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Rookie Camp Round Up, Day 1: Wide Eyes and Microphones

Welcome to Long Island. Yes, it always looks like this.

By Dan Saraceni
I have seen some shit, kid.
I have seen some shit, kid.
Bruce Bennett

The Islanders kicked off their 2014 Rookie Camp - yes, the final one at Nassau Coliseum - by bringing together fresh draft picks, returning "veterans" and local walk ones for a packed but casual day. Pictures were snapped, heights and weights were taken, names and numbers were exchanged and hands were shaken.

Here's a collection of bits, observations and quotes from the first day.

  • First, please to familiarize yourself with the new meat with the official roster... [LHH]
  • ...and with a data dump of numbers and facts from the team's site.
  • Arthur Staple talks about the defensemen in the Islanders pipeline that are trying to make it to the show. [New$day]
  • In the Connecticut Post, Michael Fornabaio focuses on the camp in terms of the 2014-15 Bridgeport Sound Tigers roster.
  • This year's fifth overall pick Michael Dal Colle is taking things slow and just wants to get a feel for Long Island and his employers. [Islanders Point Blank]
  • Snappy quotes just seem to follow Josh Ho-Sang around. This time, he's quoted saying after the first day of his post-Draft career, "I don't play for the scouts, I play for the Islanders." [The Score]
  • (Dan's Soapbox: Like most, I have high hopes for Ho-Sang because, selfishly, I think he can help my team win. But regardless of whatever comes next for him, my greater hope is that the tired, prudish, xenophobic nonsense that this kid has been tagged with by the established hockey press dissipates as quickly and quietly as possible. He's a new face and the people that cover the Islanders want to ask him their non-unique versions of the same crap he's been hearing for a year or more. I understand that. But beyond this camp, I hope Ho-Sang becomes just another Islanders prospect looking for his shot and not an exotic animal to be studied and feared because he doesn't listen to the zookeepers.)

End rant. Anyway, here's Ho-Sang talking to the "media throng" after his first official skate as a New York Islander.

And here's a "jacked" Ryan Pulock back for his second camp as an Islander.

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