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Tough Sell for Isles in any Borough |
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Prospect Heights or Uniondale, it’s about putting fannies in the seats. A daunting task for either the staff that remains in Uniondale or Brett Yormark’s NBA people courting the current season ticket holders trying to convince them to make that leap of faith to Brooklyn before hitting the streets of Brooklyn explaining ice hockey to the residents.
Last week both full and partial season ticket holders were invited to (yet another) Town Hall meeting at the Chateau Briand. Some STHs I spoke to had forgotten they were invited and seemed a little apathetic having been through a few of these Q&A sessions.
Don’t get me wrong. It is always great to sit in the same room with Mike Bossy and listen to him reminisce about the glory days or explain how he went from Michel in Quebec and Michael in New York, or give his opinion on the comparison of Tavares to Trottier. But with the last season in Uniondale upon us, and a lackluster draft outlook on Friday and inconvenient timing, the event was smaller than usual. No media was invited as it was to be an exclusive opportunity for STHs to be the ones asking questions.
However, in today’s social media world and the emergence of citizen journalism, everyone knew what was happening as it was happening or immediately after along with photos and critiques.
The panel of Mike Bossy, Garth Snow and Eric Cairns was tossed softball questions by Isles radio personality Chris King making for light-hearted entertainment. While specific questions about players were not and could not be answered based on NHL rules and the Isles desire to play their cards close to the vest.
In all actuality, I think social media has done the Isles a great disservice in many of their dealings with players and agents. It’s hard to negotiate from a place of strength when everyone already knows your weaknesses. The UFA market is already slim, and a team that is in transition doesn’t make for an appealing move to most players who are highly sought after. But I digress.
While Eric Cairns fielded questions about the upcoming NHL Draft, the elephant in the room was still the move to Brooklyn. From those I spoke with after the event, as I expected, many East-enders aren’t willing to make that trek to Barclays and after years of dollars and dedication are opting out.
It’s a difficult sell on many levels and I don’t envy Yormark and his team one bit. Die-hard Islander hockey fans are a unique group, and one that I don’t believe Yormark fully understands. In today’s Newsday article “Welcome to Brooklyn!” by Art Staple, I get the feeling that Yormark is basically putting up with the fan base until the move is actually made.
Once the Blue, White and Orange are physically IN Prospect Heights, all bets are off. The quote “There is that hardcore fan base out there who cares about their team, who cares about the identity of their team and they didn’t want it changed overnight. And you know what? I got it.”
Did you Brett? Because it’s not the ‘overnight’ part, it was the CHANGE part. But he’s gone ahead and is already working with Reebok on a new third jersey design “that looks more like the black-and-white Brooklyn Nets jerseys.”
Current STHs will be bombarded with the Brooklyn sell beginning on July 1st with the new marketing campaign “Tradition Has A New Home.” It could be worse. I have not seen the new campaign slogan for this season from the Uniondale Islanders as of yet. Sadly the “Shift In Power” slogan (dedicated to their sponsor PowerRock) seemed horribly inappropriate as the Islanders fell further and further in the standings.
However, the promise of a season full of events celebrating that “history” that will have “A New Home” has been made. How we react to it will be a personal choice.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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