New York Islanders: The All-Time Top 50 Non-Players

Capuano and the Winning Shot

21. Jack Capuano – Second winningest coach in team history.  First coach to win a playoff round in 23 years. That means something.  Despite the playoff win, he is eight spaces back of John Alogna, that means something too.

22. Buddy and Ralph – my family had season tickets from 1972 through almost the turn of the century.  Sec 104 row B, Seats 1 and 2. Buddy was our usher, Ralph was the security guard who was wedged in by the visitor’s penalty box. They are here to represent everyone who worked for that facility.

23. John Sterling – Decades before the nightly Yankee shill-fest, Sterling did Islander radio broadcasts and had apoplectic fits when the good guys scored. It was something like this. “Potvin, Harris, back to Denny, shooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot GOAL!  Islander Goal, Islander Goal, Islander Goal, Islander Goal, Islander Goal.  From Dennis Potvin.”

24. Norman One Shot Weidner – The only thing better than our team accomplishing the impossible, is when one of our fellow fans does it.  October 13th, 1979. The Islanders had a new promotion called Score-O.  (no clue what the O was for).

They would invite one ticket holder to come down and fire a puck, from the far blue line, through a board covering the net. The board had a slot no bigger than the puck.  You couldn’t make one in a hundred tries.  But if you did, you got a new car. The first guy ever to give it a go was original season ticket holder, Norman Weidner of East Islip.  When they took the time to announce that “the whole puck must cross the goal line”, the crowd was booing because of the impossibility of the whole thing.

At least give the guy a CHANCE. But of course, Norman took his one shot, sent it a hundred and fifty feet, watched it glide through the slot, get slowed down by scraping both sides of the hole, and trickle past the goal line. Norman went home with a brand new car.  For ten more years, whenever Norman came into the building, the crowd would chant his name.

25. Phil Goyette – Former Ranger player was the first ever Islanders coach. He coached almost a whole season.  Won several games. Notably that crazy 9-7 win against the Cup champion Bruins.

26. Earl Ingerfield – Replaced Goyette during that first season. Coached less. Didn’t have anything as memorable as that Bruins game during his tenure.

27. Terry Simpson – Replaced Arbour, and then was replaced by Arbour. In between, he got to coach the Easter Epic. If he happened to yell “Shoot” to LaFonatine in the fourth OT, good for him. That would have been good coaching.

28. The Gang of Four –  Not good. Local businessmen kinda sorta owned the team for a while. Or managed it for Pickett? Or tried to steal it from him? Or…. who knows. They did not ALL go to jail.

29. Gary Bettman – New York Islander fans love to debate whether Gary would let them leave NY.  I don’t know if he would, but he surely hasn’t. And there were times when it was a reasonable outcome.

30. Christy Brinkley – The only legit star, to be a long term legit fan. Macchio never went public with his fandom til his star faded. E from Entourage is legit, but not an A-lister. Carol Alt was a matter of circumstance. And Chloe Grace Moretz… I never heard of her outside of fans saying she was at a game.