fromthesidelines

For those of you that have yet to be made aware of the situation, the city of Kansas City built a hockey arena for such things as to host NHL exhibition games and to try to lure an NHL expansion franchise to one of the biggest small towns of the midwest.

Kansas City is not as big of a city as you may think, if you are not that familiar with it.

And as for big-time sports, there isn’t an exhorbitant amount of entertainment dollars to be had.

First, you have the Chiefs, who are perhaps the heart and soul of the sports scene in K.C. The Chiefs are and have been the first big-time team to make it in the city. They didn’t replace another team (e.g., the Royals replacing the Athletics), and they have been there for more than four decades. Unlike Kauffman Stadium, Arrowhead is always filled, no matter how many games the Chiefs have won or where they rank in the standings of the AFC West.  

Then, there are the Royals. Now, the Royals, in their heyday of the mid-70’s to the mid-80’s, enjoyed quite a good deal of success. But, ownership changed hands, and once the stars like George Brett, Frank White, Amos Otis, and others retired, the Royals stopped playing players. That’s why players like Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran jumped aboard the first free-agent train out of town.

But, Royals fans have shown, that if you give them something to watch, they’ll be there. And if the Kauffman’s ever do decide to reinvest some of the millions that the other major league franchises give them every year, they can be prosperous once again. And if that happens, that will put the squeeze on the Kansas City entertainment dollar, and economics, no  matter how nice your building is, is a battle that you just can’t win.

So, the rink was built in hopes of another NHL team.

Yes, I said another, because as few of us may remember, back in the 1970’s there was an expansion team called the Kansas City Scouts. I don’t know what happened to them, whether they moved to another city or simply folded, because the team wasn’t around long enough, I only know that I have one or two K. C. Scouts hockey cards.

So, anyway, there’s a new arena, and they want the NHL to participate in exhibition games there so that this new structure can finally start being used (and paid for, I would imagine).

The New York Islanders were apparently approached to play a game there, and now the rumors are flying.

With all of the problems that have been well documented about the new Islanders ownership wanting to get out of their lease with Nassau County, etc., there seems to be a rumor floating around that the New York Islanders moving to Kansas City.

First of all, this is a rumor born of the coincedence that since the Islanders are having problems with their building and such, and that Kansas City wants an NHL tenant, that the Islanders are moving there.

I think that first of all, you don’t ever move a team FROM the New York Metropolitan area to somewhere else, you move FROM somewhere else to New York, like the New Jersey Devils did when the Colorado Rockies moved to Jersey.

Islanders fans have proven that when there’s a winning team on the ice, they will come. Even though the team isn’t tearing up the leaqgue right now, the front office has shown that they do have a game plan intact, and that’s with some solid players that came from good draft choices.

This team has a lot of potential for the future, and the knowledgeable fans of Long Island will have your back if they think that you know what you are doing and are serious about winning.

It would be a HUGE mistake for the Islanders to think that they can just move to another city and that the building will be filled every night. Let’s face it, the Islanders have not exactly looked like the Detroit Red Wings in recent years, and that’s not a way to build a fan base.

Lifelong Islanders fans are supporting the team because they remember the glory days of this franchise and they yearn for those days to return.

If you take the current roster out to another city, the franchise will fold faster than the Islanders defense did this past December.

Mr. Wang, et. al, if you think that you’re losing money on Long Island, what do you think is going to happen when (if) you move a team that hasn’t even made the playoffs lately and put them in a new city? It’s a recipe for disaster.

And what about all of us fans that have supported this team through thick and thin, from the days of Eddie Westfall and Billy Harris, the league’s first bonus baby (bust)?

Who will they (we) root for? the Rangers? Bite your tongue. I’d sooner jump off of a bridge. The Devils? While most Islanders fans don’t harbor the hatred for the Devils that they (we) do for the Rangers, I can’t see myself putting my heart and soul into another area team.

So, where does that leave me? I would have no trouble being a Detroit Red Wings fan, as I have rooted for them once the Islanders were knocked out of the playoffs ever since Steve Yzerman was a rookie. In fact, I have an official Yzerman sweater.

I could also opt to turn my allegiance to the Boston Bruins. After all, when I first started watching hockey, I was a huge Bobby Orr fan, and I enjoyed watching the Bruins beat the Rangers anytime that it happened, and I couldn’t bring myself to root for the Rangers since they hadn’t won a Stanley Cup for so many years.

I never acquired a hatred for the Bruins like I did for the Celtics or the Red Sox. I just liked watching them play (and hopefully beat) the Rangers.

That’s why my hockey dreams were answered when NHL President John Ziegler announced that there was going to be a second franchise in the New York City area, the Islanders. I immediately became an Islanders fan, and have been one ever since.

It often takes a long time to build a pro sports fan base, especially if it’s A) a sport that’s relatively new to the area; and B) isn’t a winning team.

I believe that if you put all of the pieces together, consider trying to build a fan base with a bad team in a new town, the difference in marketing abilities between New York and that fashion-crazy town (all pun intended) known as Kansas City, and the bargaining differences that the team has with free agents. Let’s compare these two scenarios and decided which of the two is more enticing.

“Well Mr. League’s best player, Long Island is only about 30-60 minutes from Manhattan. There are the theaters, museum’s, clubs, concert venues, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, restaurants that serve until the wee hours, and, you can find ANYTHING you want in New York. Also, Long Island is a terrific place to raise a family, and you also have the nearby options of Westchester County and New Jersey, not to mention, the five buroughs.”

Now, compare that to this offer, and ask yourself where you would rather be.

“Well, Mr. League’s best player, umm….do you like farming?… umm well, about an hour’s drive from here there’s the Wizard of Oz museum… umm, we got a MacDonald’s that’s going to be open darn near midnight come summertime… Hey, you know what’s cool? On this side of the street, we’re in Missouri, but across the street, at that diner that closes at 5 p.m., you’re in Kansas. Ain’t that a hoot?”

Yeah, try winning over a prized player with those attributes.

The bottom line to all of this is, Mr. Wang (and your buddies), that life isn’t going to get much better than this until you have a winning product. You have thousands of loyal Islanders fans in the New York Metropolitan area. Don’t leave Long Island…don’t even think about it.

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