Monthly Archives: September 2009
B.D. Gallof reveals a letter from the Town of Hempstead open letter to the public regarding the Lighthouse Project. (How old-fashioned, and yet, so sweet). I learned of B.D.’s post from a tweet, funny enough, by the Lighthouse staff. Comments. Please also show your support to B.D.’s site for the scoop.
Tavares Programming Note: John Tavares will not be in the lineup for the “Hockeyville” exhibition game on Monday on the NHL Network. Katie Strang reports John was never in the plans for the game. I was told at Iceworks today that he didn’t skate because he was “under the weather.” Let’s hope it’s the flu and not the groin.
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Courtesy of the Islanders’ website, here is the list of players traveling to Saskatoon on Saturday for Islanders 2009 training camp. Besides those 46 pros on NHL contracts, you have to go to this link to find the identity of the 7 junior players also going to training camp. They are marked by having jersey numbers next to their names.
Golf claps to the hockey ops staff for keeping it to a manageable 46 skaters and 7 goaltenders. (Players on AHL deals go straight to Sound Tigers camp). I always found the camps with more than 60 players absurd, and I know the head coaches dislike the packed camps more than anyone.
Thankfully, Garth Snow also resisted the urge to extend courtesy invitations to camp. Miroslav Satan skated today at Iceworks on his own between sessions for Islanders incumbents and challengers. Miro wore an Islanders practice jersey and his Penguins pants and socks.
The team leaves for Saskatoon on Saturday without Satan. Here is the Point Blank list of players who will emerge from training camp as Islanders on Oct. 3:
Goaltenders (3) - Martin Biron, Rick DiPietro (injured), Dwayne Roloson
Defensemen (7) - Bruno Gervais, Jack Hillen, Radek Martinek, Freddy Meyer, Mark Streit, Andy Sutton, Brendan Witt
Forwards (13) - Josh Bailey, Sean Bergenheim, Blake Comeau, Trent Hunter, Tim Jackman, Frans Nielsen, Kyle Okposo, Richard Park, Jon Sim, Jeff Tambellini, John Tavares, Nate Thompson, Doug Weight
It’s rare in most NHL camps for everyone to exit 100% healthy, so the extra defenseman and forward will be utilized.
Joel Rechlicz – cult favorite, Sound Tigers scratch, Lighthouse supporter, Team Store appearance-maker and wonderful underdog – of course, has a fighter’s chance. So does Jeremy Reich.
Jon Sim will make the team because he will be one of the top 12 forwards at camp. Unless he becomes a must-throw-in in a trade, no one is taking on his $1 million, one-way salary. Management knows it. Sim knows it. He’ll bust his tail and do whatever the coaching staff asks of him. Last season, he apparently only did the latter in his goal-filled final week before a demotion to the minors.
I spoke with Sim today at Iceworks. He seemed pretty emotional about the disaster of last season, saying, “I wasn’t myself.” He declined to get into specifics, but did say that returning after a full year away from injury presented challenges he wasn’t prepared for. Sim said he has spoken with head coach Scott Gordon a few times recently and felt very positive about their relationship. “I’m going to give Scott and our team everything I’ve got,” said Sim.
All the players on one-way deals will make the NHL club. There will be plenty of encouraging words for Jesse Joensuu, Matt Martin, Justin DiBenedetto, Robin Figren, Andrew McDonald, Mikko Koskinen and other prospects. They will all start the season in Bridgeport. In almost all cases, it will be for the right reason – continued development.
You’ll hear praise for the play of Greg Moore, Matt Moulson, Tony Romano, Brett Westgarth and other depth players. Unless there is another groin epidemic, they will all start the season in Bridgeport.
You’ll hear about Micheal Haley taking on (and often finishing off) some of the other teams’ big boys. He’ll also hit a lot and everyone will notice him. Haley will start the season in Bridgeport, but will be heard from again.
Hopefully, at least one player I have not mentioned will make a name for himself. Maybe I told this story before, so forgive me. The reason I have so much respect for Steve Webb goes back to his first day at Islanders training more than a decade ago. Webb had the attitude, “Frick it. Before this day ends, the coaches may not think I’m Mario Lemieux, but at least they’re going to know my name.” He then hit every player in sight and dropped the gloves three times in less than an hour. Everyone was talking about Webb that day.
Part of the fun of training camp is finding the happy surprise. More likely, this year’s will be the realization that the Islanders have stability. None of their talented young players were traded. Everyone was signed. They needed two goalies and they signed two good ones. And now they have John Tavares.
Could the Islanders have helped themselves a little more this offseason with some creative shopping and swapping? Absolutely. But the good news is, they didn’t take a step back. They acted like a franchise methodically building from scratch.
Comments. I don’t want another lengthy list of line combinations and D pairings, but I welcome your counters to the 20 skaters I believe will make the team. We can have another run of Tambellini and Sim comments if you’d like, but that’s getting as old as when I beat the Josh Bailey to the WJC thing to death.
For the few of you who wrote in to say my entry yesterday about Hempstead-Lighthouse negotiations was over-heated, here’s the latest from the mainstream folks at Newsday. The article includes quotes from Charles Wang and Tom Suozzi. I understand everyone’s excited about the opening of training camps, but if you want the Islanders in Nassau, I’m telling you something: this nightmare is real. Comments.
Although I have no experience in ownership hassles, I wrote a column for AOL on Jim Balsillie, Gary Bettman and the Coyotes. My Fanhouse colleagues and I also had some fun making our picks for the best and worst offseason moves in the NHL. You’re invited to list yours in PB Comments. Franchises potentially moving or not do not count.
Nothing, of course.
Between Hands Across Mineola on June 5 and the environmental hearing on Aug. 4, optimism about the Lighthouse Project was professed by all sides. Behind the scenes, even some of the most cynical of insiders – including LDC leaders – were convinced a new spirit of cooperation had taken over. There were theories for Supervisor Kate Murray’s about-face, the most popular being the arrival (and quick disappearance) of Kristen McElroy, her opponent in the upcoming election.
In this view, the tone changed dramatically on Aug. 4. Soon after the three Bs – Bettman, Bossy and the Bishop – spoke on behalf of the Lighthouse, Hempstead leadership realized their hearing was turning into a pep rally. It dawned on them that 95% of the speakers were going to be proponents. The rest of the day became a dirge for the “community leaders.” Sitting in the press balcony at Hofstra after the lunch break, it was painful for me to watch them slumped at the dais and fiddling on their phones as citizens spoke passionately before them.
It was as if the Town of Hempstead board realized, “Uh oh…this Lighthouse thing isn’t pissin’ people off. When the heck is that parade of protesters going to show up”? It never happened.
(Murray drops another ball)
So Murray and her staff returned to back-room politics. They leaked a story about how most of the Lighthouse support notices they received came from citizens outside Hempstead or Nassau. They took their sweet time selecting a date for a re-zoning hearing (why not just do everything on August 4?). Playing cute, Murray & Co. eventually chose Sept. 22 – the same day the Islanders are playing in Kansas City.
Most pathetic of all, the Town of Hempstead invented a billing dispute between the Lighthouse Development Corp. and their planner, F.P. Clark & Associates. Yep, Charles Wang – out a few hundred million since buying the Islanders – is going to jeopardize Lighthouse progress by stiffing someone out of a few hundred grand. Know this: when the Town’s planning company took their ball and went home, it was because Kate Murray told them to.
The entire F.P. Clark fiasco is a humiliation to everyone with their hands in it.
The Town enjoyed a few good weeks when they had everyone convinced they were fast-tracking issues related to the Lighthouse. After I spoke at the Aug. 4 hearing and complimented the ToH on their work in the weeks leading to that day, town attorney Joseph Ra made a big show of telling me in front of the large crowd, “Mr. Botta, you should know this would not have been possible without the complete support of Supervisor Murray.” Thanks for listening, Joe.
(24 hours after it was placed with his personal assistant, Mr. Ra has not returned a call looking for comment for this story).
Since Aug. 4, nothing. Nothing, that is, except shameful politics. The State Department of Transportation, the Nassau County Department of Health, the Public Works department and all other state and county agencies did their jobs and made their deadlines. The best the ToH could do was invent a lame billing dispute. Shameful.
I suspect Wang will be an engaged participant in the re-zoning hearing on Sept. 22. Perhaps around 2:00 pm, he’ll decide whether it has been a productive and promising day or if he should get on a chartered aircraft to watch his Islanders play hockey in Kansas City. If nothing else, it will make for wonderful drama for Newsday to cover.
I don’t know what Wang will do if he doesn’t have his answers on Oct. 3. My opinion is that if he doesn’t authorize his staff to immediately begin preliminary discussions with leaders in Queens, Kansas City, Hamilton, Portland or anywhere else, he’s making a mistake. Wang has his deadlines, has his convictions. Islanders fans know the stories of Zdeno Chara and Brad Isbister, of the lost season of Sean Bergenheim.
Why would Wang ever believe anything Hempstead politicans say again? On the other hand, if Wang doesn’t accept invitations for alternative hockey homes on Oct. 4, the Town of Hempstead politicians will never take any of his deadlines seriously.
Wang should go to Queens and make the best deal he can. After that, it’s up to him if he wants to give Hempstead one last chance to wake up.
Comments.
Point Blank has learned that Long Island native Rob Carlin has been hired by MSG to be the pre-game host on telecasts of Islanders road games. For the last three years, Carlin has been the weekend sports anchor at ABC-2 in Baltimore. In other Islanders media news, we’re told that Newsday will be the only local media outlet covering training camp in Saskatoon. None of the other New York newspapers or TV stations (including News 12) are covering the first days of John Tavares as an Islander. Needless to say, Point Blank will also not be there. In hockey news, the NYI have no training camp player invitees. Comments.
My report for Fanhouse was posted this morning. Please read and talk about it there. Later in the day I will follow up with an opinion piece for Point Blank on the latest Lighthouse-Hempstead battle, and why Oct. 3 will likely arrive without “certainty.”
