New York Islanders moving to Brooklyn

[illwauk]

Exactly.

I keep saying that leases are made to be broken, but I can't see any way in which this lease becomes a bluff or bargaining tactic for a Nassau arena.

Maybe not right now, but will the Islanders still be content with playing on a wedged-in rink at a basketball facility once the "Brooklyn" novelty wears off?

[Gothamite]

If they can continue to sell tickets, then yes.

I don't see this as appealing to "Brooklyn novelty" if they're not going to rebrand under the Brooklyn banner. This is about them playing in a better facility than they have now, in front of more fans than they have now. This is about saving the franchise while keeping the maximum amount of the existing fanbase.

[The_Admiral]

I wonder how permissible this makes it to stage games at KeyArena, which is not only not built for hockey but intentionally built to exclude and marginalize hockey. In the ever-progressive National Hockey League, bad arena is the new good arena.

Do we all know the story of how Barry Ackerley put together a proposal for a Seattle expansion team, and then showed up to his appointment just to cancel it, ensuring that his Supersonics would never have a co-tenant? What a sh-theel, huh?

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

How easy would it be to renovate it? (stupid for an arena just built I know). Fix the sightlines and possibly add some more seats?

[Gothamite]

Apparently it'll be easy enough to add another 1,000 or so seats. Beyond that, we don't actually know.

[Sport]

BTW, how ugly is the Barclays Center from the outside?

[walby2]

Apparently it'll be easy enough to add another 1,000 or so seats. Beyond that, we don't actually know.

I don't get how you could "add" 1,000 seats to a building of that size apart from maybe opening up some more obstructed view seats to sell at a discount.

I know in Winnipeg there was some chatter about adding more seats to the MTS Centre, but it was debunked by team ownership who said that the cost of raising the roof to add another 1 or 2 thousand seats + skyboxes would dwarf the revenue those seats would be expected to generate over the years.

You have to wonder if this trend of smaller rinks (Winnipeg, now Brooklyn) means that 15,000 is the new standard size for NHL rinks? If so, it would be not unlike MLB where many teams downsized in the 90s when they got out of multipurpose venues and into smaller baseball-only parks. Seemed to work for baseball, I don't see why it wouldn't work for the NHL.

[njmeadowlanders]

There's a smaller difference between the 41,000th and 51,000th seat in a baseball stadium hosting 81 games a year than there is a difference between the 15,000th and 18,000th seat in a hockey arena hosting 41 games a year.

[walby2]

There's a smaller difference between the 41,000th and 51,000th seat in a baseball stadium hosting 81 games a year than there is a difference between the 15,000th and 18,000th seat in a hockey arena hosting 41 games a year.

Hey, I agree, but the fact is that the two newest rinks in the NHL are in the 14,000-15,000 seat range.

[njmeadowlanders]

There's a smaller difference between the 41,000th and 51,000th seat in a baseball stadium hosting 81 games a year than there is a difference between the 15,000th and 18,000th seat in a hockey arena hosting 41 games a year.

Hey, I agree, but the fact is that the two newest rinks in the NHL are in the 14,000-15,000 seat range.

But you also have to concede that neither arena was designed with an NHL team in mind.

[Gothamite]

BTW, how ugly is the Barclays Center from the outside?

I didn't like it at all when I first saw the plans, but it's very cool in person. Love the weathering steel.

[The_Admiral]

It's absolutely hideous and intentionally rusted steel is the oral herpes of architecture. "This building is nice, but it needs an unsightly crust and a leaky, staining discharge."

[Gothamite]

Can't agree, my friend. Can't agree. Far from being "unsightly", it's warm and textured. The weathering steel saves the building, allowing it to push the architectural while boundaries anchoring it firmly in the neighborhood.

[The_Admiral]

I have no use for "functional" rust. It's still rust. One of those last vestiges of brutalism that really needs to get around to dying already.

The weird thing is that I totally missed them deciding that it would look like this. I remember the original expensive Frank Gehry design, and then the stripped-down "fieldhouse" design that everyone bitched about for not being "edgy" enough for Brooklyn, and then I must've just tuned out for a while when they decided upon the ol' rusty trombone up there.

[Gothamite]

While the weathering is indeed functional, it's also decorative. An aesthetic that I love, though I'll admit that not everyone appreciates it.

This was the 2006 Gehry design:

It would have been part of this complex:

It was replaced with this one by Ellerbe-Beckett in 2009:

It was at this point that the plans to host hockey were scrapped, and all versions of the design after that were intended to be basketball-only.

The final design was unveiled in late 2010.

[Sport]

I think it can look good in places, but the whole damn exterior is that rusted metal look. It looks like a spaceship that crashed in 2080 and was uncovered in 2673.

[Waffles]

The Ellerbe-Beckett design is essentially the skeleton of the arena. The backlash to the look of their proposal led to Ratner bringing another firm on board (SHoP) to work on the aesthetics, inside and out. Side by side, you can see how the SHoP rust wraps around the basic shape of the Ellerbe-Becket deisgn.

I like the design and I get the sentiment behind it, but the execution didn't quite live up. The panels are inconsistently rusty (I think owing to the fact that the company making the panels went out of business mid-construction and had to be bailed out by the developers) and it looks patchy and bad in many spots now.

It's also not intended to be a standalone arena - the plan is to surround two sides of the arena with residential towers, also designed by SHoP:

[Gothamite]

True, but those are years away.

I think it can look good in places, but the whole damn exterior is that rusted metal look. It looks like a spaceship that crashed in 2080 and was uncovered in 2673.

You seem to be saying that's a bad thing.

[Kevin W.]

So they're trying to build LA Live East.

[Gothamite]

So they're trying to build LA Live East.

Well, LA Live was more or less an attempt to build a little New York in downtown LA...