Tag Archive for 'charles-wang'
While it is sometimes difficult to understand Islanders owner Charles Wang’s hockey related moves and his fascination with double-digit long contracts, one thing that is clear is his desire to lower ticket prices and fill the stands at the Nassau Coliseum every night. Last season the Islanders offered numerous partial season ticket plans of various lengths and there was also the $19 Havoc Zone seats for many games. Those efforts, along with an improved Islanders team and a return to the NHL playoffs, resulted in a slightly improved attendance figure over 2005-06.
For next season, it appears the Islanders are making a strong push to encourage more families to come out to the games and cheer on the Islanders. First there was the announcement last week that weekday games would start at 7:05pm again. Yesterday, the Islanders announced new $10 season tickets for kids 12 and under along with a new family section at the Nassau Coliseum.
In their continued efforts to make New York Islanders games the premier destination for Long Island families, the Islanders are offering a season ticket for young fans that will cost just $10 a game.
“The NYI365 KIDS SEASON PASS came about after (owner) Charles Wang made it clear to us in our off-season meetings that our organization has three primary goals,” said Chris Dey, Islanders Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Operations. “Our goals are for Islanders games to be the number one entertainment option for Long Island families, to pack the Coliseum for every game and - it goes without saying - to bring the Stanley Cup back to Long Island.”
The one-of-a-kind NYI365 KIDS SEASON PASS gives youngsters 42 games of the best Rick DiPietro, the Islanders and the NHL have to offer - including 4 games of Sidney Crosby and the Penguins, 4 games against the Rangers and 4 games each against the Devils and the Flyers.
Islanders fans ordering one full Islanders adult season ticket at the club’s already discounted prices can reserve the seat next to them for a child 12 years and younger for the 2007-08 season for just $420. Tickets are currently available in designated family sections comprised of lower level seats at the Coliseum.
“We applaud the Islanders for an innovation that encourages families and young people to attend our games,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. “This initiative presents an opportunity to share the excitement of National Hockey League action with even more fans.”
I keep watching our webstats for that one fateful day when I catch Charles Wang browsing our site in between checking his stock quotes and signing Yashin’s checks. It hasn’t happened yet, but today for the first time ever, Islanders Army was mentioned on the Official Islanders Website. The Islanders PR department was patting itself on the back for yesterday’s Blog Box Buzz with a post summarizing all the blogosphere coverage:
Over at OffWingOpinion.com, Eric McErlain takes some shots at the Blog Box concept calling it: “A watered down version of a press pass” and “The Islanders idea is a press pass with training wheels”, but hey, coverage is coverage, although when you read it here, we don’t think the writers and readers of Islanders Army or The View From Section 317 are going to be to pleased with his tone.
Nothing is stopping a more established and professional blogger from applying for a real press pass. It’s also not 100% fair to be judging the concept without seeing the final execution. I think the majority of bloggers would prefer the Blog box setup compared to rules and pressure of working with the professional press. I think the Islanders approach is good while it still can be improved over time.
[Update] From the webstats, “NHL Enterprises” 8 hits. Good to see you again Mr. Bettman.
Oh. My. Goodness. Is it true? It’s on NewYorkIslanders.com so it’s either true, or a really bad joke by the Isles webmaster.
The Yashin-era is OVER. Is this the beginning of the Smyth-era?
More on this later, I literally just got to the office and started drinking the morning coffee when I read this.
The New York Islanders will buyout the remaining four seasons of Alexei Yashin’s contract. This ends the Islanders six year relationship with Yashin, who in 346 games with the Islanders scored 119 goals and recorded 171 assists for 290 points.
“This decision was one of the hardest I have ever had to make” said Islanders owner Charles Wang. “The organization holds Alexei in the highest regard – as a player, as a teammate and as a person. He was part of the revival of the franchise at a time when we had not qualified for the playoffs for eight seasons. All of us at the Islanders wish Alexei nothing but the best as he continues his career.”
Added Alexei Yashin: “The Islanders have treated me with the utmost respect. I’ve always believed in the vision Charles Wang has for the organization and although I won’t be a part of it, I believe that the team is headed in the right direction. I’m looking forward to this new chapter in my life.”
His best season with the team came in 2001-02 when he scored 32 goals and 43 assists for 75 points in 78 games. Last season, Yashin missed 24 games with a knee injury. He recorded 18 goals and 32 assists for 50 points in 58 games.
“From my time knowing Alexei as a teammate and as a general manager, I have learned that Alexei is nothing but a first-class individual,” said Islanders General Manager Garth Snow. “With him on the team, the Islanders made the playoffs four out of last five seasons and I believe that we would not have been able to do that without him. And we thank him for his contributions.”
Added Islanders Head Coach Ted Nolan: “Alexei has always been a professional on and off the ice and this was not something that was easily decided. I believe this is in the best interests of the team and player in mind. Alexei will have an opportunity to pursue a fresh start and we’ll look at options to fill his position.”
[Update] It appears Newsday.com broke this story late last night and in this morning’s paper.
Facing a potential mutiny from Islanders fans, owner Charles Wang bit the bullet and made the decision yesterday to buy out the remaining four years of captain Alexei Yashin’s 10-year contract, Newsday has learned exclusively. Some might view it as the owner admitting a costly mistake, but second-year coach Ted Nolan described it as a chance for a “new beginning” that might restore the fans’ faith in the franchise.
The last four seasons of the $87.5-million contract Yashin signed after the Islanders traded for him in 2001 were valued at $26.45 million. Under the NHL collective-bargaining agreement, Wang is permitted to pay two-thirds of that amount ($17.63 million) over the next eight years to buy it out. The salary-cap hit will be approximately $2.2 million per season over that time.
From Newsday.com, Ex-GM Mike Milbury who stepped down last June as GM only to take another front office position with the club, is leaving the Islanders for good this time.
One year after stepping aside as general manager of the Islanders to serve as senior vice-president in marketing, Mike Milbury on Tuesday announced his resignation from his full-time position in the organization.
Although Milbury will remain as an advisor to owner Charles Wang on the Project Hope youth hockey program they began two years ago in China, his move effectively ends his 12-year relationship with the Isles in terms of any major decision-making role. Milbury also served as coach three times and survived through four sets of owners.
“Charles gave me the opportunity of a new challenge for the last 18 months, and I enjoyed every minute of it,” Milbury said in a prepared statement. “Im very proud of our staff and the strides we made last season in corporate sales, customer service and community relations.”
But in an interview with Newsday, Milbury admitted the business side of the game isn’t his first love. His decision to move on, he said, evolved out of his recent season-ending meeting with Wang, who asked how he enjoyed his sales duties and whether he felt he could make a long-term commitment in that area.
Adios Mad Mike. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. You are gone but cannot be forgotten. The Ex-Islanders All-Star Team will continue to haunt us. From Wikipedia:
Many young players and prospects that Milbury traded away went on to have distinguished careers, often eclipsing those of the players he received in return. He has traded away defencemen Zdeno Chara, Wade Redden, Bryan Berard, Eric Brewer, Darius Kasparaitis, and Bryan McCabe; goalies Luongo and Tommy Salo, as well as forwards Olli Jokinen, Todd Bertuzzi, and Raffi Torres. Milbury has also come under fire for his draft day decisions such as choosing Rick DiPietro first overall in 2000 over Dany Heatley and Marian Gaborik .
[Update] From Spector’s Blog, a few more Ex-Islander All Stars from Mad Mike’s Greatest Hits:
Were it not for a series of owners who skimped on payroll and some outright dumb trades by Milbury, there might be a second dynasty on Long Island today. Consider the following roster:
Goal: Roberto Luongo, Defence: Bryan McCabe, Wade Redden, Zdeno Chara and Eric Brewer. Forwards: Olli Jokinen, JP Dumont, Todd Bertuzzi, Jason Spezza (selected by Ottawa with the first round pick moved by Milbury for Alexei Yashin), Tim Connolly, Taylor Pyatt, Raffi Torres, Michael Rupp.
He also passed up the chance to draft either Dany Heatley or Marian Gaborik in 2000 to select Rick DiPietro, which wouldn’t have been necessary if he’d held onto Luongo.
A little bit of Isles news/rumors from Greg Logan’s On the Islanders Beat blog.
Negotiations between Islanders general manager Garth Snow and the agent for left wing Ryan Smyth should begin in another week or two, but it will rank as a major upset if the Isles sign Smyth before he has a chance to sample the NHL free-agent market on July 1.
That doesn’t mean the Islanders are out of the running for Smyth. Far from it. It just means they are likely to have a lot of competition.
Meehan’s answer seemed to suggest it’s unlikely Smyth will sign until he has heard all the offers. Unless he fell in love with the Islanders in his brief stay lasting 18 regular-season games and a first-round playoff loss, it would make business sense for Smyth to see what all his options are on July 1. Most likely, he could count on serious offers from upwards of a dozen teams.
But who knows? As much as Snow, coach Ted Nolan and owner Charles Wang want Smyth, maybe their offer still will be the best in the end. Since it doesn’t appear the Islanders are going to sign 40-goal scorer Jason Blake, Smyth is the main object of their desire. If it appears he’s going elsewhere, they likely would go hard after Buffalo center Chris Drury along with the rest of the NHL.
Smyth testing the market isn’t much of a surprise. Wang’s going to have to dig deep to keep him here. However if Drury is the backup plan, I’m all for that idea too!
The Toronto Globe and Mail has an article up about the Islanders new arena plans. Apparently, the Long Island Lighthouse part of the plan has been scrapped. No big surprise there, Wang’s original plan was crazy ambitious for a town/county known for dragging their feet with bureaucracy. The article also says the Islanders don’t expect the arena to be done until 2012 at the earliest. That’s 5 more years at the ol’ barn…so let’s make it count…STARTING TONIGHT! Beat the Sabres! Skate hard for 60 minutes and hit the #%!& net when you shoot tonight.
While opinions vary about whether he can pull it off, Islanders owner Charles Wang has stickhandled his plan for a renovation of the Nassau Coliseum and the surrounding property into a project that includes a couple of office buildings and residences.
This is different from the original $1.6-billion (U.S.) project Wang started out with. He was forced to drop what was called The Lighthouse, an office tower that would have included a hotel and condos, from the project but will continue with the arena renovations and office and housing developments.
However, it is still not clear just what will be in the final development of the arena and the 77 acres of property around it because the last hurdle is approval from the town of Hempstead. Islander officials said this could take another 18 months and that renovation of the arena, the second-oldest in the National Hockey League, will probably not start until 2009.
The plans for the arena are to drop the ice surface by five feet and add a ring of luxury boxes and replace all of the seats, bringing the capacity to 18,000 from its present 16,234. The work will be done over the course of three off-seasons, which means the earliest it will be completed is the fall of 2012.
Islanders fans, now is the time to let your voices be heard by management. Sign this petition and let Charles Wang know how you feel.
To: Charles Wang and The New York Islanders Organization
We, the fans of the New York Islanders, respectfully demand the return of the “Chicken Dance Song”. We demand that it be played during all hockey games at the Nassau Coliseum commencing immediately.
This song has been a long standing tradition of our team, our history and our lives as fans. It has been there when we were kids and it will be there as we teach our children to be the next generation of Islander fans.
It is appalling to think that this, one of the longest standing traditions of Islander Fans, has been removed. Why don’t we discontinue the Chicken dance song when they abolish that whistle thing they do at the Garden disparaging one of the greatest Islander players to lace up the skates as well as a Hockey Hall of Famer?
We, the NY Islander fans, have been through many travesties over the past two decades all of which would be too lengthy to print here. For this reason we demand that the Chicken Dance not be added to the list of those travesties.
We expect to hear the Chicken Dance Song at the first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs to take place at the NCVMC in April…
…We expect to hear it at the next game.
It figures, for the first time since December 23rd the Isles scored 3 or more goals but even that couldn’t stop them from dropping their 5th straight game, 4-3 to the New Jersey Devils last night. I feel like Rob Schneider in “The Waterboy”.
With the way DP’s been playing, and Marty Brodeur at the other end of the ice, it was quite a surprise when it was 2-1 Devils only 3 minutes into the game. Two Islander turnovers quickly ended up in the back of the net and then Trent Hunter got the Islanders on the board with a deflection goal. Zach Parise of the Devils picked up his second goal of the game later in the first for a 3-1 Devils lead after one period of play. Now Parise was all alone in front on the first goal because of the turnover, and his second goal came on a 2 on 1 situation, so the defense left DP out to dry on both goals…BUT…Parise just made DP look silly on both goals. He committed way too early on both of them. Elias made it 4-1 Devils in the 2nd on a sharp angle slapshot that found a way past DP. Ricky’s certainly entitled to a bad game ever now and then, but he picked a poor time to do it.
Hilbert picked up his 4th of the year in the second, and Sillinger scored with just 20 seconds left during a 6-on-4 powerplay with DP pulled. The Isles outshot the Devils 43-26 but Marty outplaying DP was the difference.
It was an interesting night at “The Swamp” with an announced crowd of 12,500+, a decent size for a Devils crowd. As we walked up to our seats I thought the interior was pretty dimly lit until they turned on the main lights on the ice. It’s also kind of cold up there as there seems to be a breeze, did someone leave a door open on the roof? The Devils fans that are there support their team pretty well, and we were more than happy to join along with them for several “Rangers Suck” chants. A few idiots wandered in wearing Rangers jerseys and were heckled by fans of both teams. During a stoppage in play to replace a broken piece of glass, they played the “long” version of the Chicken Dance. Since Wang has outlawed it at the Coliseum, it seems the Devils were more than happy to adopt it. We spotted “Goldie” the Islanders fan with the shiny gold wig from the Coliseum down by the glass dancing up a storm as all fans joined in the chorus of “The Rangers Suck!”. Goldie’s seats were practically the same seats he has at the Coliseum, what does that guy do for a living? Who does he know?
Bring back the #%!* Chicken Dance Wang!
Isles head to Carolina to play the Hurricanes tomorrow night. They’ve got to end this skid ASAP.
Video highlights from NHL.com
Losers of 4 straight games and scorers of 3 goals in that span, the slumping Isles visit the first place New Jersey Devils tonight. Jason Blake has scored 3 of our past 5 goals…in a 5 game span. The Isles have started off 2007 in a major funk. Coach Nolan has decided to shake the lines up tonight.
Islanders coach Ted Nolan elected to alter his lines yesterday at practice. Shawn Bates skated on the second line with Viktor Kozlov and Miroslav Satan.
“By shaking it up a little bit, sometimes it works,” said Nolan, who also put Chris Simon on the first line and Arron Asham on the fourth. “We have to get Satan and Kozlov going a little bit. Bates is responsible defensively and also gives enough speed to generate some things offensively. There’s no discredit to Robitaille, but it wasn’t working.”
Robitaille hasn’t scored in seven games with the Islanders, and Satan and Kozlov are pointless in their last five. During Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to Philadelphia, Richard Park got some time on the second line. Now it’s Bates turn.
The solution is clear. It is time to reveal my super-top-secret plan for Islanders domination of the NHL. I’ve shared this ingenious idea with many close friends and fans over the past 3+ seasons of NHL hockey, but I have resisted making it public because of it’s controversial nature. I am not sure the public is ready for it, but now is the perfect time to reveal it…
Ladies and gentlemen, the Islanders must clone Jason Blake. We need 5 Jason Blakes on the ice at all time. DP, Dunham, and 18 Jason Blakes on the roster and 25 Jason Blakes in Bridgeport, ready to go, should one of the other Jason Blakes get injured. Mr. Wang, make it happen. Get some bio-technical geniuses on the payroll in some super-top-secret location working on it now.
In all seriousness, the NHL season is quite long and every team goes through slumps. Better now than in March I say. I have faith in Coach Nolan, he’ll shuffle the lines and do whatever it takes to get this team scoring again. Our loss last week to the Devils was on a early fluke goal, and we beat up on Jersey in the swamp back in November, let’s do it again. I’m going to game with my brother and an old co-worker who’s a Devils fan, should be fun tonight.
Catching up on the Isles highlights, although there haven’t been many.
Philly
Buffalo
Devils
GM Garth Snow just cleared another $2 million in salary cap space by shipping Mike York ($2.85 million) to the Flyers for Randy Robitaille ($600,000) and a 2008 Draft Pick.
The New York Islanders have acquired forward Randy Robitaille and a fifth round draft pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft in exchange for center Mike York. Robitaille, who can play all three forward positions, rejoins the Islanders after playing in ten regular season games and five playoffs games at the end of the 2002-03 season.
“We’re very happy to acquire a strong playmaker in Randy Robitaille,” said Islanders general manager Garth Snow. “Randy will help us on the power play and he’s good on faceoffs. We add another draft pick, which is always good news. And while we acquire a player in Randy whose production is equal to Mike’s, we also gain additional cap flexibility.”"
GM Snow is getting the job done…at the expense of the Flyers who appear all too willing to take high priced players off our hands. Despite being $2 million dollars cheaper, Robitaille (28GP 5G 17A) has better stats than York (32GP 6G 7A) and also led the Flyers in face-off percentage (53%) which was one of York’s strong points too.
With cap space to spare and a couple of extra draft picks too, Wang and Garth are definitely up to something. Fauxrumors mentioned free-agent Jason Allison, and some Islander message boards are speculating Brad Richards or Martin St. Louis from the Lightning. The NHL holiday trade freeze kicks in today so nothing else will be done right away, although Allison is a free-agent and could be signed. I think the Isles are going to sit tight for a couple of weeks, and if there is a blockbuster in the works we’ll see it in late January.
Randy Robitaille bio/stats on NHL.com
Mike York bio/stats on NHL.com
Wang’s World! Wang’s World! It’s party time! Excellent!
