New York Islanders Still Lack Stable Arena Situation Six Years Later

Six years ago yesterday, the Nassau County voters rejected a $400 million referendum to rebuild the Coliseum. Their arena situation is still murky for the New York Islanders all these years later.

The two seemingly never ending stories with the New York Islanders is the John Tavares contract discussions (already covered today) and the arena talk. Well, since we covered one we might as well do the other too.

August 1, 2011, is a day I’ll never forget. It was imperative that Nassau County voters approved a $400 million referendum to rebuild the Coliseum in order to keep the team in Nassau County.

In a way, this feels like such a long time ago, but not a lot has changed since then. Here we are more than half a decade later and the Isles are still without a permanent home.

Randi Marshall said it best on twitter:

"“If you told me that night we’d still be talking about an #isles future home 6 yrs later, I’d have believed you”"

That’s just the thing though it’s not unbelievable at all. Yesterday, there was an article out from Yahoo asking what if Mike Milbury was never hired by the Islanders. The arena, Milbury, Spano, Snow and Capuano’s seemingly never ending leash, the list of dysfunctional things with this organization over the last 25 years is a long one.

So no, I can’t say I’m overly surprised that six years have gone by without the Isles figuring out a permanent solution to their arena issue. Sure, the RFP sounds pretty nice but if that fails then what?

Next: What You Need To Know About Belmont RFP

The Belmont Plan must work, the Barclays Center and Nassau Coliseum aren’t an option, what else is remaining? They aren’t sharing an arena with the Rangers that’s for sure. Will Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin move the team? The never ending revolution of unresolved problems continue and so does the overall ineptitude of the organization.