SinceThe70s

I can't drive 55

It's been a mess. A greedy owner more interested in development than anything else, local politicians unable to strike a reasonable deal and at the heart of the problem a horrendous iron clad contract that the Islanders signed with the management company for the Nassau Coliseum around 30 years ago that tied the hands of the owner and politicians for years. In my perfect world, cooler heads would prevail and the NHL would relax the arena size restrictions and let the Isles continue to play at the Coliseum. I went to a Sunday afternoon game this year. It was a sell out and the atmosphere was electric.

The Islanders played at Nassau Coliseum which is in the middle of LI since their inception. They moved to Brooklyn a few years ago and it hasn't worked out...so much so that the Brooklyn arena wants the Islanders out. New Islanders owners are trying to get an arena built roughly between Nassau Coliseum and Brooklyn. Meanwhile the Coliseum was renovated making it a bit smaller and not fit for NHL standards, it was small to begin with. But the Brooklyn arena and the Coliseum are run/owned by the same company and a deal was struck with the NHL to allow the Isles to play around half their games this year at the Coliseum. As you noticed, the atmosphere has been nuts. Regular season games were similar. I think it's due to the Islanders coming back to their LI fan base, a smaller arena and the fans know this will be a short-lived return to where we had the Stanley Cup run and oh yeah the team had their best season since forever after losing their franchise player. When the Islanders made the playoffs the powers that be decided the first round home games would be at the Coliseum and after that at Brooklyn. If the Isles make it past the Pens look for the f****ng car where people are sitting in every other NHL arena.

Sad part is if they make it past the Penguins the home games will be in Brooklyn. Won't be the same crowd.

BillfromNYC's game recaps and the debates they provoked are what drew me to this board.

It's not just a NJ thing.

Fair point.

At this point it's more about Tavares than Darcy "Crazy Eyes" Tucker. That '91 series was epic EDIT: misread your 91 comment, thought you meant the Leafs/Isles series in 2002. I hadn't been to a game since they moved to Brooklyn, but we went to a game at Nassau Coliseum this year. The Coliseum has been nuts since they came back. It's a little smaller and is selling out in part because everyone knows it's not going to last. You can get a good seat in the $100-$150 range depending on the game. Playoff games are probably more like $200-$250. Not worth it to me.

In the Eastern Conference 6 of 16 teams make the playoffs, in the Western it used to be 6 of 14. That was ridiculous, not as bad since Vegas got a team. But worse than that is how they do the playoff seeds. An example is what happened to the Rangers in 2015-16. On the last day of the season they edged out the Islanders for 3rd place. The Islanders ended up the first wild card. Rangers path to the conference finals was through the 104 point Penguins and 120 point Capitals, Islanders path was the 103 point Panthers and 97 point Lightning. Rangers got screwed for being ahead of the Islanders in the standings. And I hate the Rangers.

If Rosenthal goes 8 innings without giving up an earned run he can drop his ERA to 9.00 In similar news , after posting a MLB worst ever batting average of .168 last year, Chris Davis is on an 0 for 50 run at the plate that stretches back to last year and 0 for 29 this year. If he goes on an 8 for 11 run he still won't be at .168. And by the way, after 3 starts Matt Harvey's ERA is 10.05 Meanwhile going into last night Pete Alonso was the first rookie since 1900 to have 11 extra base hits in his first 10 games. I thought bringing him up at the start of the season and foregoing a year of contract control was stupid. I'll take a mulligan on that one.

Good luck to your Leafs. I don't expect either team to make it that far, but a Leafs/Islanders semi-final would be a lot of fun.

Just dropping in to say Go Islanders!!!

July 12, 1979: Chicago White Sox Disco Demolition Night The highlight of the promotion was blowing up a crate full of disco records on the field in between games of a double-header. What could go wrong?

I just watched Charlie Blackmon settle under an inning ending fly ball at the warning track and just flat out miss the catch. Somehow the ESPN announcer deemed it a mental error.

Caspian is different, I don't think it's girly. IMO the person makes the name, not vice versa. I wasn't a big fan of either of my boys names, but now I can't imagine them as any other name. As to Cash and Cash Money, good luck with that. I have a good friend who wanted a Jimmy. He didn't care for the name James but went with it figuring Jimmy would catch on. It didn't. A neighbor's son was the third Karl but he wanted to call him Trip. That didn't make it past elementary school. If you want to call your son Cash, name him Cash. If you want to call him Cash Money, reconsider. Whatever you decide to name him, all the best to you and your wife!

Kind of similar to Familia in 2015. Lights out regular season, had his struggles in the World Series. For Familia it was the Alex Gordon HR in the 9th inning of game 1. But ya know what, it happened to Eckersley against Gibson back in 1988 when Eck had been utterly dominant. I think the modern baseball fan is spoiled by Rivera's remarkable career and the expectations for closers are sometimes unrealistic.

I lost track, what happened to Mesoraco?

Clearly you've erased any trace of Mel Rojas from your memory.

Follow up: I am loving Parquet Courts. A few weeks ago I told a co-worker about them....today he was gushing about them. In the skyline of hell there are no fire escapes:

We are the champions my friends!

Are you suggesting a Soylent Green ending for TB12?

We've been talking about his slow and/or impending decline for way too long and yet every year the results that matter most are there. Nothing in his past suggests he'll pack it in after the draft. Wishful thinking.

Magical year for the Dodgers. They beat the best in both leagues with many great moments along the way.

I appreciate your love of baseball and the Dodgers...but no and yes.

Wishful thinking. My wishful thinking was that by age 38 he would have started to suck. Still waiting.