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January 3, 2010
The politics of the New York Islanders
Business of Sports Examiner
by Evan Weiner
A report on the Islanders and Nassau Coliseum dangles the hockey-in-Brooklyn scenario.
Ratner, a political operative in New York City, is a lot smarter than Phoenix, Arizona politicians that were talked into building an arena that was built with perfect basketball sightlines that is virtually useless for any other sports event.
The financial difficulties of the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes can be directly traced back to the Phoenix decision of the late 1980s.
The story that went around was that Ratner’s Brooklyn building was not going to be able to fit a hockey rink and would be useless for hockey and probably ice shows.
However, a person who worked on Ratner’s original arena plans said there was always a hockey element to Ratner’s plan.
NoLandGrab: Ratner may be smarter than the Phoenix pols, and the "original arena plans" may have had "a hockey element," but the current Barclays Center plan would have to go back to the drawing board to accommodate anything more than midget hockey, as Noticing New York made clear last month.
Posted by eric at January 3, 2010 9:42 PM