The team was also in tumult off the ice. Before one game, Rob Di Fiore, dressed up as Nyisles, was about to enter the bowl at Nassau Coliseum when he felt a burning sensation inside the costume. The 161
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warmth was emanating from an overheating battery that he wore in a fanny pack to charge the goal light atop Nyisles’s helmet. Di Fiore managed to quickly shed the costume without injury, but the incident made him reconsider what he once thought to be a dream job.113
Islanders winger Paul Kruse, who arrived in a trade with Calgary in November, had been telling Di Fiore that the man who played the Flames mascot had a lucrative contract.114 Di Fiore had no contract at all. Concerned about his safety, and hearing about the perks afforded to other mascots, Di Fiore confronted his bosses. He said he asked for a contract from Tim Beach, the Islanders’ director of game events.115
Beach contended that Di Fiore demanded not only a contract but also his own office and access to a masseuse and a chiropractor.116 The team, unwilling to make such concessions to a part- time employee, fired him.
The role of Nyisles passed to Rich Walker, who used to accompany Di Fiore around the arena. “I’m still in shock,” Di Fiore told a reporter at the time. “I feel like a piece of me died. This isn’t about a mascot.
It’s about a person.”117
It was also about money. Claiming the Islanders still owed him $2,200 from appearances across Long Island, Di Fiore took the team to small- claims court. He was awarded just $150, the amount he used to earn for working a single game. “I was crying,” Di Fiore said. “Like, are you kidding me?”118 In a final indignation Di Fiore had still not received the money six months later. He wrote an angry letter to Milbury, and the money arrived soon after. The dispute with Di Fiore was not the only legal mess pitting the Islanders against a former employee. The team’s longtime physician, fired in the off- season, was also suing for $19,800 that the team allegedly refused to pay because it blamed him for the concussions that caused Brett Lindros’s early retirement.119
Reports of the proceedings made the Islanders seem petty and cheap.
Behind the bench, Milbury was burning out. On January 10 he was ejected from a game against the Penguins for cursing and taunting the referee to “have another doughnut.”120 After a loss to St. Louis on January 20 Milbury took the unconventional step of ordering his exhausted players back on the ice for forty- three minutes of drills as punishment for allowing four goals in the third period.121 Some 162
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St. Louis players watched the spectacle and sympathized with the Islanders. “They’re banging on the glass at Milbury, giving him the finger, telling him that’s embarrassing and that’s a joke,” Paul Kruse said of the visiting Blues. “It was nice to see their guys sticking up for us even though they just destroyed us.”122 The Islanders did not feel a similar camaraderie with their coach. Scott Lachance called the postgame skate “embarrassing,” and Derek King acknowledged that Milbury’s tactics “could backfire.”123 While some Islanders were underperforming, Milbury, whose only previous coaching experience was with a talented Bruins team, was mistaking the general lack of skill on the roster for a lack of effort. Three days later Milbury traveled to Dallas to discuss his role on the team with John Spano.124 In what both sides called a “mutual decision,” Milbury announced that he would focus on his GM duties and hand over the coaching job to his assistant Rick Bowness.125
Bowness was a predictable replacement. After an undistinguished playing career in the NHL, Bowness coached in Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Boston, where he worked under Milbury and took the injury- plagued Bruins to the conference finals in 1992. He was more conventional than Milbury but just as passionate, once touching off a controversy in Boston by instructing two of his veteran players to stay in the dressing room if they were not going to play with pride.126 Islanders players welcomed the change. “He’s a phenomenal coach and a phenomenal person, handled things a little bit differently,” Dan Plante recalled.127
Before his debut on January 24 Bowness laid out a daunting goal for a team with weak offense and suspect goaltending: “We want to make the playoffs.”128 The team played better under Bowness, although initially not good enough to make a postseason push. In their first twenty- four games under the new coach the Islanders won ten and lost thirteen with one tie. The mediocre stretch put them at 24- 36- 10
on March 16, six points out of the final playoff spot with only twelve games remaining.129
Already a punch line around the league because of the fisherman jerseys, the Islanders became fodder for jokes again when a game versus the Devils produced an awkward moment. On a critical power play, 163
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Green made a deft pass to Pálffy, zooming down the right side of the slot, and Pálffy put the puck in the net to cut New Jersey’s lead to 3– 2.
Then, to the surprise of everyone in the arena, Pálffy skated behind the net to Green, puckered his lips, and moved in.130 “I was kind of hooting and hollering,” Green recalled, “and Žiggy, being the European he was, decided he was gonna give me a big kiss.” It was no peck on the cheek, either: the players kissed on the lips with their mouths open.
The intimate goal celebration perplexed the Islanders broadcasters.
“And, uh, did we just see a kiss?” asked play- by- play announcer Howie Rose. Color analyst Ed Westfall chimed in, “Uh oh. How far can you go with this, boys?” Word of the smooch carried through the NHL. On Hockey Night in Canada commentator Don Cherry needled Pálffy, who was wearing a visor. “I know those guys who wear visors are sweeties,”
Cherry said, “but that’s a little too much.” The Ottawa Sun wondered whether fans would toss Hershey Kisses onto the ice to celebrate Pálffy’s goals and joked about the players landing an endorsement deal for “T and Z’s Lip Balm.”131 The rebuilding Islanders, desperate to be taken seriously, were garnering widespread media attention only as a source of comic relief.
With the trade deadline nearing on March 18, the media speculated whether Milbury would buy talent to bolster the playoff run or sell off key players to build for the future. He ended up doing both. In a cost-cutting move, Milbury acquired a fifth- round draft pick from Hartford in exchange for Derek King, an enigmatic winger who ranked among the team’s all- time leaders in goals and assists but was unpopular with fans. Given King’s pending free agency, the shrewd trade guaranteed the Islanders a future prospect while still allowing the possibility of re- signing King in the off- season. Milbury’s second deal of the day was more significant in the short term. Craving a playmaker to center Pálffy’s line, the general manager shipped Marty McInnis, a junior goalie, and a draft pick to Calgary in order to obtain Robert Reichel.
At age twenty- five, Reichel was the best player in either trade. He had back- to- back forty- goal seasons with the Flames in 1992– 93 and 1993– 94 before a contract dispute and decreased ice time soured him on Calgary.132 The trade was the fresh start that Reichel needed. He 164
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knew assistant coach Guy Charron from their time together with the Flames and played with Pálffy at a tournament in Czechoslovakia a few years prior. “The Islanders are good for me,” he told the Blade,
“and I think I will be good for them.”133
Trading for Reichel signaled Milbury’s resolve, despite a tight budget, to complete the fisherman era in the postseason. With Reichel centering Pálffy and Smolinski on a newfangled top line, the Islanders finally had the scoring punch they needed. Twenty- five seconds into his first shift as an Islander on March 19, Reichel assisted on a Pálffy goal. He finished his debut with a goal and two assists in a 7– 4 victory that moved the Islanders within four points of the final playoff berth.134
“I was very happy to step in that game and have success,” Reichel said.
“After that first game, I was very confident to be part of the organization.” In a subsequent home- and- home against
Boston, Reichel had two goals and three assists in the first game and added four assists in the second. His arrival ignited his linemates. In Reichel’s first five games, Pálffy scored seven goals and four assists and Smolinski had three goals and five assists as the Islanders went undefeated.135 “He raised my game to a height that I could strive to,” Smolinski said.
“I loved playing with those two guys. They were awesome competitors.” The second line, with Green centering Niklas Andersson and a recharged Bertuzzi, was also producing, and Salo was brilliant in goal. Entering the final month of the season, the Islanders were just a point out of the playoffs. Bowness was asked how many people gave the team a chance to make the postseason back in October. “None,”
he replied. “Zero.”136
As soon as the Islanders began to silence their skeptics, however, the team fell apart. In the most critical stretch of the season the young Islanders tensed up. They lost face- offs. They allowed odd- man rushes.
They stopped scoring, and they could not clear the crease. Their last seven games included only one win against five losses and a tie. “We’re done,” Bertuzzi declared after the Islanders were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. “It’s a tough pill for everyone to swallow.”137 The Islanders closed out their home schedule against Hartford on April 11, which was designated Fan Appreciation Night 165
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at Nassau Coliseum. The crowd of 15,382 surely appreciated the 6– 4
victory, as well as the rare sight of the classic logo on the jerseys.138
On April 12 the Islanders skated in the fisherman jerseys for the final time against the Capitals in Washington. Fittingly, as they had ninety times over the past two seasons, they lost that game, too.139 It took little time for the organization to move past the logo that had identified the team for the past twenty- three months. After the season ended the Islanders took out ads in Newsday for a sale at the team store. The spots reminded fans, “Our new team jerseys, featuring the original Islanders logo, make a great gift for Mother’s or Father’s Day.”140
Although the Islanders failed to reach the playoffs, John Spano’s much- hyped purchase of the team, combined with a seven- win improvement over 1995– 96, made the final season of the fisherman jerseys feel like a turning point. Berard, who led first- year players with forty- eight points, was selected the NHL’s rookie of the year.141 Pálffy, quickly establishing himself as a star, scored forty- eight goals, the fifth most in the league, and received some votes for the NHL’s most valuable player award. Average home attendance went up 10 percent.142
If Spano pumped the sort of money into the team that he promised he would, the fan base might actually look back on the fisherman era fondly, as a period when their team found its savior.
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7
From Savior to Devil
By the spring of 1997, almost everyone around the Islanders— the fans, the media, and even the players— accepted John Spano as the owner.
By outward appearances he was running the team. The Islanders introduced him at a press conference in November, the NHL Board of Governors approved the sale in February, and Spano was appearing regularly in the owner’s box at Nassau Coliseum. The press reported that Spano was negotiating a new cable television contract for the Islanders, mulling over trades with Milbury, and presenting concepts for a new arena to Nassau County officials.1 Legally, however, Spano did not own the franchise yet. The Islanders remained under the control of John Pickett pending the closing of his $165 million deal with Spano, which was scheduled for April 7.2
As the closing approached, suspicions about Spano were growing.
Spano twice dined with Tom Croke of the Support the Islanders Coalition, who thought the prospective owner’s behavior was strange.
“It was the most uncomfortable two dinners I’d ever had in my life,”
Croke said. “No matter what type of subject I brought up, hockey, nonhockey, could not get a word out of this guy. He just clammed up.”
At other times Spano canceled meetings, explaining that his wife had breast cancer and he wanted to be by her side when she underwent chemotherapy. It was a lie.3
During one get- together with Spano, Croke offered his skills as a computer consultant to evaluate the Islanders’ technological infrastructure. The men agreed to a salary of $120,000, and Croke shut down his successful consulting firm. He came to work in the Islanders offices in Nassau Coliseum, only to find that Spano had not told anyone to expect his arrival. “No one had any idea what I was doing there,”
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Croke said. “He hadn’t told anybody. They were all taken aback. They immediately got their attorney involved to get me out of the building.”4
After a few months passed, Croke returned to seek compensation for the breach of his oral contract. He was confronted by Milbury, who was incensed that Spano agreed to hire Croke, a relentless critic of ownership. Milbury said that he grabbed Croke by the collar and led him out the door.5 According to Croke, Milbury briefly put his hand on Croke’s forearm but let go once Croke told him to do so.6 Whatever happened between them, the men agreed on one point: Spano was acting strangely.
Meanwhile, Spano’s tendency to boast about his wealth made others wonder whether he was actually as rich as he said he was. Islanders goaltender Éric Fichaud remembered the prospective owner bragging to anyone who would listen that he had the money to sign the Red Wings’ all- star center Sergei Fedorov, a restricted free agent.7 In an interview with Newsday Spano mentioned that he spent $140,000
a month on fuel for private jets to fly him between Dallas and Long Island.8 Spano bragged more to Sports Illustrated, saying that he
“owned every great car that was ever made” and had “the houses and everything else.”9 During a meeting with Croke, Spano said that he had donated $1 million to an influential New York senator. Since the campaign contribution limit was only a few thousand dollars, Croke knew that Spano was either lying or breaking the law.10 Even more troubling, Spano, who was married, spent many nights at the Garden City Hotel, one of the most exclusive lodging places on Long Island, drinking and partying with attractive women. Milbury recalled the owner summoning him for a meeting there. After the two men talked hockey for a while, Spano changed the subject. “He says, ‘They’ll be here in a little while,’” Milbury remembered. “I said, ‘John, who? What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘The girls.’ He said, ‘The girls. First they’ll do each other, and then they’ll do us.’”11
Milbury didn’t know then, but Spano was resorting to alcohol and sex to cope with the stress of leading a double life. To the public, Spano was a successful businessman with a net worth of $250 million. It was an illusion. In reality, Spano had assets totaling only $1.2 million, not 168
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even enough to pay the highest- salaried player on the Islanders, let alone run the team.12 To nobody’s knowledge but his own, Spano was perpetrating one of the greatest scams in the history of professional sports, and he did not know how much longer he could pull it off.
Despite what Spano told people, his background was unremarkable.
Raised in an upper- middle- class family of barbers and merchants, he went to a parochial high school in Ohio, not a prep school, as he claimed, and his first job as a sales associate in Pittsburgh paid him $20,000, a salary so meager that he lived with his boss for a while.
Next, Spano moved to Dallas to work for an auto loan company, only to lose his job when the company folded. In 1990 he used money that he said he inherited from his grandfather— although that story, too, was disputed— to start an equipment- leasing business named the Bison Group, which attained moderate success but nothing as grand as he made it out to be. Despite his insistence, he did not own any jets or a home in the Hamptons. The limousines that escorted him around Long Island and the money he dished out freely for stays at exclusive hotels were funded by te
am accounts.13
With little wealth of his own, Spano depended on his connections to convince the NHL that he could afford a team. The Bison Group was valued at just $3 million and employed only twenty- two people, not the six thousand that Spano counted in a tall tale to the Islanders.14
Through his business transactions Spano became friendly with much richer businessmen, and they mingled at a local country club. Because he was hanging out with high rollers, people figured he was one. He never had any staff members accompanying him, because he couldn’t afford any; observers simply concluded that he was hands- on. NHL
commissioner Gary Bettman introduced Spano to Pickett, who was eager to sell to someone who would be visible on Long Island and keep the team there. Bettman, assuming the Islanders would vet Spano, spent a few hundred dollars on an investigation into Spano that apparently showed nothing amiss.15 Pickett trusted Spano because Bettman vouched for him as “the type of person we want as an owner.”16 A real estate firm owned by former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger 169
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Staubach loaned money to Spano, figuring he had been checked out by the banks.17 Along the way, no one bothered to seriously inspect his bank accounts or his background, or to investigate why his attempt to buy the Dallas Stars two years earlier fell through.
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