No sleep till Belmont: Islanders’ new home arena on horizon
NEW YORK » On a rainy morning at Belmont Park, boots are an absolute necessity to trudge through the mud at the construction site of the New York Islanders’ new arena.
It’s been a slog to get to this point, but brighter days are ahead.
After more than a decade of uncertainty about where the Islanders will play their home games, including an ill-fated stint in Brooklyn at an arena not built for hockey, they will open shiny, new UBS Arena this fall.
New York is playing this NHL postseason in the old barn that housed four Stanley Cup-winning teams during the early 1980s glory days and the new arena is being built to replicate Nassau Coliseum’s raucous home-ice advantage.
“It’s been a long time coming,” 29-year-old fan James Chryssos said. “It’s been incredible to watch it actually come to fruition. All the ups and downs from the Lighthouse Project to Barclays and all the craziness. Finally getting those shovels in the ground and then hopefully finally getting in the seats, it’s going to feel real and that’s a feeling that I can’t describe.”
The Lighthouse Project was aimed at transforming the Coliseum before it was nixed by Nassau County voters in 2011. The Islanders moved to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in 2013 to play in a building with an unusual configuration; the scoreboard embarrassingly hung over a blue line instead of center ice.
Don’t worry: UBS Arena will have a brand new video board in its rightful spot above the center faceoff circle.
And the Islanders will be in their rightful spot on Long Island, eight miles down the Hempstead Turnpike from Nassau Coliseum, centrally located among their most diehard fans. With a new, permanent Long Island Railroad station in the works and thousands of parking spots, senior vice president of sales Mike Cosentino said the team is weeks away from selling out season tickets.
“You can feel the excitement,” Cosentino said. “And this was even before this team has started playoffs. It’s pure enthusiasm for UBS Arena and the big move and having a forever home for our fans.”