said defenseman Bob Halkidis. The old- school atmosphere, which included terrific sight lines, counted as a plus for winger Mick Vukota.
“I loved that opposing teams felt like it was confined and it had two locker rooms and it wasn’t modern- day showerheads. Everything was a little old about it. I thought that was part of the intimidation factor.”4
As the Islanders faltered in 1994 and 1995 the Coliseum’s shortcomings became more difficult to overlook. Thousands of fans stopped coming, so crowd noise decreased. Corridors were poorly lit. Years of shoehorning seats into the arena bowl reduced legroom so much that fans in the nosebleeds sat with their knees pressed against the hard metal backs of the chairs in front of them. An insufficient number of concessions and restrooms produced long lines in the narrow concourse. After a game the logjam meant fans were packed against each other stomach to back as if in a crowded subway car. Besides the installation of luxury boxes in the 1980s, no major changes had been made to the arena in its two- decade existence. There were none of the frills of more recently constructed NHL venues, either. “By the mid- ’90s, it had just become an outright dump, just a dump,”
said Brett Pickett, the son of Islanders majority owner John Pickett.
“Depends on what you care about. If you care about an incredible, raucous environment and great sight lines, people will remember it that way. If you care about a half- an- hour wait for the bathroom and shitty food and dirty, scummy seats, then people will remember it that way. It was all of the above.”5 Incredibly, the Islanders charged the second- highest average ticket price in the NHL— $42.64— behind 106
DEAD IN THE WATER
only the Boston Bruins, who were coming off a playoff season and unveiling a new arena.6 At the press conference to announce Milbury’s hiring, Islanders ownership said that a new arena would be too costly but assured fans that Nassau County was considering the addition of a level of luxury boxes halfway up to the ceiling, the expansion of the seating capacity to almost nineteen thousand, and the construction of a restaurant overlooking the ice at one end of the rink.7 None of those features would come to fruition.
Lacking the amenities of most professional sports venues, the Islanders had few options to improve the atmosphere at Nassau Coliseum besides updating their game presentation. Before the home opener on October 14, 1995, a new sound system was added and several steps were taken to accentuate the new fisherman brand inside the arena.
The team decided that the wailing siren that signaled an Islanders goal would be followed by a foghorn familiar to seafarers in the waters off Long Island. The scoreboard was outfitted with fisherman logos on the corners and smoke machines to simulate fog, becoming the only smoke- producing scoreboard in the NHL. The flowing beard of the mascot, which originally covered the front of his jersey, was neatly trimmed to showcase the fisherman logo. The back of the jersey, previously adorned only with a zero, saw the addition of a nameplate with
“Nyisles” in wavy lettering. The bulky costume was also slimmed down for greater mobility. The man inside the mascot suit, Rob Di Fiore, joked, “He went to Weight Watchers and Mike Milbury’s training camp.”8 Still, the beard continued to make Nyisles an easy mark.
Ousted Islanders broadcaster Jiggs McDonald, whose bearded face drew comparisons to the mascot’s, suggested that Nyisles looked more like one of his former colleagues at SportsChannel. “That thing looks like Stan Fischler on steroids,” he cracked.9
Despite the skepticism toward the rebrand, many fans arrived at Nassau Coliseum in bright moods. After a summer without hockey they were excited to catch their first live glimpses of Milbury behind the Islanders bench and highly touted rookies such as Todd Bertuzzi and Bryan McCabe. “It’s a young team with bigger players, and they’re going to play a physical style,” one fan said. “Good things can happen 107
DEAD IN THE WATER
when you play a physical style.” Another fan predicted the Islanders would finish as high as fourth in the conference and “open a lot of people’s eyes.” The players were excited, too. “It’s totally different this year because of all the changes,” said captain Pat Flatley. “There are a lot of reasons why this should be a big night.”10
A few minutes before game time, the lights inside Nassau Coliseum dimmed. Spotlights projected six images of the new logo onto the rink. At center ice Nyisles waved his arms, and the red light atop his helmet flashed. A near- sellout crowd of 15,222 began chanting,
“Let’s go, Islanders!” Television viewers could sense the electric atmosphere. “Of course, opening night is always special,” said Islanders broadcaster Ed Westfall. “And this one has an extra special flavor as you get a look at the Islander logo, the new logo of the New York Islanders.”11 An animated video played on the scoreboard to excite the crowd, taking them on a bird’s- eye tour of Long Island. Three of the region’s most recognizable landmarks were highlighted: the Montauk Point lighthouse commissioned by George Washington, a duck- shaped roadside attraction named the Big Duck, and the Jones Beach water tower, a symbol of Long Island’s sand and surf. The clip ended at the arena, where the fisherman logo graced center ice. Play-by- play announcer Howie Rose recognized the video as a rebranding tool. “It seems that part of the marketing scheme now, and I think the graphic you’re watching is a good example of that or of this, is to portray the Islanders as Long Island’s team. You know, they had the NY on the old logo before and they would seem to be almost obsessed with getting their fair share of the New York market coverage. But it seems to be a little bit different now.”12
As the fisherman logo lingered on the scoreboard, the voice of public address announcer Alex Sioukas, working his first season at Nassau Coliseum, reverberated through the arena. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to meet your New York Islanders!”13
Milbury was the first to be introduced. A loud cheer went up, and fans banged the palms of their hands against the boards as he passed.
Milbury acknowledged the crowd with a quick wave. He was followed by the assistant coaches, the trainers, and the equipment manager.
108
DEAD IN THE WATER
Then Islanders players emerged one by one from the locker room and passed through machines that tossed sparks for dramatic effect.
Almost all the players skated out to applause. The only exceptions were Kirk Muller, whose ongoing contract negotiations fed speculation that he did not want to play for the Islanders, and Derek King, whose production had declined the previous season. When Žiggy Pálffy came out, Nyisles dropped to his knees and waved his arms as if greeting a king. Especially boisterous reactions welcomed Bertuzzi and McCabe. With the entire lineup on the ice, Sioukas announced,
“Ladies and gentlemen, the 1995– 96 New York Islanders!” Pinwheel-shaped fireworks exploded above the ice. Vigorous clapping followed.
The crowd buzzed with breaking news that the Islanders had agreed to a four- year contract with Darius Kasparaitis. The reaction suggested that the performance of the players, not aesthetics, would dictate the success of the fisherman logo. “At first I didn’t like it,” one fan said.
“But if they win, I don’t care if they wear pink.”14
The Islanders were too flawed to break out the pink just yet. Playing in their home whites for the first time, they kept pace with the visiting Philadelphia Flyers through two scoreless periods. The defense looked sharp, Tommy Salo made twenty- two saves, and Brett Lindros nearly barreled his older brother Eric over the boards in front of the Flyers bench. As the game wore on, however, the lack of talent was exposed.
The Islanders did not register a shot on goal in the second period until fifteen minutes had passed. They went scoreless in six tries on the power play. Early in the third Travis Green fanned on a one- timer, and Bob Sweeney failed to convert on a break- in. The Flyers scored twice in four minutes and added an empty- netter for a 3– 0 victory.
“We continue to repeat the same mistakes,” Milbury said after the game. “A number of guy
s still haven’t got it in terms of how much commitment it takes to win.” The only other time the Islanders had been shut out in a home opener was 1973, when the franchise was only in its second year of existence. The team was now winless in its first three games of the season. A sportscaster on Channel 11 delivered the sort of snarky characterization that had become typical for the franchise: “For two periods, the Isles looked just like a pro hockey 109
DEAD IN THE WATER
team.”15 The implication, of course, was that the third period outed them as bush league.
The Islanders’ tight finances contributed to the sense of amateurishness. At one point Di Fiore asked if he could receive free tickets for games for his friends. Rather than provide him the tickets outright, the team countered that he could receive two free tickets to every home game if he agreed to drive the new organist, Eddie Layton, to and from each one. Layton, best known for playing the organ at Yankee Stadium for decades, lived in Queens and was accustomed to the Yankees sending a car service to pick him up. By contrast, the Islanders dispatched the man who played their mascot from his home in Westchester County to pick up Layton at a diner in Queens and drive him out to Nassau Coliseum. In an image that epitomized the team’s frugality, the organist would puff away on cigarettes while the mascot took the wheel in a Suzuki Samurai, an off- road mini- SUV with a soft top that made for a chilly commute in the fall and winter. “The Islanders were so screwed up,” Di Fiore said.16
A quirk in the schedule shipped the weary Islanders from their home opener on Saturday night in New York to a road game in Miami on Sunday. Due to inclement weather their charter plane landed in South Florida only three hours before game time, and they fell to the Panthers 5– 3. The Islanders’ postgame reactions suggested complacency with their third straight loss, as if coming within two goals of an opponent was sufficient progress. Milbury told reporters that his players “did a good job” and gave “better effort” than in the Flyers game. Defenseman Mathieu Schneider said the Islanders were “in great shape.” Derek King proposed the team “travel that way all the time.”17 While teams often make positive statements after losses to build up their confidence for the next game, the Islanders’ optimistic responses came across as oblivious and unaccountable to outsiders. “It is sad that the Islanders, despite weather- related travel problems, seemed satisfied with their effort Sunday,” columnist Jim Smith wrote in Newsday. “Has it come to this? Are they really happy to lose 5– 3 to a third- year expansion team?
So far the only direction this team has gone is south.” In an especially alarming sign for the Islanders’ marketers, the media was waning in 110
DEAD IN THE WATER
its adoration for Milbury, one of the faces of the rebrand. Smith, who had written a column headlined “Isles Need Milbury” in May, criticized the coach for adopting a system of aggressive forechecking that allowed too many opposing odd- man rushes and breaking up his best line of Pálffy, Green, and Bertuzzi.18
Two days after the Panthers game the Islanders flew home for their first rivalry game of the season against the Rangers at Nassau Coliseum. No matter the Islanders’ sins in the first four games of the season, a victory versus the Rangers was a surefire path to forgiveness from the fan base. The rivalry was so fierce that the Islanders- Rangers game sold out all 16,297 seats, which had not even happened for the home opener. The stands would be filled with trash- talking and war-ring chants that had historically energized both teams.19 “Every time I played the Rangers, it was like a playoff game,” Kasparaitis said.
“We hated the Rangers. We want to beat them so bad.”20 It would be appropriate to notch the first win in the fisherman jerseys against the team whose ousting of the Islanders in the 1994 playoffs sparked the uniform change.
Surprisingly, the Islanders came out flat. Only 1:23 into the game, former Islander Ray Ferraro blew by defenseman Dean Chynoweth and fired a wrist shot past Tommy Salo. Two minutes later Todd Bertuzzi took an inexcusable penalty for closing his hand on the puck, and the Rangers scored again on the power play. Žiggy Pálffy had a third- period goal to break the Islanders’ scoreless streak of nearly 178
minutes at Nassau Coliseum stretching back to April, but the Rangers coasted to a 5– 1 win. In what was supposed to be a new chapter for the franchise, the Islanders were 0- 4- 1, their worst start in team history.
Newsday called them “dead in the water.”21
Frustration mounted in the locker room. The Islanders were repeat-ing the same mistakes through their first five winless games. “Right now, to be candid with you, it looks like the worst- coached team in hockey,” Milbury said. “I take responsibility for disciplinary problems, for taking foolish penalties, and for not shooting the puck at the net when we cross the blue line.”22
The media agreed the Islanders’ coach was to blame, although they 111
DEAD IN THE WATER
added another reason— his unusual off- ice persona. Most coaches avoided making critical comments about opposing teams for fear of motivating them. Milbury, meanwhile, had a preseason meeting with reporters during which he called the Islanders’ archrivals arrogant and blurted out, “Fuck the Rangers.” Rangers captain Mark Messier acknowledged that Milbury’s words inspired him. “If anything, it alerts us to how he and that team feels about us,” Messier said. “If anything, it made us pay more attention to the rivalry and how much it means to them to beat us. If anything, it helped us.”23 After the Rangers game Milbury made another faux pas. Upset over a dubious penalty call against the Islanders, he gave a thinly veiled critique of the referee by saying, “We all know the official in question,” implying that he had a reputation for inconsistency. Milbury could get away with criticizing referees when he was analyzing games for ESPN, but as a coach he risked angering the officials who would dictate his team’s power plays and penalty kills. By contrast, veteran defenseman Mathieu Schneider wisely deflected when reporters inquired about the same penalty call, placing the onus on the players. “We’re just coming up with one excuse after another,” he said. “Enough is enough. We better do something, and quick.”24
Luckily for the Islanders, their next opponent was the 0- 4- 0 Montreal Canadiens, off to their worst start to a season since 1938. Montreal was a rare NHL franchise in even more flux than the Islanders. Days earlier the once- proud Canadiens, only two years removed from a Stanley Cup, had fired their coach, general manager, and assistant general manager.25 Behind twenty- six saves from Tommy Söderström and unlikely goals from defensemen Dennis Vaske and Scott Lachance, the Islanders managed to blank Montreal 2– 0 for their first victory of the fisherman era. Unfortunately, few fans were around to see it. In a sign of waning enthusiasm for the rebrand, the Islanders attracted a dismal Friday- night crowd of only 9,253 for the Canadiens game, even though they were playing an Original Six team featuring former Islanders marquee center Pierre Turgeon. Newspaper headlines framed the victory not as an accomplishment worth celebrating but as an interval of relief during an embarrassing season. They also reported on the 112
DEAD IN THE WATER
familiar speculation that Kirk Muller was disgruntled and general manager Don Maloney might be fired. Ralph Palleschi, the team’s chief operating officer, seemed to target Muller and Clark when he was quoted accusing veteran players on the roster of not “pulling their weight.”26 A single victory did not erase years of disappointment about the direction of the franchise.
Predictably, the Islanders lost any momentum from the Montreal victory with five losses in their next seven games. Their only victory during that stretch was hardly reassuring, coming in overtime in Florida after the Islanders gave up a two- goal lead in the third period. Rather than rejoicing in the locker room, Bob Sweeney, who scored the game-winning goal, told reporters, “You could say we deserved to lose the game.”27 The crowds on Long Island hovered around nine or ten thousand, and the summertime excitement about Milbury evaporated as he tried to mold the players into his own tough likeness.
In his latest verbal tussle with a player, Milbury accused Dennis Vaske of not hitting hard enough and having a “laissez- faire attitude,” leading Vaske to point out that he was not the type to pile up penalty minutes.28 Perhaps as a by- product of Milbury’s emphasis on aggression, defenseman Brent Severyn was so eager to jump into a fight in Philadelphia that he wrestled with a linesman and received a three- game suspension for abusing an official, the first suspension of his career.29
Shockingly, one journalist saw what had transpired and concluded the Islanders were underachieving because Milbury was too soft. In a biting column Newsday’s Jim Smith tried to goad Milbury— whom he labeled “Mike Milquetoast”— into making the Islanders’ practices more intense and roasting his players more often. “This Milbury seems so concerned with not destroying a young team’s confidence that he tolerates ineptitude,” Smith wrote. After encouraging the Islanders to hire Milbury in the summer, Smith hammered away at him in story after story, sometimes contradicting his own reporting. In the same article he accused Milbury of “using a soft hand” with his players and then noted that he had gone hoarse from yelling at them. The Islanders had one of the worst rosters in the NHL, so it would be misleading to compare Milbury’s record against the first- year coaches of more gifted 113
DEAD IN THE WATER
teams. Smith did it anyway. “As far as I’m concerned,” Milbury told Smith at the end of October, “eight or nine games is not enough for me to be condemned or for them to be put up for coach of the year honors.” Perhaps Smith, frustrated with covering a lousy team, was hoping for a livelier beat by prodding Milbury to be more forceful. He was not alone in thinking Milbury was treating his players too gently.
Islanders broadcaster Howie Rose told an interviewer, “He’s been much more patient with the team than I thought he’d be.”30
Whether a result of the pointed media commentary or not, Milbury became harsher with his players. The night after a loss to Vancouver in early November, the coach summoned the team to Nassau Coliseum for an unorthodox film session and meeting, breaking down defensive mistakes against the Canucks and talking about the pride of being an Islander. He said he would have held a second practice too but couldn’t because of a college basketball game at the arena. Asked why he called the forty- five- minute meeting, Milbury sounded like Smith’s criticism had registered with him. “I can’t go on forever saying, ‘That’s okay. I know you’re nervous. That’s okay. We’ve got a lot of new faces.
We Want Fish Sticks Page 15