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Staying in the tri-state area, Brett Yomark has some thoughts on his soon-to-be-former tenant:

 

https://www.newsday.com/sports/hockey/islanders/islanders-brett-yormark-1.16958293

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“Unfortunately, it didn’t work. We had great hopes that moving the Islanders to Brooklyn would work. Unfortunately, they were like a rent-a-team. This team never really embraced Brooklyn, unfortunately. Their fan base resides in Long Island. They have a great, avid fan base in Long Island. Brooklyn just didn’t gravitate to the team as I had hoped they would."

 

I can see his point, but I don't see the point in actually saying it out loud, especially with an indefinite number of years remaining in their relationship.

 

It was an awkward arrangement from the beginning, even without factoring in the Barclays Center's massive deficiencies as a hockey venue. Yomark's team took over marketing for the Isles, and had to preemptively declare that they wouldn’t be adding Brooklyn to the depiction of Long Island on the logo, and then abandon the new goal horn they developed as an homage to the LIRR linking Brooklyn to the rest of the island. From that point on, it doesn’t seem like they were ever able to figure out how to change the game experience or the way the team was packaged to attract new fans from Brooklyn while still placating the Long Island fans who loudly demanded continuity with their traditions and culture. Contrast that with the Nets, where the same marketing department felt almost no need to preserve any continuity with their history and fans in New Jersey and got to work from a nearly clean slate to build their identity and connect with their new fanbase.

 

You could feel it at the arena. I went to a few Islanders games as a very, very, very casual hockey fan curious to check out the team playing in my borough, and they felt like total Long Island invasions. The culture and traditions of the fans seemed fun and it was a decent environment, but it was like an impenetrable inside joke we weren’t a part of, and there wasn’t a lot for me to connect to or identify with. It seems like the only thing that worked from this shotgun wedding were the black alternate jerseys, which you see a lot of fans wearing at the games.

 

I wonder what would have happened if Yomark had been able to make whatever changes he thought could get more Brooklyn/NYC fans. Would the Long Islanders have grumbled for a while, then gotten used to it? Or was this whole thing doomed from the start, regardless?

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8 minutes ago, Waffles said:

Staying in the tri-state area, Brett Yomark has some thoughts on his soon-to-be-former tenant:

 

https://www.newsday.com/sports/hockey/islanders/islanders-brett-yormark-1.16958293

 

I can see his point, but I don't see the point in actually saying it out loud, especially with an indefinite number of years remaining in their relationship.

 

It was an awkward arrangement from the beginning, even without factoring in the Barclays Center's massive deficiencies as a hockey venue. Yomark's team took over marketing for the Isles, and had to preemptively declare that they wouldn’t be adding Brooklyn to the depiction of Long Island on the logo, and then abandon the new goal horn they developed as an homage to the LIRR linking Brooklyn to the rest of the island. From that point on, it doesn’t seem like they were ever able to figure out how to change the game experience or the way the team was packaged to attract new fans from Brooklyn while still placating the Long Island fans who loudly demanded continuity with their traditions and culture. Contrast that with the Nets, where the same marketing department felt almost no need to preserve any continuity with their history and fans in New Jersey and got to work from a nearly clean slate to build their identity and connect with their new fanbase.

 

You could feel it at the arena. I went to a few Islanders games as a very, very, very casual hockey fan curious to check out the team playing in my borough, and they felt like total Long Island invasions. The culture and traditions of the fans seemed fun and it was a decent environment, but it was like an impenetrable inside joke we weren’t a part of, and there wasn’t a lot for me to connect to or identify with. It seems like the only thing that worked from this shotgun wedding were the black alternate jerseys, which you see a lot of fans wearing at the games.

 

I wonder what would have happened if Yomark had been able to make whatever changes he thought could get more Brooklyn/NYC fans. Would the Long Islanders have grumbled for a while, then gotten used to it? Or was this whole thing doomed from the start, regardless?

My major problem is him casting the team as a “rent-a-team” when the Isles’ failure to connect with Brooklyn is at least partially his fault. He took over marketing for the team and then blames the team and their fans for failing to connect with the new locale? Sorry, that’s on him as the man running the marketing side of things.

 

I’m also not a fan of him trying to claim the new arena on Long Island won’t happen. It reeks of Chris Hansen trying to sabotage the Sacramento Kings’ new arena after the NBA shot down his bid to move the team to Seattle. 

 

One more thing, and this is more of a personal question. How are fans having fun at a hockey game “an impenetrable inside joke”? And how do you feel Yormark and co. could have negated that, assuming they had free reign? 

 

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29 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

My major problem is him casting the team as a “rent-a-team” when the Isles’ failure to connect with Brooklyn is at least partially his fault. He took over marketing for the team and then blames the team and their fans for failing to connect with the new locale? Sorry, that’s on him as the man running the marketing side of things.

 

I’m also not a fan of him trying to claim the new arena on Long Island won’t happen. It reeks of Chris Hansen trying to sabotage the Sacramento Kings’ new arena after the NBA shot down his bid to move the team to Seattle. 

 

One more thing, and this is more of a personal question. How are fans having fun at a hockey game “an impenetrable inside joke”? And how do you feel Yormark and co. could have negated that, assuming they had free reign? 

 

I agree that a portion of the blame should fall on him, and I wish I'd touched on that in my post, as well has the way he phrased his comments to make it seem like it all just passively happened. I'm not sure how much of it was a fundamentally untenable situation with no good solutions, or how much of it was about the strategy he oversaw and executed, but he does need to own it, if for no other reason than that's what people with power/responsibility should do when things go bad.

 

I hope I didn't give off the impression that I resented the Long Island fans at the games or the fun they were having. I've enjoyed the environment they create at the games I've gone to (except on weeknights when people don't make the trip in from the Island and the arena is DEAD except for pockets of visiting fans). For me, it just felt being dropped into a party where I didn't know anyone, and everyone else had been friends for decades and had their own language and common history that was foreign to me. It was fun, but in the way it's fun to go to a game in another city you're visiting.

 

I don't know if pushing Brooklyn harder would've been a more successful strategy for them, and I don't know what it would have even entailed. Who knows if anything would have truly alienated a significant number of Long Island fans, or if they'd eventually get used to and go along with it because it was better than Quebec/Kansas Cities. It takes a long time to build a new fanbase anyway, even if they weren't going up against the the Rangers' generational equity. And very significant portion of the Barclays is not a good place to watch hockey, and that also has to come into play.

 

I also agree about his snark toward the new arena, which gratuitously unconstructive and and unnecessary.

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On 2/10/2018 at 9:37 AM, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Connecticut Governor invites the Hurricanes to play a home game in Hartford next season

 

https://www.bardown.com/connecticut-governor-invites-the-hurricanes-to-play-a-home-game-in-hartford-next-season-1.994270

 

As someone who has lived in Raleigh longer than the Hurricanes have?  They're welcome to play 41 games a year there next season if they like.  The only caveat?  We get a Major League Baseball team in trade for 41 games.  We'll even take the Marlins.

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2 hours ago, Waffles said:

 

I agree that a portion of the blame should fall on him, and I wish I'd touched on that in my post, as well has the way he phrased his comments to make it seem like it all just passively happened. I'm not sure how much of it was a fundamentally untenable situation with no good solutions, or how much of it was about the strategy he oversaw and executed, but he does need to own it, if for no other reason than that's what people with power/responsibility should do when things go bad.

 

I don't know if pushing Brooklyn harder would've been a more successful strategy for them, and I don't know what it would have even entailed. Who knows if anything would have truly alienated a significant number of Long Island fans, or if they'd eventually get used to and go along with it because it was better than Quebec/Kansas Cities. It takes a long time to build a new fanbase anyway, even if they weren't going up against the the Rangers' generational equity. And very significant portion of the Barclays is not a good place to watch hockey, and that also has to come into play.

 

I also agree about his snark toward the new arena, which gratuitously unconstructive and and unnecessary.

I think the majority of the blame falls on Yormark, and to a lesser extent Charles Wang.  Yormark made a number of miscalculations whether they were intentional, out of ignorance, out of sheer arrogance, or some combination of the three.  In the season before the move the Isles played a very emotional playoff series against Washington which did a lot to energize the fan base.  Instead of seizing the momentum, Yormark decided initially that he wanted to gut the house and start everything new which wasn't going to fly with an existing fan base who, while small is incredibly vocal unlike what I've seen from the Nets side .

 

When the vocal fan base resisted Yormark's strategy he decided that instead of diplomacy he would attack the LI based fans in the media and on social media at every chance he got and only acquiesced when ownership intervened.  He decided to go scorched earth on us when at the very least he should have recognized that although unhappy with the move enough of us would migrate over to Barclay's to give him a base to work with.  I do feel that had Yormark made more of an effort to be diplomatic he would have faced less resistance from existing fans and would have had an easier time making some changes to better incorporate Brooklyn.  I went to one of the first home games at Barclay's and it felt like we were a rent a team in someone else's house.  There was no Islander imagery anywhere in the arena, the Team Store had no Islanders branding, the only brand exhibited in the building was Nets.  

 

Scheduling also proved an issue because the Islanders have had very few Friday or Saturday home games in Brooklyn since they get whatever's left after concerts and the Nets.  Having more Friday and Saturday games would have helped fill the building with the existing fans because it's easier to go to the city on a weekend than during the week which would be supplemented with the Brooklyn crowd.  Had Yormark properly marketed to both Brooklyn and Long Island simultaneously I think there would have been better success in both maintaining and building fans.  Instead he appeared to try and build one while being openly hostile to the other.

 

Ownership is also to blame here because nothing markets better than winning especially when it comes to a new building.  Coming off of the highly emotional playoff series loss to Washington Wang and Snow did absolutely nothing to improve the roster and the team appears to be on their way to missing the playoffs for the second year in a row.  I do think that a strong perennial cup contender on the ice would have had a positive impact on attendance which in turn would have helped with better scheduling.  However, ineptitude in the front office and an unwillingness to improve the on ice product do not and have not helped any marketing efforts.  You can have the best marketing team and campaign ever but if the team isn't winning on the ice...  

 

That said from my perspective I'd rather have the Islanders in Brooklyn than Seattle so I accepted the move.  The building has issues beyond the obstructed view seats which make it bad for hockey, namely the ice plant is so bad that they have to make the building unbearably cold to the point of being uncomfortable for spectators.  I'd rather see the Isles play at MSG or Prudential Center over Barclay's. I'm looking forward to the move to Belmont.

 

And by the way their "MTA" developed goal horn was terrible.  He would have had better luck just honking the horn of the rinkside SUV.  As for Brett, he can go efff himself much in the same way he told us to do a couple years back. B)

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45 minutes ago, tp49 said:

I think the majority of the blame falls on Yormark, and to a lesser extent Charles Wang.  Yormark made a number of miscalculations whether they were intentional, out of ignorance, out of sheer arrogance, or some combination of the three.  In the season before the move the Isles played a very emotional playoff series against Washington which did a lot to energize the fan base.  Instead of seizing the momentum, Yormark decided initially that he wanted to gut the house and start everything new which wasn't going to fly with an existing fan base who, while small is incredibly vocal unlike what I've seen from the Nets side .

 

When the vocal fan base resisted Yormark's strategy he decided that instead of diplomacy he would attack the LI based fans in the media and on social media at every chance he got and only acquiesced when ownership intervened.  He decided to go scorched earth on us when at the very least he should have recognized that although unhappy with the move enough of us would migrate over to Barclay's to give him a base to work with.  I do feel that had Yormark made more of an effort to be diplomatic he would have faced less resistance from existing fans and would have had an easier time making some changes to better incorporate Brooklyn.  I went to one of the first home games at Barclay's and it felt like we were a rent a team in someone else's house.  There was no Islander imagery anywhere in the arena, the Team Store had no Islanders branding, the only brand exhibited in the building was Nets.  

 

Scheduling also proved an issue because the Islanders have had very few Friday or Saturday home games in Brooklyn since they get whatever's left after concerts and the Nets.  Having more Friday and Saturday games would have helped fill the building with the existing fans because it's easier to go to the city on a weekend than during the week which would be supplemented with the Brooklyn crowd.  Had Yormark properly marketed to both Brooklyn and Long Island simultaneously I think there would have been better success in both maintaining and building fans.  Instead he appeared to try and build one while being openly hostile to the other.

 

Ownership is also to blame here because nothing markets better than winning especially when it comes to a new building.  Coming off of the highly emotional playoff series loss to Washington Wang and Snow did absolutely nothing to improve the roster and the team appears to be on their way to missing the playoffs for the second year in a row.  I do think that a strong perennial cup contender on the ice would have had a positive impact on attendance which in turn would have helped with better scheduling.  However, ineptitude in the front office and an unwillingness to improve the on ice product do not and have not helped any marketing efforts.  You can have the best marketing team and campaign ever but if the team isn't winning on the ice...  

 

That said from my perspective I'd rather have the Islanders in Brooklyn than Seattle so I accepted the move.  The building has issues beyond the obstructed view seats which make it bad for hockey, namely the ice plant is so bad that they have to make the building unbearably cold to the point of being uncomfortable for spectators.  I'd rather see the Isles play at MSG or Prudential Center over Barclay's. I'm looking forward to the move to Belmont.

 

And by the way their "MTA" developed goal horn was terrible.  He would have had better luck just honking the horn of the rinkside SUV.  As for Brett, he can go efff himself much in the same way he told us to do a couple years back. B)

 

I'd only been following this from the Brooklyn side so I didn't know about his back history with the fans from even before the move. It's hard to blame them for being leery of him after that.

 

I'm still split on whether a perfect union of the Islanders and Brooklyn was ever possible even if some of the decisions had been handled differently. Certainly they messed things up, but it's hard to envision a realistic scenario where it's 2018 and Islanders fans feel at home and Brooklynites are at least beginning to identify with them.

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35 minutes ago, Waffles said:

 

I'd only been following this from the Brooklyn side so I didn't know about his back history with the fans from even before the move. It's hard to blame them for being leery of him after that.

 

I'm still split on whether a perfect union of the Islanders and Brooklyn was ever possible even if some of the decisions had been handled differently. Certainly they messed things up, but it's hard to envision a realistic scenario where it's 2018 and Islanders fans feel at home and Brooklynites are at least beginning to identify with them.

To a degree I think someone should make a 30 for 30 on the past twenty-five years of Islanders ineptitude...I mean history.  I think it would put a lot of what is going on currently into context.

 

I tend to agree with you as to your last sentence but I do believe that had things been handled better from Yormark and previous ownership, and a lesser extent the existing fan base, that we would be closer to Isles fans feeling at home and Brooklynites beginning to identify with them.  Not completely integrated so to speak as I think that would take a generation or so, but much farther ahead than we are.

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3 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

 

As someone who has lived in Raleigh longer than the Hurricanes have?  They're welcome to play 41 games a year there next season if they like.  The only caveat?  We get a Major League Baseball team in trade for 41 games.  We'll even take the Marlins.

 

This is a fantastic trade. If Raleigh is this wonderful teeming metropolis that will be the greatest place to live in America, just ask them, then they deserve a real team. Let stupid Hartford have stupid hockey.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/7/2018 at 9:23 PM, the admiral said:

 

 

Well, apparently Raleigh is gonna have a lot of stupid hockey!

Stupid hockey is when your corsi sucks right? 

"And those who know Your Name put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." Psalms 9:10

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On 1/25/2013 at 1:53 PM, 'Atom said:

For all the bird de lis haters I think the bird de lis isnt supposed to be a pelican and a fleur de lis I think its just a fleur de lis with a pelicans head. Thats what it looks like to me. Also the flair around the tip of the beak is just flair that fleur de lis have sometimes source I am from NOLA.

PotD: 10/19/07, 08/25/08, 07/22/10, 08/13/10, 04/15/11, 05/19/11, 01/02/12, and 01/05/12.

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When asked then about concerns that he would be able to go it alone in this venture, Barroway said: “The league thinks I can handle this.

The Gang Can't Handle This

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I had missed this:

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/trending-topics-hurricanes-shakeup-leaves-plenty-questions-174510190.html

 

Quote

We all have our biases, right? People like me thought Francis was doing a good job because his transactions reflected a willingness to listen to the “smart” “analytics” people he hired (some of whom happen to be professional acquaintances of mine, in the interest of full disclosure), and some of us were already highly skeptical of Dundon’s over-the-top framing of himself as a Solutions Guy.

There's your answer, fishbulb: writers like Lambert and Wyshynski loved Ron Francis because he hired their friends.

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https://sports.vice.com/en_ca/article/mb5mzb/nhl-rule-changes-to-fix-a-league-thats-broken

 

Understanding that this is a non-serious article, I'm in favor of 90% of the suggestions.

 

A few of my personal favorites:

 

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3) Get rid of fighting. Yeah, yeah. I pee sitting down and if I don't like fighting I should go play tennis or whatever. You know what? :censored: you. There's nothing wrong with peeing while sitting down and people actually watch tennis so maybe let's consider going with what that sport does, which is not allow the 567th-ranked player in the world fight Roger Federer to fire himself up. We're at a point where most fights are staged goon-on-goon affairs so if you're still into that, go watch a game from 1983 when nobody knew how to skate.

 
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5) Leaving your feet to block a shot is a penalty. I hate when sports reward no-talent try-hards, and hockey rewards them more than any other sport. It boggles my mind when people get pumped about a fourth-line penalty killer sliding to block an Alex Ovechkin bomb from the face-off circle. Seriously? You don't want to see where that slapper was headed?

 

This would increase goals and reduce injuries. You can dive to take away the puck if you're in chase mode, but no more squaring up a shooter and sliding in front of the shot. Remember when John Tortorella took over the Canucks and people were excited about the Sedins blocking shots? The Sedins! Get out of here with this nonsense.

 

 

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8) No more offside. This also means no more offside reviews. Everyone is happy. Why do we even have offside? If I could go back in time, I'm killing Hitler and kidnapping the guy in 1898 or whenever who was so passionate about an offside line. It's not like the offside line makes the game safer; it's there to give the defense an advantage against oncoming opponents. Why?

Removing offside is another way to get some whistles out of the game and help with flow.

 

 

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22) Power plays at the start of a period begin in the offensive zone. Let's say you draw a penalty with six seconds to go. Those six seconds are almost useless. Yeah, you can score off a draw but it's hard. Then the next period starts and the faceoff is at center ice. If you win the draw, you need to circle back, organize your rush, and if everything goes perfectly when you set up, you've lost 30 seconds of 5-on-4 time due to circumstances beyond your control.

Drop the puck in the offensive zone, this way if you win the draw clean, you're set up and have close to a full power play.

23) Ban the shootout. Earlier, when I said one point for a shootout win or loss, I was lying, because the shootout has been abolished and we now play 3-on-3 until someone scores. Personally, I think 3-on-3 is as dumb or dumber than shootouts, but you people seem to like it so let's compromise and play 3-on-3 until someone scores to avoid shootouts.

24) Overtime goes until someone scores. Yeah, like it says. If you can play 5-on-5 in the playoffs until 1 AM, you can play beyond five minutes at 3-on-3 in the regular season.

2

 

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39) Radar guns. The speed of every pitch in a baseball game is posted on a scoreboard, so why can't NHL arenas do it for slap shots? It's weird that we don't know how hard an Alex Ovechkin bomb is. It would be cool to look up at the scoreboard and see that PK Subban blast was 98 mph. The NHL shouldn't be behind MLB in anything.

 

 

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No, I think it's meant to be serious, it just isn't serious because Dave Lozo wrote it, another dope who gets his marching orders from the Twitter hivemind. Fighting is bad, the draft is bad, white people are bad, liking the Original Six is bad, 69 is NICE, we know the song by heart at this point.

 

EDIT: lol he actually does throw his column to Twitter followers, unreal

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