NHL Arena #38

A few months ago, we found tickets to the New York Islanders game this past Sunday afternoon, and their arena was the last one we needed to visit in order to be caught up on all NHL arenas. We were really looking forward to the game, since the last one we went to was back in November when we were in Seattle for a Kraken game!

It turned out to be a bit of a busy weekend! We drove up to Maryland for our niece's soccer game on Saturday morning, and had planned to have lunch and cake to celebrate C's upcoming birthday with B1, S1, our niece, and our nephew.

We figured there was little point in driving home Saturday only to turn around and drive right back through Maryland on Sunday, so after we left B1 and S1's house, we drove up to Princeton, NJ for the night, before driving to Long Island the next morning.

We had purchased four tickets for the game, for ourselves and also B2 and S2, since they live less than an hour from the arena. Unfortunately, S2 had a work commitment come up, but B2 met us at the game and we had a great time hanging out with him.

You may recall that a couple of years ago, C and I came up with a list of our favorite NHL arenas (you can see that post HERE). Perhaps the most notable part of that post was that the two arenas we ranked as the absolute worst in the NHL were BOTH Islanders arenas - Nassau County Coliseum and Barclays Center.

We figured the team's new home, UBS Arena, would have to better than both of those, and we were correct. Overall, it is a beautiful building and we were very impressed! Our seats were incredible, the history of the team is displayed with pride, and the graphics on the ice were amazing.

However, the fans are terrible. This is in line with our previous two Islanders games. I was so glad to have an empty seat beside me (even though I obviously wished S2 could have been there!) because the cursing and rude comments were so obnoxious. Someone on the big screen was answering movie trivia questions during a timeout and instead of answering the final question, he chose to use his "air time" to make a very offensive political remark, which was followed by the crowd cheering wildly. To say I was disgusted is an understatement. You're entitled to have whatever political beliefs you choose, but that was neither the time nor the place to share those beliefs. It kind of got the crowd fired up and there was more cursing and yelling and frankly, it didn't help that the Islanders were not playing particularly well. 

We left the game with about seven minutes to go in the third period because we wanted to get out of the parking lot ahead of some of the traffic so we could get on the road. The Islanders ended up losing to the Hurricanes 5-2, so I'm sure those final seven minutes were filled with continued nonsense from the fans. Fan behavior has such a huge impact on the atmosphere and it is hard to enjoy the game when security doesn't keep people in check. That was one of my major complaints from the last Islanders game we went to in 2015 when they were playing at Barclays Center.

I'll focus on the fact that the arena itself is great, that we got to spend the afternoon with B2, and that we are caught up with all NHL arenas for now! The Arizona Coyotes will be moving to a new home, so there may be a trip there next season!

our seats were fabulous!

we never get used to him
not being a Bruin

yes, there are TWO players named
Sebastian Aho in the NHL and they both
played in this game!!!

Happy Tails to you!