Arenas and Stadiums

There were a few things which struck me as odd, and a few things which seemed to be normal. I guess that is to be expected in the sports world as it heads towards Thanksgiving Day.

Arenas and stadiums are always a hot topic for me. First, the New York Islanders just completed a 13 game season-opening road trip, necessitated by the construction delays at the gleaming new UBS Arena at Belmont Park. The Isles finished the trip a tad under .500, which isn’t bad for a team without a home game in a compressed schedule due to Olympic participation by NHL players in February. The 5-6-2 record garnered 12 points, positioning them in last place in the Metropolitan Division. In comparison, the 3 top teams, Washington, Carolina and the New York Rangers have 25, 24 and 23 points, respectively. Philadelphia, the New Jersey Devils and Columbus maintain above.500 marks in equal or fewer games played. Only Pittsburgh sports a below .500 record in the division, and the Penguins have had major injuries to their stars. 

While the Islanders have suffered their share of injuries, the prospect to rejoin the hunt after this protracted stay away from home is encouraging. The reward for the early season away games is that a whopping 25 of the next 32 contests will be on Long Island (and that is very technically Long Island, because the building is right by the Cross Island Expressway, which is the border between New York City and Nassau County). Through the end of December, the longest trips they make are to Detroit and Ottawa, which are very short hops out of La Guardia. 

This will help the team get adjusted to their new surroundings on game days. They will still be practicing at the NorthwellHealthIC located in Eisenhower Park. And for the fans, there is a new Elmont LIRR station to shuttle those fans who come by train from Long Island and the City and beyond. 

UBS Arena is a state of the art building. It will have all the new bells and whistles that one would expect, especially in the New York market. But it will have sight lines and a roof that will be reminiscent of the Nassau Veteran Memorial Coliseum, the team’s home except for some already-forsaken games at the Barclays Center, the home of the Brooklyn Nets, a building designed for basketball and concerts, not hockey.

I have been to the Coliseum 5 times—having seen the Canadiens, Capitals, Red Wings, Rangers and Devils play there. It served its purposes for me—for three of the occasions  I was either seeing somebody who lived on the Island or met somebody who was going to be married out there. I persuaded my wife to go to the Coliseum to see the Rangers, and my son and I drove to Uniondale on a Saturday for a 1:00 game for which we barely got to our seats in time. 

Because of the way Barclays Center was promoted, I had no desire to go there to see hockey. For that matter, I have very little desire to go there to see basketball. 

Since my interest in sports began when I was 7 years old, there have been many arenas and stadiums dotting the landscape in the New York Metropolitan area. The Nets have been in at seven places—the vagabonds of the area. I never made it to the Commack Arena or the New Jersey Armory in Teaneck. Yet I have seen them at the Rutgers Athletic Center and the Brendan Byrne/Continental Airlines Arena. Just not at the Barclays Center or the Coliseum. 

The baseball and football teams have gone through a number of buildings in their day. With the New York Football Giants, they have played at the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, Giants Stadium and now Met Life Stadium. The Jets have the same stadiums, swapping out Shea and Yankee Stadiums. Yankees fans have sat their fannies in three Yankee Stadiums and spent two uncomfortable years at Shea while the renovations to Yankee Stadium were completed in the 1970’s. Mets fans endured the ravaged Polo Grounds for two excruciating seasons until Shea Stadium rose up in Queens, adjacent to the 1964 World’s Fair site in Flushing. I do not lament  not having seen the New York Giants play at the Polo Grounds nor the Brooklyn Dodgers at ancient Ebbets Field before the teams departed for California. 

Hockey and basketball in New York were centered at Madison Square Garden, first on 8th Avenue and West 49th Street, before migrating to its present spot above Penn Station, with one renovation in its fold. The Knicks played some games at the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue when the Garden was booked; that practice ended in 1960. I did not make it there but I have driven by with a bit of awe that the Knicks, lousy as they were in my youth, played games there.

And the Devils came to the Meadowlands to share the arena with the Nets. When the parties believed that the facility was too antiquated, the Prudential Center in Newark was born. Even the Nets made a pit stop there from 2010-2012. 

But the UBS Arena intrigues me. Probably because it is the last arena I foresee being built for professional teams in this market in my lifetime. Everything else is new or reconditioned. I am not counting soccer in this discussion, nor tennis. The U.S.T.A. is not about to move out of their cozy arrangement, and the Red Bulls have their own place in Harrison; I don’t see N.Y.F.C. moving away from their owners, the Yankees.

Am I happy about the way the new properties look? Nope. Met Life angers me every time I enter, because the Giants refused to allow a dome to cover the building. Frigid temperatures await the meaningless Jets home games starting this Sunday with Miami and that continue until January 2 when Tom Brady comes to New Jersey to torture his pets. Seat licenses which mean very little, ugly gray seats, parking and train hassles up the wazoo. The list is seemingly endless. And don’t get me started on convicted and disgraced former NY politician Sheldon Silver, who didn’t get enough graft to allow the Jets to have their own building over the West Side train yards. 

Citi Field is nice but already looks a bit antiquated. The newest Yankee Stadium is a mausoleum—a monument to the late George Steinbrenner in its grandiosity. It’s beautiful, but it’s more the centerpiece of the event, rather than the ball game itself—augmented by outrageous prices attendees would possibly need an adjustable rate mortgage to afford. 

So UBS Arena is the promise to the future for the long-starving Islanders faithful. It is a $1.5 billion private investment, with optimistic goals of projecting $25 billion into the regional economy, along with the first newly constructed L.I.R.R. station in over 50 years. 

So if I have made it to Islanders games in the midst of Nassau County over the years, in rain and ice, cold and warmth, why not try a game there? There could be a lot worse places to see the Devils play a road game—my upcoming trip to Calgary in March might be just one of them, or that our trip to Winnipeg that might fall in the dead of winter comes to mind. 

All this euphoria is contrasted with the recent name change at the Superdome, from Mercedes-Benz sponsorship to that of Caesars. Way to promote gambling outright. That wasn’t enough. 

What really got me was the announcement that the Staples Center, the home for the Lakers, Clippers and Kings, will now become crypto.com Arena, for a mere $700 million. This company has aggressively promoted the new wave in currency for the next ten years. We’ll see. Does anyone remember Enron Field, a.k.a. The Ballpark at Union Square, Astros Field and now Minute Maid Park in Houston? 

Good luck, Islanders fans. You have a beauty to behold. And the team will right itself. You will sooner than later get out of the 40 year slump which has lasted since the glory days of Trottier, Nystrom, Bossy, Potvin, et. al. 

Enjoy the first game and the pageantry when Calgary come in on November 20 to kick off the new era in Long Island hockey (the Flames are a great pairing; the Long Island and Atlanta franchises joined the NHL together in 1972).

LA fans, you’ve been sold out. But what’s new about that? Evidently history means little in Southern California. Only a matter of time before Dodger Stadium gets a name that erases its past. As a commercial on New York radio many years aptly stated: “Money talks, nobody walks…”

Off until the weekend of December 10th. Enjoy your Thanksgiving!! Stay safe!!