Good Bye Nassau Coliseum

I've been meaning to go to an Islander game ever since it was announced that they were moving to Brooklyn.  This year was my last chance.  So last Tuesday, I finally got back to Nassau Coliseum, the worst arena/stadium in major North American professional sports.

It got me thinking about how many times I've been in attendance for each of the four big sports.  I know I've been to exactly one NFL game in my entire life.  I remembered the Jets beating the Panthers and Keyshawn Johnson running for a touchdown.  There's a lot that I didn't remember though.  The Jets scored 48 points.  Curtis Martin ran for a 60 yard touchdown.  The Panthers started a Notre Dame quarterback (of course, I had no connection to Notre Dame at the time).  There was a failed two-point conversion attempt.  There was a safety.  And the Jets had a fullback who had 10 carries.  Although I've only been to one NFL game, I've been to 39 Notre Dame games in the last ten seasons (they're 28-11).

I don't really know how many NBA games I've been to.  I know I've been to one in Boston (the Celtics lost to a terrible Nets team and I thought they were going nowhere, but they ended up getting to Game 7 of the NBA Finals), two in Brooklyn, and several at Madison Square Garden.  I think I went to one Celtics-Knicks games every year from 2008 to either 2011 or 2012.  And I remember at least three other games at Madison Square Garden.  So that's at least 10 NBA regular season games.  I have no idea how many college games I've been to.  I didn't go to a ton of games when I was in college, but I've gone to a lot since then.  Most of the games I've gone to since college have been double headers.  Last year I was there for seven of the nine Big East Tournament games.  I've been to four NCAA Tournament games.  My guess is I've been to at least 50 college basketball games in my life.

Of course, I've been to a ton of baseball games.  Over the last ten seasons, I've been to at least 60 games.  My guess is I've been to at least 100 Major League Baseball games.

As for hockey, only been to two Ranger games (a tie and a win).  I'm not really sure how my Islander games I've been to.  I remember my dad getting tickets through work and taking my brothers and me when I was like six (nobody else remembers this, but I'm pretty sure it happened).  I remember going around the time I was a senior in high school with my brothers and their friend Alex.  Tom's recollection is that the Islanders lost and Alex blamed us for being Ranger fans.  I went to a game with my friend Andy back in 2009.  I had no idea who the Islanders played or what the result was, but I was able to look it up.  Unfortunately, I remembered that I went to that game after watching Notre Dame lose to Navy in 2009.  So it was a 6-3 win for the Islanders against a team that became the Winnipeg Jets.  There's a chance I went to another Islander game or two that I don't remember, but that might be it.

I do have other Nassau Coliseum experience.  Tom remembered going to a Knicks preseason game there when he was in ninth grade (which would put me in third grade).  I think there might have been more than one Knicks preseason game.  I also remember going to the NBA Summer League with my dad in 1996.  I remember being excited about Nate Driggers because he lit it up for the Celtics in a summer league game (he scored 36 points in his 15-game NBA career).  The crowds for those games were really small.  There were coaches and other NBA people there and kids would go up to them and get autographs.  I remember getting Jeff Van Gundy's autograph.  My dad remembers me getting M.L. Carr's autograph.  I didn't remember that, probably because I've tried to erase any memory of M.L. Carr being the Celtics' coach (he was replaced by that scumbag Rick Pitino, so things didn't get much better).

So I went to the Oilers-Islanders game last Tuesday.  It's crazy to me that these were the two best franchises of the 1980s.  Andy picked me up from school because I was coaching a basketball game.  We got there a little late, but it was still scoreless when we arrived.  Ryan Hamilton scored first for the Oilers about halfway through the first period.  The Islanders tied it when I was getting a beer (I had a Labatt Blue, I felt like should have a Canadian beer at a hockey game).  The Islanders were outplaying the Oilers for most of the first 35 minutes or so and they took a 2-1 lead (with Notre Dame alum Anders Lee assisting on the second goal), but the Oilers tied it late in the second period.  The Oilers outplayed the Islanders for most of the third period, but Casey Cizikas scored the game-winning goal for the Islanders with less than five minutes to play.

The start of the second period

A panoramic shot

I have a couple of final thoughts.  Hockey is so much better in person than on TV.  The movement of the players and the puck looks so much more graceful in person.  It's also a great sounding game.  You really hear the skates, the puck, and the sticks when you're there in person.  Nassau Coliseum is very unusual in that there's only one concourse.  Even if you're sitting up high, you enter the seating area from ground level.  The only problem with that is that the concourse is not very wide.  At the end of the game, we walked around the concourse to the other side of the arena because it was really cold outside and we wanted to stay inside for as long as possible.  But it was so crowded that movement was pretty difficult.  And the scoreboard was so outdated.  When I watched replays on it, it was like watching a hockey game from the 1990s.  So yeah, I won't miss Nassau Coliseum, but I'm glad I got to one last game there.  If ticket prices aren't ridiculous, I'll try to get to a game at Barclays Center next year to compare.

This picture doesn't even do justice to how crappy that scoreboard is.

Happy Washington's Birthday!