from Mark Hermmann of Newsday,

Hockey has no prescribed ritual to mark the end of an era. It has only the traditional end-of-series handshake line, which didn't do justice to the Islanders' loss Monday night. This one meant the end of the Islanders as a Long Island team. And it was a distant farewell to Nassau Coliseum.

The only responses were sadness, quiet and thanks, with an emphasis on the latter. Thanks to the Coliseum for being such a worthy home for 43 years and thanks to the people who always went there.

"It's hard to believe it's over. You put so much into the season, into the series," John Tavares said after a 2-1 loss to the Capitals in Game 7. Referring to Islanders fans, he added, "We're disappointed for them. I don't think we talked about it a whole lot, but we knew what this season meant, playing at the Coliseum. How they responded to us was absolutely tremendous."

continued

added 8:52am, from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

It will be different now, will have a different flavor when the Battle of New York becomes an inter-borough rivalry. If the Islanders can build off this season that ultimately built unrealized expectations and left unrealized the dream of one more playoff showdown against the Rangers, then the next stage of the rivalry can be as satisfying as the first phase.

And really, remembering the romance of the Coliseum is a fine thing, but the Islanders sure couldn’t have thought it romantic for most of the last 20 years in which their own fans were outnumbered in their old building by Ranger fans, and often by a sizeable margin.

Fans on the Island probably don’t want to hear this as any more than the employees of Sterling Cooper wanted to hear it when it came out of Don Draper’s mouth, but it’s true: “Hold on. It’s not the end. It’s the beginning.”

It’s the beginning of Rangers-Islanders and the Battle of Brooklyn.

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