from Steve Jacobson at Newsday,
In the best of times, they were Long Islanders. Nystrom married a Long Island girl, still lives here. Clark Gillies, from Moose Jaw, stayed. Mike Bossy, then the highest-paid player in the league, wouldn't drive his Mercedes in the rain or park it in public, so he sold it and bought a Pontiac. Butch Goring was traded here and deliberately got himself lost so he could learn his way around. The newlywed wife of Czech David Volek saw the supermarket display of citrus and fled, thinking she must need a permit.
There were the others. A woman friend of mine heard the playoff excitement and asked me to buy tickets for her. I did and she exclaimed: "Do they have to be on a Saturday?''
During the great reign, Bill Torrey, the astute general manager who made Al Arbour coach and patiently built champions from the expansion void, mused that when the winning inevitably ended, "Will they still come?''
The rivalry with the Rangers was delicious -- country pups beating and taunting the city dogs with singsong "nine-teen-forty,'' their last championship until they won another in 1994. When Madison Avenue promoted the Rangers in Sasson jeans and the Islanders eliminated them in an early round, Islanders fans chanted, "Oo la la, so soon . . . ''
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