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Republic, and another defenseman, D. J. Smith.17 None of the three would ever play a game with the Islanders.
Although the Islanders failed to land a splashy player in Edmonton, the draft offered an opportunity to publicize their new brand to a large television audience. Viewers watched Redden put on a jersey and a hat with the Islanders’ new maritime imagery. “I like that new logo,” he told a reporter. On the draft floor the NHL had outfitted every team’s table with specially made cord phones covered by a goalie’s mask.
Eric Mirlis, the Islanders’ assistant director of media relations, was smitten with the Islanders’ phone, which had the fisherman logo on top, lighthouses on the sides, and a wordmark across the chin, so he took it home. The phone remained on his shelf decades later, still in working condition.18
In July twenty- eight- year- old Islanders defenseman Chris Luongo invited teammates to his wedding in Vermont. Luongo had played all but one game for the Islanders in 1994– 95, but he had been shuttled among three organizations in the past four seasons and was hardly assured of a roster spot on a team that counted defense as its lone strength. When the Islanders equipment manager arrived at the marriage ceremony with a newly stitched fisherman jersey featuring Luongo’s nameplate, the player was touched. It was a gesture intended to show that he had a place on the team that would take the ice in October. “That was pretty doggone neat to me,” Luongo said. “I was not as concerned about exactly what the logo looked like and thought that was a pretty neat thing for them to do.”19
As the summer continued and the free- agent market intensified, the Islanders made no notable changes to their weak roster, even after losing Ferraro to the Rangers. Then August brought a controversial shake- up in their broadcast booth. After the departure of longtime Islanders announcer Jiggs McDonald, SportsChannel hired his replacement, Howie Rose, a radio analyst for the Rangers for six years. An impeccable broadcaster with an encyclopedic command of local hockey history, Rose had been a fixture on the New York sports scene for two decades, voicing updates for the telephone dial- in service SportsPhone, 82
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working for WHN and WCBS radio, and joining WFAN upon its inception in 1987. He also hosted pre- and postgame shows for the New York Mets and called two NHL All- Star Games. The only problem was his association with the Islanders’ top rival. Rose made the most famous call of his career when the Rangers advanced to the Stanley Cup Final in 1994 on an overtime goal by Stéphane Matteau. Any highlight reel from the Rangers’ championship season included Rose’s excited call of “Matteau! Matteau!” It was a moment that Islanders fans wanted to forget.20
SportsChannel’s hiring of Rose was justified, but it created an awkward situation for a franchise trying to distance itself from the smear of the 1994 playoff sweep by the Rangers. As Newsday’s Steve Zipay pointed out, “So the opinionated— some say arrogant— Rose, who has raised the hackles of Islanders fans for bashing the team on- air, will be in front of the cameras in Uniondale before you know it.” A few months earlier Islander Insider had compiled an unfavorable report card of the hosts on WFAN, calling the station “anything but hockey radio” for dismissing callers who tried to talk about the three local teams. The newsletter issued an A grade to Rose for talking about hockey but said that he could be egotistical and out of touch. “Knocks Islander fans for rooting against the Rangers. (Howie, do you really believe Ranger fans don’t root against the Islanders?).” Rose, who grew up in New York City rooting for the Rangers, endured an uncomfortable speaking engagement when a member of the Islanders’ booster club asked in an accusatory tone whether he hated the Rangers now that he would be calling Islanders games. Rose responded that he did not, and he was never invited back. “A lot of people made me feel as though I were an outsider infiltrating enemy territory,” Rose recalled. “I was getting paid to do a job.”21
Rose tried to smooth things over with the fan base by writing a full-page column for the Islanders’ program. Rather than disavowing the Rangers, he pointed out that he grew up in New York in the 1960s, when there was only one hockey team in town. After the Islanders came into existence in 1972 he covered their games as a college student and for WHN, and then he moved with his wife and children to 83
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Long Island, less than fifteen minutes from Nassau Coliseum and even closer to their practice facility in Syosset. As a clincher Rose said he celebrated his new job with SportsChannel by going out with his wife, Barbara, for a special meal paying homage to Islanders history.
In the late 1970s the Islanders ran a promotion that guaranteed fans a free bowl of chili from the Wendy’s fast- food chain if the team scored six goals in a game. During a game versus the Rangers the Islanders were running up the score when a Wendy’s executive announced that ten goals would mean a second bowl for free. When the tenth goal was scored the scoreboard triumphantly flashed, “DOUBLE CHILI!”
Rose remembered the moment well. Describing the dinner with his wife, he wrote, “Barbara took me to . . . Wendy’s. For chili. Yeah, a big bowl, too. Twice the size of a regular one. Double chili. I ate the whole thing. The transformation is complete. I’m an Islander, and I couldn’t be prouder.”22
A heaping bowl of beef and beans wasn’t enough to convince fans.
They were skeptical about an increasing number of former Rangers hired for high- profile positions in the Islanders organization at a time when the team claimed to be differentiating itself from the big- city club with a fisherman jersey. The man entrusted with the franchise, general manager Don Maloney, played eleven seasons for the Rangers from 1978 to 1988, a period when the teams faced each other five times in the playoffs. Some conspiracy theorists questioned Maloney’s intentions. “I know there were fans who kept saying, ‘What, did the Rangers send him there as a spy to destroy them?’” broadcaster Stan Fischler remembered. “That was a common, common thing, of course.” Other former Rangers employees on the Islanders staff included goaltending coach Bob Froese, who manned the nets in Madison Square Garden for four seasons in the late 1980s, and media relations director Ginger Killian Serby, a former member of the Rangers’ public relations staff.
There was even speculation that two Islanders minority owners, Robert Rosenthal and Stephen Walsh, were Rangers fans. Art Feeney, the editor of Islander Insider, said he once glanced into the owner’s box at Nassau Coliseum after the Rangers scored against the Islanders.
“Rosenthal leaped to his feet and started cheering,” Feeney said. “So 84
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that’s the kind of owners we had here.”23 The appearance of mixed allegiances did not bode well for the rebrand.
As summer wound down the Islanders undertook their first ad campaign involving the fisherman logo. Published in Newsday, the ads revealed the Islanders’ community outreach efforts in the critical final weeks before the 1995– 96 season. One ad announced an upcoming charity softball game involving Travis Green, Darius Kasparaitis, and Marty McInnis in Massapequa and player appearances at banks in Hicksville and Westbury and malls in Massapequa and Lake Grove.
Another ad announced a special presentation by the Islanders at a salute to firefighters at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury.24
All but one of the events were held in Nassau County, even though the new uniforms were supposedly adopted to encourage East End fans to come to games. The one autograph signing in Suffolk, at the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove, was more than an hour’s drive west from the baymen’s base in East Hampton. Holding events closer to the tip of Long Island would have been a better strategy to grow the fan base.
Tellingly, the newspaper ads positioned three people— Mike Milbury, Brett Lindros, and Mathieu Schneider— as the faces of the rebrand. In August a full- page ad encouraged fans to buy season tickets by offering admittance to an exclusive question- and- answer session with the new coach at Nassau Coliseum. Large type blared,
“Go One- on- One with the Coach Next Week.” Two weeks later the team unveiled its slogan for the season, “New Team, Same Dream,” with another full- page spot focused on Milbury. Across the top of the page was the statement, “This is our new coach,” with a close- up of Milbury’s face, his eyes staring into the camera, his brows furrowed, and his lips sealed. Beneath the coach was another phrase, “This is our new attitude,” and a photograph of nails. The implication was clear: fans would not want to miss the tough- as- nails Milbury changing the culture of the Islanders. The team also forwarded its new brand with ads comparing Lindros to a wrecking ball and Schneider to a panther. A fourth ad showed the jerseys— “This is our new uniform” — above lightning strikes.25 While many hockey teams try to convey toughness in their advertising, the particular comparisons in the Islanders’ ads were strange. A year earlier 85
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the Islanders had dismissed the idea of a duck mascot out of fear of brand confusion with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Now they were presenting themselves with imagery that conjured two other NHL
teams, the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
September brought the Islanders’ first training camp under Milbury.
During the summer the players received letters from their new coach warning that the upcoming season would be the most exhausting of their careers. The words were intimidating to some, inspiring to others.26 The day after center Ray Ferraro signed with the Rangers in July, Milbury telephoned the man in the best position to take his place on the Islanders’ roster, twenty- five- year- old Travis Green. Green, who blamed himself for being out of shape the previous season, scored only five goals in forty- two games. In a straightforward conversation Milbury told Green to arrive in camp in the best physical condition of his life.
“I knew he was going to be a butt- kicker,” Green said at the time. “For some people that might not be good news, but for me it was. After the season I had last year, a different approach was probably the best thing for me.” Green’s response, in word and in deed, illustrates Milbury’s skill in motivating certain players. After a summer spent running on the track of a high school in Glen Cove, Green arrived at camp in peak condition, breezing through a two- mile run in under twelve minutes.
“Travis showed me a lot,” Milbury said. “To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect from the guy. But it looks like the work ethic is there, and he has a lot more skill than most people realize.” Green ended up having the best season of his career under Milbury, scoring twenty-five goals and forty- five assists. Years later Green remembered how Milbury ignited him. “Mike put a lot of people on high alert that he was gonna challenge players,” he said. “He was gonna expect the players were in the right shape. And you knew going in that there was gonna be some tough times. It wasn’t gonna be easy.”27
With Milbury at the helm the Islanders had reason for hope heading into their first season in the fisherman jerseys. Nine players remained from the 1993 team that dethroned the two- time defending Stanley Cup champions on its way to the Eastern Conference Final. Seven others 86
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were on the club that made the playoffs in 1994. The Islanders also had Kirk Muller and Mathieu Schneider, two cogs from the Canadiens’
championship team just two years prior. The youth movement included an array of highly touted prospects. Ten first- round draft picks were projected to make the roster: Muller (number two in 1984), Scott Lachance (number four in 1991), Darius Kasparaitis (number five in 1992), Brad Dalgarno (number six in 1985), Brett Lindros (number nine in 1994), Derek King (number thirteen in 1985), Dean Chynoweth (number thirteen in 1987), Éric Fichaud (number sixteen in 1994), Pat Flatley (number twenty- one in 1982), and Todd Bertuzzi (number twenty-three in 1993). Fans longing for a contender saw just enough talent to convince themselves that the Islanders would make the playoffs.
“For the first time in 4 years, I say they’ll get in,” Art Feeney wrote in Islander Insider. “I’ve been wrong 2 of the last 3 seasons . . . why should I be right now? An obvious reason is Mike Milbury.”28
A new coach meant a fresh start for players who felt underappreciated under Lorne Henning. Darius Kasparaitis’s agent said that the defenseman would have “gone fishing” rather than report if Henning was still the coach. It may have been hyperbole, but it spoke to the possible benefit of hiring a new coach to lead the rebrand. With a lot of open spots on the roster, the Islanders’ role players were hungry to perform for Milbury in camp and earn more playing time. “I knew with the new coach you had to make an impression on him,” said defenseman Dean Chynoweth. “I was always kind of a bubble guy that was in and out and trying to get myself established still.” Under Henning, left wing Niklas Andersson, once a celebrated member of the Swedish team at the World Junior Championships, spent the entire 1994– 95 season with the Islanders’ minor league affiliate in Denver.
When Milbury gave the twenty- four- year- old Andersson a chance to play on the Islanders’ top line, he had a career season with fourteen goals. “He was a tough coach for sure,” Andersson said. “But on the other hand, he’s the guy that gave me the chance too, so I have him to thank for a lot of things.” Despite Maloney’s inability to add a superstar over the summer, the fall brought about the annual excitement that came with the changing of the seasons and the first sounds of skates 87
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cutting into ice at Nassau Coliseum. A year earlier right wing Dan Plante tore his ACL in training camp, an injury that ended his season before it began. “It was something I wanted to put behind myself pretty quickly,” Plante said. “I worked pretty hard in the summer and obviously the year before rehabbing, so when you get the opportunity to get on the ice and pull that sweater back on, it’s pretty gratifying after all the hard work.”29
At least initially, the mocking of the fisherman jerseys mattered little to players hoping to stick with an NHL team. After bouncing between Winnipeg, Tampa Bay, and New Jersey in his first six years in the league, right wing Danton Cole signed with the Islanders around the start of training camp in the hopes of extending his career into his late twenties. Although Cole had just tasted success with the Stanley Cup Champion Devils, his disappointing statistics— four goals and five assists in thirty- eight games— left him in no position to dismiss a franchise with a budding jersey controversy. “I certainly wasn’t the type of player that I could say, ‘I want to play in these three places,’
because I liked their jerseys. I didn’t have the ability to be that picky.
Not really. The NHL is the gold standard. If you’re playing there, you’re a good player and the guys you’re playing with are really good. For a lot of us, we were just trying to stay in the NHL and play as long as we could, regardless of the uniform situation.” Cole’s addition to the roster gave the Islanders a former twenty- goal scorer only a few months removed from playing on a championship team. “When you’re around winners and win, that’s a good thing to have around,” he said.
“That’s kind of what I was as a player, and I certainly thought I could bring that to the Islanders.”30
Still, a quiet off- season left the Islanders without much improvement to the scoring and goaltending that sank them the previous year. At the outset of training camp Derek King and Kirk Muller were the only two forwards who had ever scored more than twenty- five goals in a season. There was such a lack of centers that Milbury put winger Marty McInnis in the middle of a line. Few of the forwards were quick enough to kill penalties. There was no clear favorite to start in goal. Injured defensemen Scott Lachance and Rich Pilon figured to miss opening 88
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night, and unsigned free agents Darius Kasparaitis, Steve Thomas, and Dennis Vaske did not even report. In an off- season when they lost leading scorer Ray Ferraro, the Islanders’ most significant free- agent acquisitions were Cole, fringe Rangers defenseman Joby Messier, and journeyman left wing Jim
McKenzie, who had only seventeen goals in 287 career games. “The signings of McKenzie, Danton Cole & Joby Messier won’t turn this team around,” the Islander Insider stewed.
“Maloney’s club must show immense improvement this season or else. Don can’t sit on his hands this time. If he does, Milbury could move up.”31
Maloney was constantly reminded that he hired a coach who might soon replace him as general manager. In an interview with Newsday, Islanders chief operating officer Ralph Palleschi expressed “full confidence” in Maloney, who was in the final year of his contract, but admitted there had been no discussions about an extension. “We have reached a decision to pay people based on what they’ve produced,”
Palleschi said. “Donnie is confident enough in how he’s putting this team together to feel the same way.” With a new deal dependent on the team’s performance in the 1995– 96 season, Maloney must have felt pressure to improve the roster immediately. Asked if he could be fired if the Islanders got off to a poor start, Maloney replied, “You’d have to ask my bosses. I would hope not. But on the other hand, maybe I should be. If we flounder, there’s casualties. So be it.”32 It was hard to tell whether his comments were an expression of confidence in his handiwork or resignation that his days were numbered.
To his credit Maloney was actively trying to bolster the offense. A few days into training camp he traded a fifth- round pick in the 1997
draft for enigmatic center Alexander Semak, who had scored thirty-seven goals with the Devils three seasons prior before a knee injury derailed his career. Then Maloney looked for a high- profile player to accompany the rebrand. Among his targets were two young all- stars, the Ottawa Senators’ Alexei Yashin and the Chicago Blackhawks’ Jeremy Roenick. Yashin’s demand for $2.5 million per year hindered the cash- strapped Islanders. Chicago offered Roenick in exchange for Lachance, Redden, and Éric Fichaud, but Maloney said he did not 89
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