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Moving to Belmont means Isles fans will get back their "anti-NYC feel" (plus blame all around for failed move)

Some good insights from Dan Saraceni of Lighthouse Hockey last night in What winning the Belmont RFP means (and doesn’t mean) for the Islanders:
It means they’re going “home.”...having the team back in Nassau feels right and longtime Blackhawks writer Sam Fels, put it perfectly:
But the Isles and the weirdness that they’re the only ones that come from this specific place and will return there, that has a place. An anti-New York City feel to it is what helped give the Isles their identity. And they’ll get it back.
So, was Brooklyn a mistake? Saraceni says no:
The move to Barclays Center was a golden opportunity for the previously provincial Islanders to expand their brand to beyond just Long Island. Obviously, that never happened, and the team and arena (which controlled the advertising and business interests as part of their agreement), never quite got off on the right foot. Brooklyn is as unique and weird a market as the suburbs is, but Barclays never understood what hockey and hockey fans were all about. And a large segment of Islanders fans, among the hardest people to please in the entire NHL, were reluctant to embrace the arena. In the end, it’s probably better for everyone if a separation occurs. But part of me will always wonder would could have been if things had been handled differently.



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