Hey Older Isles Fans!!! During the glory years of the Isles did they hve attendance issues like they have today?
The image above is from the isles website and the photo is of the Stands during the 1984 Stanley Cup playoffs
Question: Were the Islanders selling out the Coliseum a lot of nights during the 80s and early 90s?
6 months ago
FB4Real
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Thats a lot of empty seats for a Playoff Game!!
Was this how it was?
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Twitter: @mikeryaninc
"Past performance Is Not A Guarantee For Future Results"
"Listening is a Skill" -Jack Capuano
The pic is most likely taken during intermission.
Let Us Go, Islanders! (Ever notice how strange that sounds without the contraction?)
by TheMetalChick on Nov 30, 2011 6:47 PM EST up reply actions
Probably
between periods there. Or maybe before the game. If you look closely a lot of people are having conversations* and not looking at the ice, so it’s pretty likely there’s no players on the ice.
They definitely sold out their playoff games, and then some, back then. Often you “knew a guy” that you could slip a fin to in lieu of a ticket, so pretty often there were more people than seats.
Back then you could actually hold a conversation in the arena (not during play, of course) because there wasn’t a bunch of music and other bullsht blaring in your face every g@dd#$m second of downtime.
/end bitter old man rant
Don't make me bring out the Silky.
crap
apparently wrapping stuff in an * makes it bold. Bitter old man rant ruined by new fangled technology-OH THE HUMANITY!
Don't make me bring out the Silky.
Actually I probably figured that...you're probably right
I am one of those fans that was away from following the team for a while and I was about 2 years too young to see the great Cup teams but I am dying to see the fanbase reborn.
That image looks like it could be a regular tuesday night during arecent homestand.
I hope this team starts giving reason to fill the joint up for the average opponent (i.e. Tampa, Buffalo).
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Twitter: @mikeryaninc
"Past performance Is Not A Guarantee For Future Results"
"Listening is a Skill" -Jack Capuano
The other thing
you have to remember was hockey was a much more affordable ticket back then. There’s obviously a whole host of economic changes that come into play, like wages being stagnated for the past 30 years, but the long and short of it is virtually anyone could afford a game here and there, and season tickets didn’t require you to manage a hedge fund; i.e. the number of people with enough discretionary income to take in a hockey game was much larger.
Don't make me bring out the Silky.
1978-84...
I was mostly a radio/WOR/boxscore fan. In 1980 my family moved from Brooklyn to Long island and I went to more games, but not many. I remember that MOST were sellouts. The playoff games that I went to in 1980 were sellouts, and I’m sure the rest were as well. The 1978-79 playoffs were so popular that us city folk (who didn’t have cable) sold out the felt forum for a closed circuit broadcast of the ranger-islander games.
I have no doubt that a consistent playoff team would AVG over 15K during the regular season and sell-out EVERY playoff game.
What they need to do is have a few 4 game winning streaks, and show some life…
MI CHAEL HA LEY…CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP!!!
I have to agree with afro as well… the idea that the noise is all bullshit now somehow takes away form a building that would completely rock during play, but you’d have to lower your speaking voice to have a “private” conversation.
Last saturday I was in a suite with a good friend and great islander fan who I greatly look forward to sharing ideas with during the game. 3 hours wasted on a shutout…
In 79 if they were getting shut out, and you suggested that, “maybe Trottier should play a little harder”… if you didn’t cover your mouth with your hand you’d get dirty looks from people three rows down.
It’s not quite as bad as the Verizon center though. A few years back I went to the Guerin hat trick game… It sounded like the a sUPer BOWL crowd was jammed into an indoor 18K seat arena… and it was an exciting SB…. until the sound system went down for a few seconds… CRICKETS.
So sad!
LighthouseHockey: We saw this coming!
@JPinVA
WOR
That was me from around ‘84-’88. My parents did not have cable TV yet so I only had the Tuesday Night game on WOR.
It was Tuesday Nights that the Isles played on WOR am I right? Maybe it was Thursday Nights?
Or was it only the road games that were played on WOR. That was it wsn’t it…just road games.
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Twitter: @mikeryaninc
"Past performance Is Not A Guarantee For Future Results"
"Listening is a Skill" -Jack Capuano
Road games on WOR...
Home games made the dolan’s rich.
LighthouseHockey: We saw this coming!
@JPinVA
Sportschannel was a Cablevision deal?
That was Dolan Network?
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Twitter: @mikeryaninc
"Past performance Is Not A Guarantee For Future Results"
"Listening is a Skill" -Jack Capuano
Yes It Was
I jiust loooked it up.
Sportschannel was Cablevision network
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Twitter: @mikeryaninc
"Past performance Is Not A Guarantee For Future Results"
"Listening is a Skill" -Jack Capuano
Yes... a tangled web was woven...
the islanders were the lure to the suburban household to get all the home games in their living rooms. I think they also had a substantial number of Met games as well. By 1980 most baseball games were televised either over the air or on cable.
WOR had a lot of the road games, but not all… and in the days of 17 and then 21 teams if you weren’t getting the Isles v ranger games (ONLY ON CABLE) you were missing out on a significant part of the hockey season.
I listened to the home games on radio until 1980… I saw more on the radio sometimes than i did on the old 9" B&W… with aluminum foil as an antenna, and a pair of plyers for a remote control.
Some of last year’s MSG++++ broadcasts over the Center Ice channels made me wish I had that old set-up. Dolan is a prick!
LighthouseHockey: We saw this coming!
@JPinVA
Playoff's
I can remember standing outside on line for tickets to the Rangers series where the home game was a fight filled blow out for the Rags.
Either lack of confidence or the steady decline of the economy on the island hasn’t helped the Isles.
Get out of the sticks, Charles, move to Queens!! Come, Get some respect a Professional team deserves!!
It was rare not to have a sell-out back in the day
And as for Sportschannel, that was my parents bribe to get my grades up. LMAO
Passing grades, sportschannel stays on……any D’s it gets shut-off.
That worked until they decided to get one of those “rigged” boxes. hehehe
"If the bell needs to be answered, we've got the guys to answer it." "If they want to start something, that's fine."- Trevor Gillies
Twitter: JenWillyard
by JW1970 on Dec 1, 2011 8:19 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Sports channel
and a 19"inch black and white TV! Our cable company provided the channel for free, so when the Racers were on the road I started to watch this real crappy team out of Long Island! Would listen to “Hockey Bob” Lamey call Racers away games on radio and watch the Isle’s.
Back....
had to take a Campbell and wipe my Bettman.
That's
AM radio for all you young Whipersnappers out there.
Back....
had to take a Campbell and wipe my Bettman.
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1979-80
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May 24, 1980: Tonelli to Nystrom. At long last, the steady build of the New York Islanders from expansion doormat to surprise semifinalist to annual contender reaches the promised land: Buoyed by a late season trade for Butch Goring that gave the team the depth up the middle GM Bill Torrey had been seeking, the Islanders knock off the Philadelphia Flyers in six games.
The victory justified the faith in coach Al Arbour who guided them from their second season to their first Stanley Cup seven seasons later. The Islanders would not be the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup, but they would be the only one capable of a dynasty.
1980-81
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May 21, 1981: This time it was much easier. After falling to "only" 91 points in the 1979-80 season, the Islanders returned to their division title tradition, piling up 110 points -- a whole 13 points over second-place Philadelphia.
Between the quarterfinals (where they beat the upstart Oilers in six games) and the finals, the Islanders reeled off eight consecutive wins -- with a four-game sweep of archrival Rangers in between. As they defeated the Minnesota North Stars in five games for their second Cup, their goal difference in the final was a combined +10.
1981-82
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May 16, 1982: Another year, another landslide title. The Islanders won the Patrick Division by a whopping 26 points over the second-place Rangers, and were seven points clear of their nearest competition for the President's Trophy, the still-not-quite-ripe Edmonton Oilers.
A first-round scare against the Pittsburgh Penguins turned in the Isles' favor thanks to John Tonelli's heroics, and a true dynasty was on its way: Past the Rangers in six games, then an eight-game sweep of the Quebec Nordiques and Vancouver Canucks to run away with the Stanley Cup.
1982-83
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May 17, 1983: Not so fast, whipper-snappers. The Edmonton Oilers' steadily rising challenge for league supremacy took them all the way to the finals for the first time, where the New York Islanders summarily dispatched them in a four-game sweep. For the Islanders, the Dynasty was secured. For the Oilers, it was a powerful lesson in where talent ends and the demands of playoff hockey begin.
Four years, four Cups, 16 consecutive playoff series wins (a record that would grow to 19 until the rematch with the Oilers the following year). Mike Bossy scored 60 goals yet again, and Wayne Gretzky became acquainted with Billy Smith's crease.
