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what?’” he asks. John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor and a staunch proponent of the failed 2011 bid, says there’s enough blame to go around for the leaders of both political parties—with fans paying the ultimate price. “I think it’s an absolute shame,” he says. “The loss of the Islanders can be laid at the doorsteps of both political parties. It’s a disgrace that the people of Long Island are going to be deprived of their team. It’s just a horrendous thing for the economy of Nassau County. It would be easy to blame Charles Wang but it’s not as if he didn’t try to get this thing done. There were mistakes made—everybody gets that—on many sides. “We have to start all over again and say, ‘Okay, what are we going to do with that property?’” continues Durso. “We can’t have a giant skateboard park for the kids. That’s not going to put the thousands of workers who need jobs back to work.” “When it was a Republican administration, Democrats weren’t supporting
the rivalry: the ny islanders and ny rangers share one of the most heated rivalries in professional sports. the isles’ move to brooklyn intensifies that battle.
it,” he adds. “When it was a Democratic administration, Republicans weren’t supporting it. Who are the losers? The people of this county and the families of the construction workers who could’ve gone to work to rebuild that Coliseum, and the fans.” Others were more optimistic. At Wednesday’s press conference, NHL Commissioner Bettman told Islanders fans that now they “don’t have to worry about the future of the club, the club is staying local, you’ll be able to get here locally.” “Charles Wang is the real hero today,” said Ratner. “He has kept this team in New York State.” David Pennetta, president and chairman of the economic development committee at the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society of Long Island, is already looking to the future. “I think it’s finally over, which is a good thing, because it’s been inhibiting any other movement on that development piece,” he tells the Press. “It’s something that was never financially viable to stand on its own, and it always needed additional development there to support the cost of redoing the Coliseum. Trying to get the islanders to stay has been holding this up for years. “They’re leaving,” he continues. “We can now focus on economic development, which is going to create, in the short term, construction, engineering and architectural jobs.” For Islanders fans, news of the retreat evoked mixed emotions. Leslie Martin, 30, of Hicksville, is crushed. “I am disappointed that more wasn’t done to keep the team in Nassau County,” she tells the Press. “It’s hard to
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give up my season tickets when I’m used to attending 40-plus games each year. I think this is only going to hurt Nassau County and the people who reside therein.” Harris Peskin, 21, who lives in Brooklyn, grew up in Syosset and whose father has had season tickets since 1972, was also saddened—though he’s happy it’s Brooklyn and not Kansas City or Quebec, two other locations long bandied about as possible destinations. “It’s really disappointing to me, because Nassau County, it’s the home of the New York Islanders, there they won four straight Stanley Cups—all the memories that I’ve had going there to the games with my family, my father telling me where he was sitting when he watched the games—it was something really special and I hoped that one day I would be able to replicate that with any future family I might have,” he says. “In the end, politics prevailed and they couldn’t get anything built there.” Thirty five-year-old lifelong Isles fan Charles Mcanulla, another LI transplant to Brooklyn, is excited. “The Barclays Center is a beautiful area,” he tells the Press, adding this jab: “I don’t know where Kate Murray is going to be three years from now, but I know where the Islanders will be in 25 years.”
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