Plus: the shocking story of the national magazine article that never was!

Some may get a giggle over the notion the Islanders are holding training camp in Moncton right now and Ted Nolan, the former head coach of the Moncton Wildcats, is no longer the head coach of the Islanders. This is like the National Hockey League scheduling the Rangers to play a season-opening game in Prague with Jaromir Jagr no longer on the squad. Oops.

But this isn’t the first time the Islanders had a camp destination and the town advocate wasn’t there. In September of 2003 the team scheduled a week of camp in Wheeling, West Virginia at the nudge of Peter Laviolette, who coached a year there in the East Coast Hockey League. The Islanders made it to Wheeling, but Pete did not.

Of course, it’s a bit awkward to have camp in Moncton and not have Ted there – although I wouldn’t be surprised if Ted ends up back with the Wildcats soon in some capacity. But when an NHL franchise does a deal for a camp location, the contract is between team and municipality. Very little hinges on whether the person who made the recommendation is still going to be around. I would expect the percentage of Monctonians jacked to host the Islanders has not changed from this September to last. The team is back in Moncton because they felt the city, its facilities and its embrace were exceptional.

In the case of the Islanders, GM assistant Kerry Gwydir heads up an advance team to check out the town, hotel and rink accommodations. Kerry comes back to Garth Snow with his suggestions and then negotiations with the city begin. The team’s experience in Moncton last year was a positive one. If the Islanders have a third camp there next September, call it a love affair between team and town.

(By the way, the hockey staff will tell you it’s imperative the team goes away for the first week of training camp. The sales and marketing department – especially for a team like the Islanders that has tickets to sell – may not agree. On the media side, it’s mostly a wash. The odds of the Daily News sending a writer to Islanders camp in Syosset are about the same as them sending one to New Brunswick).

Wheeling was so-so, but there’s a reason I’ll never forget our trip there. About two months before camp in ’03, I approached a major national magazine with the idea of doing an all-access piece on an NHL team spending a week of training camp in the beautiful woods of West Virginia. With the approval of Islanders management, I was able to provide the writer and photographer access to everything – roster cuts, meetings, meals. Nothing was off-limits.

We get to Wheeling and everything is going magnificently. For the writer, there are plenty of storylines and a few whiffs of controversy.  The players, six to a group, are staying in cottages – lending a rustic touch to the story. The photographer hired by the magazine – we’re told he is an award-winner for his work covering international conflicts – is over the moon with the access and the vistas. He’s completely ga-ga, in hindsight peculiarly ga-ga.

To be honest, I’m distracted during my daily showdowns with Alan Hahn for world’s worst golfer because I’m thinking I’m gonna be a frickin’ hero when the mag is published.

We’re back on Long Island two days when I get a call from the writer. The masterwork of the award-winning war photo-journalist? None of it came out.

I press for details, but they’re sketchy. Sensing the magazine is more than a little humiliated, I back off. Maybe the artiste never took the lens cap off. Maybe he didn’t realize he needed a flash when shooting in dark cabins at six in the morning. Maybe, just maybe, he really wasn’t an award-winning war photojournalist.

Like Jagr in Prague, Lavi in Wheeling and Ted in Moncton, sometimes life doesn’t turn out exactly as you planned. You make the best of it.