We Want Fish Sticks

by Nicholas Hirshon

  THE BAYMEN AND THE BRUIN

  about the logo by advising the writer “to be patient.” It was about as tepid an endorsement as possible.5

  Botta’s third point was similarly unconvincing. He implied the roster as a whole accepted the fisherman jersey. As proof Botta cited his own conversations with three unnamed Islanders. According to Botta, one player said his kids would rather wear the new jersey than the original one, and another player predicted that fans would love the uniform if the team won. Botta also paraphrased a third Islander who said he had “no idea” what the original logo represented. The presentation of the quotes was not compelling. At best they came across as measured appraisals from players unwilling to go on the record in support of the logo they were about to wear across their chests. At worst the anonymity of the statements called their authenticity into question.

  Even if the quotes were not fabricated, the players may have only been telling management what it wanted to hear, hesitant to contradict the people who paid their salaries and dictated their playing time. In interviews most players framed the team’s collective reaction to the logo as skeptical. “When that came in, everybody’s trying to find out what they like about it,” said defenseman Rich Pilon. “You gotta wear the jersey. Us as players, we’re like, Oh my God.”6

  For Botta’s fourth point he moved from current Islanders to former ones. To counter the perception that the team was rejecting its heritage, he claimed that two high- profile members of the Stanley Cup teams embraced the new brand identity. Botta figured that evoking Al Arbour, the former coach, and Bob Nystrom, the right wing whose number hung in the Nassau Coliseum rafters, would persuade older fans to accept the change just as their heroes had. “Was it hard at first for Islanders like Al Arbour and Bob Nystrom to see a change in something they represented so proudly? Of course,” Botta wrote. “But after making some suggestions, did they get excited over the possibility of a new look? You better believe it.” Again, the assertion of support for the logo was flimsy. Neither Arbour nor Nystrom ever voiced public support for the logo. If they were truly excited, the Islanders would have benefited from letting them speak directly to the media. More 57

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  likely, Arbour and Nystrom may have refrained from criticizing the new jerseys because they worked for the team as executives and did not want to risk their jobs by challenging ownership. Nystrom clearly had affection for the original logo. “There’s a lot of good history with that logo,” he said. “The Islanders logo of 1972 and ’73 is the original, and I think that that means something.”7

  Fifth, Botta proposed that the Islanders’ young players needed a jersey of their own. By his reasoning the old uniform associated with four straight Stanley Cups created a staggeringly high standard for Brett Lindros and Éric Fichaud, who already faced the challenge of matching their hype as top draft picks. “Maybe, just maybe, the Islanders’ unprecedented early dynasty has overwhelmed some of the next- generation players,” Botta suggested. Evoking the NBA’s Boston Celtics, who employed team legend Larry Bird as a special assistant, Botta added, “Do you think it is easy to be wearing Celtic Green these days with Larry Bird in the stands?” Botta’s argument here was sensible. The constant comparisons to the dynasty players had to place more pressure on the current team. At some point, as Fichaud acknowledged decades later, “You want to start your own history.”

  However, Botta’s implication that former Islanders intimidated their successors had the potential to alienate the alumni. Hearing the claim years later, Nystrom bristled. “I totally disagree with that. The people that are in the rafters should be a motivation to the people that are down on the ice.”8

  In Botta’s sixth and final point he framed the logo change as an homage to Long Island. To his credit Botta was transparent about the Islanders’ desire to increase revenue from jersey sales, which he argued would generate more money to spend on players. “But that could not be the major reason,” he continued. “There had to be a cause. Like another famous Long Islander, the hockey team chose to make a stand for an important sector of the community.” Then he cited Billy Joel’s support for the baymen of Long Island, specifically in the lyrics for

  “Downeaster Alexa” and in a recent interview in which Joel worried about the death of the fishing industry. Botta appealed to fans’ identity not just as Islanders fans but as Long Islanders. “That’s why anyone 58

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  who mocks the idea of having a fisherman as part of the change should be ashamed,” Botta wrote. “Having a true ‘Islander’ as part of the logo would be just one step in calling attention to a proud tradition.”9

  For better or worse, Botta’s column laid out a strategy for handling questions about the new logo. However, the front office was not in agreement on how to sell the rebrand. A month after the critical Daily News article the same reporter followed up on the logo switch in a story that looked like an olive branch. There was no silly photo illustration, no reference to Gorton’s fish sticks. This time, the reporter contacted the team for comment, too. It was a chance for the Islanders to change the narrative surrounding the new jerseys. Botta’s talking points had been seen by only a fraction of the fan base, while the Daily News reached hundreds of thousands of readers across the metropolitan area. However, the Islanders whiffed. Even after Botta wrote a lengthy defense of the logo, the team was bizarrely noncommittal about the change, saying only that the likelihood of new uniforms was “greater than 50 percent.” The ambiguous answer gave the impression the Islanders were having second thoughts. Meanwhile, Pat Calabria, the team’s vice president of communications, contradicted Botta by saying the character on the logo was a “mariner,” not a fisherman.10 The logo that symbolized the new brand identity would be unveiled in less than a month, and the Islanders couldn’t even agree on what it was.

  No matter what the Islanders told the press, the character on the new logo was a fisherman. As Botta acknowledged in his column, the team was inspired by Billy Joel’s support for struggling East End fishermen, an account supported by O’Hara. When Joel was shooting the music video for “Downeaster Alexa” in 1990 he enlisted members of an advocacy group on Long Island’s South Shore named the East Hampton Baymen’s Association, which was based two hours east of Nassau Coliseum. For the benefit of Joel’s cameras the baymen reenacted their routine in Three Mile Harbor, launching a small boat into the choppy water, dragging one end of a net out from the beach in a large semicir-cle, and pulling in the ends to reveal an ample catch of striped bass.11

  The efficient technique, known as haul- seining, was a hallmark of commercial fishing. It also angered the influential sportfishing lobby 59

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  on Long Island, which complained that haul- seining allowed the baymen to take a disproportionate share of stripers. Soon after Joel’s music video was shot, haul- seining was outlawed in New York. The state cited the numbers of small fish supposedly killed by the nets, but the baymen viewed the ban as a purely political move to appease the sportfishermen. Sales of striped bass were also forbidden due to contamination from cancer- causing PCBs. It was a double whammy for the baymen. Without bass, even plentiful catches of other species could not support their crews. “You’re talking about a people who are the soul of East Hampton,” Arnold Leo, the secretary for the baymen’s association, told National Fisherman magazine. “They draw their life from the water, and that’s why they can’t stop fishing.” To help the baymen wage legal challenges against the state, Joel donated proceeds from “Downeaster Alexa” to the association and played benefit concerts that raised $130,000 for their coffers.12

  By 1995 the baymen were local celebrities. Besides starring in Joel’s music video, they had appeared in the well- received book Men’s Lives and were regularly quoted in the New York Times, Newsday, and weekly newspapers on Long Island. Leo’s previous career as a book editor made him well suited to polish statements for the press. C
alabria, seeking an ally to help sell the new fisherman brand, arranged a meeting with Leo at Nassau Coliseum. Leo had never attended an NHL game, and he considered hockey “a brutal, insane sport,” full of checking and fighting. Still, he was intrigued by a potential partnership with the region’s only major professional sports franchise. Leo thought the fisherman logo folded into his strategy of presenting the baymen as a signifier of Long Island culture. “To me, this was very positive,”

  he recalled. “It was like, Long Island’s hockey team wants us to be their emblem. That much more public support.” Within days of his first contact with Calabria, Leo sent the Islanders executive a video-cassette of the “Downeaster Alexa” music video as well as newspaper articles and television shows featuring the baymen.13 Each side began learning about the other.

  Unlike the fan base, Leo had no knowledge of Islanders history. He thought the original crest with the Long Island map was “crappy” and 60

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  “one of the lamest logos I’ve ever seen.” The new jerseys, meanwhile, struck him as intimidating. In one fax to Calabria, Leo wrote, “The new design is just great and we are most happy to be a part of all this.”

  Where the Daily News saw the Gorton’s fisherman, Leo saw his friends who worked the shores of Amagansett. “If you ever were out on a rough day on the water hauling a gillnet or pulling up lobster pots, that’s kind of how you’d look. You were in a battle against the rough, chopping sea.” For Leo the baymen’s conflict with the ocean befitted a coastal hockey team that clashed with opponents. He was the rare arbiter who endorsed the jersey genuinely and without reservation. “I very much liked the entire configuration, the rough, struggling fisherman himself, the lighthouse, the wave,” he said. Leo’s support came with media savvy. He gave Calabria a list of reporters whose sympathetic stories on the baymen suggested they might cover the jerseys in a positive light.14 Leo also agreed to act as a media surrogate at the logo’s unveiling and called on two baymen who appeared in the music video, Dan King and Brad Loewen, to join him.

  King, the association’s president, was a logical choice. With an Amish- style beard and meaty hands, he was almost a doppelgänger for the man in the logo. “They used a picture that looked quite a bit like me,” King remembered with a laugh. The resemblance made for a neat photo op. However, even Leo worried the Islanders’ embrace of the baymen was problematic. While the baymen enjoyed some positive publicity, they also feuded with sportfishermen over the haul- seining ban. From Leo’s perspective, the Islanders’ newfound connection with the baymen put them in the middle of a contentious issue. “The sportfishermen, who were virulent fans of the Islanders hockey team, were insulted that their jersey and all their paraphernalia was emblazoned with this bayman,” Leo contended. “And they even knew who it was: Dan King, who was a haul- seiner.” Leo was probably overthinking the link between the sportfishing lobby and the attacks on the logo.

  No period account suggests that fans were angry about the alliance with the baymen. Still, the Islanders took a risk by wading into a local controversy. As King said, “A lot of people think that fishermen are just out to rape the sea and kill all the fish in the world.”15

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  The Islanders saw more pros than cons in the affiliation. The team was committed to the new logo, and the baymen’s attendance at the press conference would demonstrate support from men whose profession was emblematic of Long Island. “We invited them to be part of the event because of the way the mariner was honoring the legacy they were carrying forward,” Calabria said. As a gesture of appreciation the Islanders promised to donate to Leo’s association. Before Men’s Lives and Billy Joel, few people cared about the baymen. Now the Islanders were backing them with the cachet of an NHL team, plus a portion of their revenue. “I thought that was a great idea,” Loewen said. “The two things that were very obvious about what the Islanders were were a map of where they were or some of the people. It seemed to me that it would be much more appropriate to have a traditional depiction of traditional people.”16

  As the baymen’s newest benefactor the Islanders dreamed of uniting with the man the New York Times dubbed “the baymen’s friend.” Billy Joel was so devoted to the baymen that he cut back on recreational fishing for fear of depleting their catches and was arrested with them at a protest over the state’s bass- fishing ban. He considered them the last link to a disappearing way of life. “I’m always looking for the Long Island of my childhood,” he told Newsday. “There’s only a little bit of it left out here on the East End. If that disappears, I really don’t know that it is my Long Island anymore.” In an appeal to Joel’s regional identity the Islanders contacted him about appearing in front of the media with the baymen. The potential star power was tantalizing, but Joel’s response was disappointing to the Islanders. “He declined to participate in the press conference or in any way support what we were doing,” Calabria said. “He didn’t say he was against what we were doing. He just did not want to be involved.”17

  The Islanders pressed on. They put out a media advisory inviting reporters to a news conference in the home team’s locker room at Nassau Coliseum on June 22 at 1:00 p.m. “Please keep the location and time confidential,” the team requested. The subject of the announcement was not specified, but the timing of a press event amid speculation of a jersey change left little ambiguity.18

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  The day before the news conference the Islanders ran a quarter-page ad in Newsday to announce a series of upcoming events, including autograph signings by Brett Lindros and Kirk Muller, a volleyball tournament featuring Derek King and Mick Vukota, and a car wash to benefit a charity for children with Down syndrome. At the bottom was the original Islanders logo, representing the franchise for the last time in 1995.19

  On the day the Islanders unveiled their new brand identity they were not even the top hockey story in the local market. A season after the Rangers ended their fifty- four- year title drought, the Islanders’ other geographic rival, the New Jersey Devils, were just two wins away from their first Stanley Cup. Meanwhile, the Islanders had barely made the playoffs in 1994 and finished last in 1995. The franchise that dominated back pages a decade earlier had been supplanted by what Wayne Gretzky once called a “Mickey Mouse organization.”20

  Among its many stories on the Devils’ success, Newsday found ink for its hometown team. The Islanders were declining comment to preserve a certain mystery before the news conference, so Newsday interviewed the designers of the old and new logos instead. In 1972

  advertising agency owner John Alogna was contracted on a Thursday to create a logo for the Islanders by Monday. During the three- day design process, Alogna’s Long Island map logo did not receive any advance media coverage. It was an afterthought that just showed up one day as the backdrop for a press conference to introduce the Islanders’ first general manager. By 1995 sports branding had become more intensive and sophisticated. The Islanders gave SME a year and a half to design their new jerseys and called a press conference specifically to unveil them. SME cofounder Ed O’Hara told Newsday that he understood concerns about changing the only logo the Islanders had ever known, but he had overcome similar pushback on previous projects. “Having been through this many, many times, I know the response is always negative. Every time,” he said. “I’ve got pretty thick skin. But I guarantee this is going to grow on people. They are going to like it.” Alogna, meanwhile, was gracious about the desertion of his handiwork. “I 63

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  guess it’s the end of an era,” he said. “But if it improves the image of the team and brings it back to where it was, I’m all for it. I’m a fan too.”21

  Morning rolled into afternoon, and reporters began arriving at Nassau Coliseum for the 1:00 p.m. press conference. After nibbling on seafood hors d’oeuvres, they toured an unusual display in the team offices. Propped
up on easels in conference rooms and hallways were renderings of potential new logos that the Islanders had rejected. The rough drafts may have been exhibited to assure the media that the fisherman was the result of a thorough and thoughtful process. But they also invited second- guessing about whether the logos left on the drawing board were better than the one about to be unveiled.22

  With anticipation building, the press assembled for the announcement. Islanders cochairman Stephen Walsh, whose early support for the logo change set the tone in meetings with team executives, unveiled the new jerseys of the eighth NHL club to undergo a makeover in the past decade. “This is Long Island,” Walsh said, “and this is a new team.”23

  Two months after the Daily News slapped the fisherman on the Islanders’ old jersey, the press finally saw the new logo in context.

  Hanging in the players’ lockers were the home whites and road blues, featuring the fisherman on the front and two lighthouse shoulder patches. Each had wave patterns across the shoulders and the waist and by the hands. The names and numbers on the back were disjointed to mimic the rolling sea. The gloves and pants were solid blue. At home the Islanders would wear white- and- blue socks with teal, orange, and silver stripes. On the road the socks would be blue and teal with orange and white stripes.24