The exchange of chants began in the packed parking lot before moving steadily inside the narrow, people-choked passageways of old Nassau Coliseum. Fans of the suburban Long Island-based New York Islanders were on the defensive, seeking to drown out the screaming voices of the invaders – New York Rangers fans. The puck had yet to drop, but the gamesmanship between old enemies had already begun.
“I was here the first season when they first opened here,” said Islanders fan Rich Hessel. “It’s been great over the years. You’re an Islander fan or you’re a Rangers fan, there’s a lot of animosity but there’s a lot of camaraderie too.”
Fans battling for vocal supremacy is a routine that’s played out again and again over the years, but barring a playoff match-up, Tuesday marked the last Rangers visit to the Islanders only home, one that opened up in 1972 and became a memorable backdrop to one of North America’s signature sporting rivalries. Next year the Islanders will play inside New York City’s five boroughs at Brooklyn’s $1bn Barclays Center, after the franchise and Nassau County couldn’t agree on terms for a new or redeveloped venue.
“This place is part of the crescendo of the rivalry,” hockey historian and broadcaster Stan Fischler told the Guardian. “A whole bunch of decades of excitement are being encapsulated tonight, and obviously going back to the first Islander Ranger game.”
The teams first met 43 years ago, after the Islanders were planted in Uniondale, a tiny town embedded amongst suburban sprawl, a mere 30 miles east of the Rangers’ Manhattan home of Madison Square Garden. The team wasn’t representing a state or a city, but the two eastern Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk, areas that also happened to be home to those who grew up watching the Rangers.
The tangles between the teams brought instant energy to the NHL, with their fans providing the closest thing to a European soccer derby you could find on this side of the Atlantic.
The upstart Islanders got the edge on the Rangers early in the rivalry, ousting them in their first post-season meeting back in 1975.
Four years later, animosity between the teams was upped another notch when Denis Potvin injured Rangers forward Ulf Nilsson, a moment that became the inspiration of the famed “Potvin sucks” chant, one that is still heard today, regardless of the Blueshirts’ opponent.
Starting in 1980, a historic Islanders team lead by Brian Trottier, Billy Smith, Potvin and Mike Bossy would go on to stitch together one of the most dominating stretches in NHL history, winning a record 19 consecutive playoff series and four Stanley Cup titles.
It couldn’t have been more embarrassing for the Rangers, an old-hockey-world establishment franchise that hadn’t even cranked out a single title since 1940. In 1994, the Rangers enjoyed a measure of revenge, with Mark Messier, Brian Leetch, Mike Richter, Adam Graves and company sweeping the Islanders en route to an elusive, epochal Cup title.
Today the rivalry is as relevant as ever with both teams seen as legitimate Stanley Cup contenders as they fight for first place in the Metropolitan Division. The Rangers climbed to within a point of the Isles (with four games in hand) in an tight, 2-1 victory on Tuesday, the winning goal coming courtesy of Rick Nash. As usual the Coliseum’s low ceiling made a crowd of over 16,000 sound like 36,000. And as usual, thanks to the healthy infiltration of Rangers ultras, it was impossible to tell which team was playing at home.
“The fans really make the rivalry,” said Howie Rose, who has experienced both sides as a play-by-play voice for both teams. “And I think the continuum is that there are kids in their 20s and even their teens who feel it. And yet they didn’t experience it when the rivalry was at it’s best. So I think that’s the sort of legacy that these teams are leaving on Long Island anyway, among the Long Island fans that might not make the move to Brooklyn ... We’re definitely losing something with the Rangers and Islanders not playing here any longer.”
Could that something be their rivalry actually growing weaker despite the two teams playing in closer proximity to one another next season?
The Nets and Knicks’ NBA rivalry, virtually non-existent before the Nets moved to Brooklyn, exploded in their first season after leaving New Jersey. The Nets, a franchise with little connection to their fan base and a mostly miserable history, had everything to gain from leaving their swampy Jersey past in exchange for hipster-hot Brooklyn and becoming the anchor tenant of a brand new basketball-oriented building.
The Islanders’ move to NYC, however, is far less straightforward. The Isles did struggle with attendance for many years, but that was a result of dire management and god-awful hockey rather than lack of a fan base. Now, just as the franchise has sprung back to life, the Islanders go from being the tenant to a tenant, into an sightline-challenged arena retro-fitted for hockey deep inside one of the Rangers’ main catchment areas.
“I think that’s what’s going to kill them when they go to Brooklyn, they’re going to lose that huge fan base,” said Isles fan Tom Spuhler. “It’s going to be easier for those city Rangers fans used to getting on a train and going to see the game. Islanders fans are used to coming home from work, getting in their car, and driving here. They’re not used to getting a train or staying at work and going to the game.”
The Barclays Center is loaded with transit options, including the Long Island Railroad, meaning Isles fans will still have an easier time getting to games than they would’ve if they had to travel to, say, Kansas City, where the team was once rumored to be headed. Phil Hessel, dressed in an Islanders jersey, is optimistic the rivalry won’t wilt.
“It’s a good location for both fan bases. I have every intention of going to Brooklyn.”
Left behind is the Coliseum, or the Mausoleum, as it’s affectionately known to Rangers fans. It’s a relic that’s enjoyed a starring role in the rivalry, a building that has become charming by attrition. As larger, faceless, antiseptic venues have popped up across the NHL, the tiny, low-rise Coliseum, it’s lack of modern amenities and crumbling poured concrete has somehow become something seen as quaint, a warm blanket for Islander fans who grew up inside watching its winners and losers.
Islanders fan Bill Fox will miss the building and it’s marquee matchup.
“It’s insane. A lot of energy. It’s history. It’s all history. I think a lot of people who haven’t been here in a long time came tonight just to experience it.”
