We Want Fish Sticks

by Nicholas Hirshon

  Although rumors of new uniforms had been circulating for months, the confirmation of the switch surprised some members of the organization, especially after fans expressed outrage about a potential change. “It was just such a shock that the cherished and loved logo was going away and being replaced by anything,” said Islanders radio broadcaster Chris King. “That to me was the overwhelming feeling.

  Whether it was better or worse wasn’t what was paramount in my mind. It was just that why are you replacing this logo that they’ve worn for all these years?”25

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  By now the question was familiar to team management. At the press conference Walsh admitted to receiving five hundred negative letters about the logo, and cochairman Robert Rosenthal only half- jokingly added that ownership was “threatened every day.” General manager Don Maloney acknowledged that selling the rebrand to the Islanders’

  core fans would require prolonged effort. “New fans will love it, casual fans will love it, and, for the traditional fans, we’ll have to teach them how to love it.”26

  Still, Walsh was firm. “We also are attuned to the winds of change,”

  he said. “And quite frankly, we believe the time for a new uniform has come.”27

  From ownership’s perspective the logo switch was one of the only options to improve the club’s flagging finances. Among twenty- six NHL

  teams the Islanders ranked fifteenth in merchandise sales, twentieth in gate receipts, and twenty- fourth in apparel purchases.28 They spent more than the league average in player costs but earned less than the average in total revenues.29 Other teams were building new arenas and maximizing their cash flow by installing luxury boxes and boosting ticket prices. Meanwhile, the Islanders were stuck at the antiquated and ill- maintained Nassau Coliseum, nicknamed “Nassau Mausoleum”

  due to its dark concourses, leaking roof, and long lines for bathrooms and concessions. Under their lopsided lease the Islanders received no share of parking revenue or concession sales, and they ceded 11

  percent of ticket sales and 40 percent of revenues from venue signs to Nassau County. The county pocketed its share of the money without upgrading the arena. The Islanders had forfeited their bargaining power, and the unbeneficial agreement did not expire for another two decades, in 2015.30

  The numbers helped explain the disconnect between the Islanders and their critics. Fans and reporters saw an organization that lagged behind the Rangers in player spending and made an unnecessary logo change out of a combination of ineptitude and greed. Meanwhile, Islanders management thought cost cutting and new revenue streams were essential just to keep the team on Long Island in the postlockout NHL. To settle the dispute with the players in January, 65

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  NHL commissioner Gary Bettman sacrificed a salary cap that would have aided small- market teams like the Islanders. Brett Pickett, the son of Islanders owner John Pickett, said the team could not afford to pay the types of burgeoning salaries that its rivals were dishing out.

  “The Islanders in that era of free agency post- Bettman started year after year to be lucky to be on Long Island at all. All these people were fighting like hell to keep a franchise in a market where it probably didn’t belong anymore.”31

  A decade earlier Islanders fans had spoken of the “Drive for Five,”

  the battle for a fifth straight Stanley Cup. With the team unable to sign marquee free agents or retain its own high- profile players, that fifth title seemed a long way off. Instead, Walsh outlined a drive for dollars from fans who were not even old enough to remember the championship years. “The reality is that merchandising is a major part of the sports business,” he said at the press conference to unveil the fisherman jerseys. “We’re the youngest team in the league. We should give the guys a chance to have their own identity, but I’d be lying if I told you that increasing our sales wasn’t a big part of our thinking. Our fan base is the kids growing up. We have to reach them.”32

  The team spun the change as an homage to Long Island history. Dan King, the president of the baymen’s association, posed for photographs with an oversize mock- up of the fisherman logo. The association’s secretary, Arnold Leo, told the press that he liked “the fighting spirit”

  of the jerseys. “I truly did believe that it was a tremendous improvement over what they had formerly had,” Leo said.33 For his support Leo was given one of the first fisherman caps ever made, a day before they went on sale at sporting- goods stores.

  In addition to the baymen, the Islanders also enlisted surrogates from their past. Original Islanders player Garry Howatt, who wore the map logo for nine seasons and two championships, said the younger players needed a logo of their own. “Every time we go to a golf tournament or something, somebody brings up the old teams, the Stanley Cup winners,” he told a reporter. “All the young guys are there too, and I’m sure they’re thinking, Enough already. I know I would. I think this is just great.”34

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  In the locker room Islanders players wearing shirts and ties slipped on the new uniforms for photographers. Center Travis Green, who was drafted by the Islanders in 1989, chatted with defenseman Darius Kasparaitis, a pick in 1992. They both grew up during the dynasty years and played on the 1993 team that wore the original logo on its surprising run to the conference final. Now they had become the first models for the replacement logo. “I think me and Travis felt a little weird and awkward,” Kasparaitis remembered. “I felt like it was a joke in the beginning. It was just some kind of prank. But then you realize that’s gonna be our jersey and that’s what we’re gonna wear.”35

  One snapshot caught Green, hands in pockets, glancing at the logo on Kasparaitis’s chest. “Obviously it was something different,” Green said. “As players, you can only control the things you can control and try not to worry about other things.”36

  Also in attendance was defenseman Rich Pilon, who was drafted in 1986. Unlike Green or Kasparaitis, Pilon had been on the Islanders long enough to play with one of the dynasty- era stars, Bryan Trottier.

  Pilon hailed from Saskatchewan in central Canada and grew up idolizing Trottier, who grew up in the same province. He knew Islanders history well. “Anytime you can put on a jersey like that, there’s a lot of accountability to you as an individual to be the best you can be for that team,” Pilon said. He did not embrace the logo switch. At the press conference to introduce the fisherman jerseys, Pilon told reporters,

  “They do make us look bigger.” Asked about the quote years later he insisted that he was only searching for a silver lining. “That was just trying to find a positive in something that was not good for me,” he said. “It’s like anything. Whether it’s real life or not, you’re trying to find something positive. If you’re going to be a Debbie Downer on everything, then the whole team’s going to be down, correct?”37

  The Islanders were smart to promote the jerseys with the men who would wear them. Even if fans were skeptical about ownership’s jus-tification for changing the logo, they might respond favorably to their favorite players embracing the new look. But the team made a major misstep. The Islanders tried to curry favor for the fisherman jerseys by calling on one of their least popular players, Kirk Muller, whose 67

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  refusal to report to Long Island a few months earlier embarrassed the organization.

  During his surprise appearance at the press conference Muller pulled on his new number- 9 uniform and said the right things, calling the jerseys “lively, colorful,” and “awesome.” But his endorsement meant little to an offended fan base that viewed him as a reluctant Islander.

  Worse, his presence backfired on the team. Granted rare access to Muller during the off- season, reporters turned their collective attention away from the jerseys and started asking the former Canadiens captain about his future on Long Island. Muller still had two years remaining
on the contract he signed with Montreal, but he informed the press that he was renegotiating his contract with the Islanders to compensate for the poor exchange rate between Canada and the United States. The pack of reporters scrambled over to Maloney for a response. Even though Muller had told them he was “redoing” his contract, Maloney insisted, “I’ve said to his agent, and I’ve said to him, we are not renegotiating his deal.” The general manager was clearly at odds with his top- line center, reigniting the drama that played out when Maloney first traded for Muller in April.38

  Maybe Muller wanted off Long Island. Maybe Maloney would trade him. The media ate up the speculation. At its own unveiling the fisherman jersey had become an afterthought.

  While Muller was probably the biggest name on the roster, the Islanders wanted another player to be the face of the rebrand. Hours after the press conference the team dispatched nineteen- year- old Brett Lindros to sign autographs at the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove, marking the Islanders’ first public event of the fisherman jersey era.

  By holding the signing forty minutes east of Nassau Coliseum, the Islanders were bringing their brand farther into Long Island and closer to where the baymen lived. Promoting a young player like Lindros was also an appeal to teenagers and twentysomethings who tended to spend more on apparel than their parents and might be more receptive to a departure from tradition. Like those young fans, Lindros was not even born when the Islanders’ original logo was created in 1972. “We’re going through changes right now and maybe the new jersey will help 68

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  the fan identify with the team a little more,” he told a reporter. The adoring crowd of three hundred fans lined up to pose for pictures with Lindros in the new road blue. At six- foot- three and a muscular 217

  pounds, he had the heartthrob looks that the franchise hoped would help sell the new jersey to female fans. Judging by the fawning looks he received, the strategy was working. “I think it looks very good on him,” said a fourteen- year- old girl from Stony Brook. “I like the old one better, but I guess it’s time for a change. They have a whole new team, so why not?”39

  At the same time Eric Mirlis, the Islanders’ assistant director of media relations, was an hour and a half away in East Rutherford, New Jersey. He was on loan from the Islanders to help the NHL handle press for Game Three of the Stanley Cup Final between the Devils and Detroit Red Wings, which was nationally televised by ESPN. Sensing an opportunity, Mirlis asked ESPN rinkside reporter Steve Levy if he could show the fisherman jerseys on air. Levy agreed. During a brief stoppage in play Levy appeared with a boy and a girl wearing Pat Flatley’s number 26 and Darius Kasparaitis’s number 11. “Here is the future of the National Hockey League,” Levy said, turning the children around so the audience could see the disjointed lettering on the backs of the jerseys. Color commentator Bill Clement chimed in, “I like those unis. I like the Islanders’ new unis.” After months of sniping from the local media, the jerseys received a positive national debut.40

  Local broadcasters were unconvinced. Len Berman, the sports anchor on Channel 4, lived on Long Island and took his children to the championship parades on Hempstead Turnpike in the early 1980s.

  He did not understand why the Islanders departed from the tradition that fans cherished. “We had an affinity for anything related to the dynastic Islanders,” he recalled. “We want to remember the glory years. Why come up with something that takes away from that?”41

  On the late- night news on Channel 11, Sal Marchiano covered the logo change with a smirk. Viewers could hear the two news anchors laughing off camera as Marchiano launched into his report. “So I see a couple of marketing guys doing lunch and conceptualizing a new look for the Islanders, the hockey team that hasn’t done anything since 69

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  winning four straight Stanley Cups in the early eighties,” he began.

  The fisherman appeared on screen while Marchiano broke down the color scheme. “It’s more about marketing, merchandising, and money than it is about ice hockey. Too fishy for me.”

  Turning to Marchiano, news anchor Jack Cafferty chuckled and added, “Only thing missing was the tuna.”42

  Sports radio poked more fun at the Islanders. On WFAN 660 AM, host Steve Somers, an unabashed Rangers fan, conferred nautical nicknames upon several members of the organization. Dynasty coach Al Arbour became “Al Harbour.” His successor behind the bench went from Lorne Henning to “Lorne Herring.” The championship players changed from Clark Gillies to “Clark Gills” and from Bryan Trottier to

  “Bryan Trouttier.” The Islanders’ former star was “Pierre Sturgeon,”

  not Turgeon, and their much- hyped prospect was now “Cod Bertuzzi,”

  not Todd. Somers needed to swap only a single letter to transform the Islanders’ goaltender of the future from Éric Fichaud to “Éric Fishaud.” Learning of Somers’s pun decades later, Fichaud laughed.

  Although New Yorkers tended to mispronounce the first syllable of his last name as “Fee- sch,” the correct sound was more like “Fish.” He even embraced the nickname “Fish” and wore a mask featuring killer whales during his first training camp with the Islanders. “It’s kind of funny,” Fichaud said. “By making fun of my name, he was probably pronouncing my name the right way.”43

  The tabloids were not much kinder. The next morning the Post offered a backhanded review, calling the jerseys “surprisingly” sleek and “better than expected.” The Daily News referred to two players photographed in the jerseys as “Fisherman’s Friends,” an unflattering allusion to the character from the cough- drop brand, adding that the uniforms were “somewhat controversial” and would “supposedly” link the team to local history. Newsday invited more criticism of the crest by asking fans to complete a mail- in form with leading questions such as “Did the Islanders need a new logo?” and “If you had designed the new logo, what would you have done differently?”44

  Others in the media walked away impressed. Beneath the headline “Islanders’ New Logo Is a Winner,” Newsday columnist Steve 70

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  Zipay admitted that seeing the jerseys in person changed his mind.

  He criticized the original Islanders logo as “flat” with an old- fashioned blue- and- orange motif that evoked signage for the 1964– 65 New York World’s Fair. By contrast, he thought the fisherman jerseys had “some zing, some flair.” Zipay described the wavy lettering on the nameplates as “cutting edge,” and he believed the gray on the fisherman’s beard and stick toned down the brighter colors. “Should look great on TV,”

  he mused. “Now, how about a coach?”45

  The search for a new coach was more than a personnel decision. It was a major component in rebranding a team that wanted to move past its increasingly distant accomplishments. With the unveiling of their new jerseys on June 22, the Islanders had a new symbol to go along with a new mascot and new faces like Brett Lindros, Éric Fichaud, and Kirk Muller. The firing of coach Lorne Henning, who represented the championship tradition associated with the old logo, created a vacancy for a leader to become synonymous with the Islanders’ new brand identity.

  The team did not produce under the laidback Henning, and general manager Don Maloney wanted the next coach to crack the whip. “I’m not particularly concerned about a popular name choice in June,” he said. “I’m more concerned about who’s going to get these guys playing in October, November, and December.”46

  Maloney entertained at least eleven candidates, but most of them did not carry the cachet that would elevate the team’s brand. Canadian junior coaches Craig Hartsburg and Don Hay had no experience behind the bench in the major leagues. Then there were former NHL coaches with unremarkable records and little star power, such as George Burnett of the Edmonton Oilers, Dave King of the Calgary Flames, Roger Neilson of the Florida Panthers, and Pierre Pagé of the Quebec Nordiques. A seventh candidate, legendary Canadiens defenseman Larry Robin
son, was a hot commodity fresh off winning the Stanley Cup as an assistant with the Devils. His market was developing too slowly for the Islanders.47

  Tellingly, the Islanders also dismissed two strong candidates with 71

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  connections to their Stanley Cup dynasty. Butch Goring, who played for all four championship teams, had led the Boston Bruins to a playoff berth in 1986 and guided the Islanders’ minor league affiliate, the Denver Grizzlies, to a 109- 36- 17 record over the past two seasons. Another option, Brian Sutter, was the brother of two cogs on the dynasty teams, Brent and Duane, and he had won 273 NHL games and the 1991 Jack Adams Award as the league’s best coach. Sutter had a reputation for toughness, exactly the sort of personality that Maloney said he wanted.

  But neither Goring nor Sutter had much pizzazz, and their associations with the old Islanders identity may have counted against them.48

  Instead, Maloney was drawn to the two splashiest names on the market. ESPN analysts Barry Melrose and Mike Milbury made regular appearances on the leading sports television network, and each previously took teams to the Stanley Cup Final in their rookie seasons as coaches. At first glance Melrose or Milbury would slot in nicely with the Islanders’ rebrand: luring a high- profile television personality would draw media attention and distract from the logo controversy.

  Both men would also command a lofty salary, so signing one of them would prove the Islanders were willing to spend. However, they lacked experience with rebuilding teams. Milbury went to the Cup Final with the 1990 Bruins, who had all- stars Ray Bourque and Cam Neely in their primes, while Melrose’s 1993 Kings relied on the scoring touches of Tony Granato, Wayne Gretzky, and Luc Robitaille. The Islanders did not have the means to supply their new coach with that level of talent.

  Both men also had short coaching résumés: Milbury became assistant general manager after only two seasons behind the Bruins’ bench, and Melrose was fired midway through his third season with the Kings.