum right now until 2015, which is when our lease is up. We are exploring every opportunity to stay there."
Wang said the Lighthouse idea came about only after he had bought the team, as he sought creative solutions to fund improvements to the aging arena.
The owner said he continues to lose millions of dollars each season on the Islanders.
"We spent about $180 million to buy the team," he said. "It's cost me over $200-some-million to run the team," he said.
But he insisted he is willing to stay the course, believing Long Island needs a pro team and destination attractions, in part because "we should be known for more than being 30 minutes from Manhattan."
Snow, who has numerous times reiterated that the Islanders will not give up young players and prospects for a "quick fix" on the ice, echoed that again Thursday and added that injuries have taken a toll as well.
Still, Wang said of the team's performance, "We are probably as disappointed if not more disappointed, I would say more disappointed, than all of the fans."
As a current New York Islanders employee, I have gained a new perspective on this issue that fans never get to see. Mr. Wang does, in fact, care a great deal about this team and has made severe renovations to the press box, press lounge, locker rooms, training rooms and players lounge in order to ensure comfort for visiting and home press, as well as the players. He has put in over $250,000 to ensure this and visiting players don't get to see that as much as the Islanders players do.
High-end players that come to visit the Island that are potentially going to sign here look at Nassau Coliseum and think that it is the only thing there is to offer on Long Island. Mr. Snow and Mr. Wang have time and again offered more money and years to players that have signed for less with other teams (i.e.: Ryan Smyth, Paul Martin, Dan Hamhuis, Sheldon Souray and many others), but the dump of an arena that the Islanders play in deters players from signing here.
2 comments:
Joseph Goebbels would be proud of you, Jared. Isn't it interesting that all you hear about is Wang's "generosity" and the "magic $250,000." The fact that the Isles need $6 million of dead buy-out cap space to reach the bottom of the cap is much more interesting to me as an Isles fan than Charles scrounging up 250 G's from his couch cushions to buy a few Cybex machines. As to prospective players thinking "Nassau Coliseum's the only thing on Long Island" do players being courted by the Rangers think MSG is the "only thing in New York City"? These are hockey players, they come to the rink, play, then go about their business. They don't live in the locker room, they have, you know, lives. They go to restaurants, shows, movies, fishing, golfing, clubbing, and all the other things we real people do. That "It's the building" disinformation campaign is an excuse for the Gong Show that Wang and Snow have perpetrated on their fanbase over the last few year, the "rebuild" that's no more than signing a low number 1 pick and throwing him to the wolves by not bring in NHL caliber players for him to play with. Look no further than Mr. Tavares playing between two former AHL players. The team went out and signed some middling D over the summer and did nothing to address the O, assuming all the young dudes would have breakout years. How's that brilliant strategy working out? We're the second-lowest scoring team in The Show, Thank God for the Devils. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the correlation between the lowest payroll and up until their last game the worst team in the league. Were I an NHL player I wouldn't want to come here, not because of the building or Long Island or anything other than the front office mis-management and the Gluckstern-Milstein payroll deja vu being foisted on the club by Wang. Wang is supposedly a billionaire, trumpeting an expenditure of $250,000 as an example of his commitment to the team is ludicrous...how about him spending some money on legitimate NHL players, if not FA's via trades? We sure do have a lot of good young players in the pipeline, not one of them can be used for trade bait?
"As a current New York Islanders employee..."
That justifies your opinion. Doesn't make it right, but explains why you think the way you do. Spending $250,000 on the locker room doesn't outweigh the cutbacks everywhere else, mainly on the ice.
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