from Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star,
You can’t be a fan of a New York sports team without a sense of humour, and fans of the Islanders — new and old — are no different.
The team is in year two of a transition from its long-time home in suburban Nassau County to the more hip, urban Brooklyn, playing second fiddle in the basketball-first Barclays Center.
“It sucks,” says Paul Tuszynski, who drove in from Nassau, where he lives 15 minutes from the Memorial Coliseum. “At the upper levels, you have to hunch over to see. There’s hardly any room in between the rows. They say this place is built for basketball. It isn’t built for anything.
“There’s nothing like the old barn. And they don’t have a lot of diehard Islander fans here. It’s not the same. They’re learning about the team, I guess. You see more yuppies here. They don’t wear any shirts or anything.”
Different fans, to be sure. Although some diehards were spotted Sunday wearing Rick DiPietro and Alexei Yashin jerseys, an ironic take on the team’s up-and-down history.
The Barclays Center is a perfectly fine arena, just not one built with hockey in mind. The scoreboard is over the blue line, not centre ice. There are plenty of obstructed-view seats.
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