Islanders AHL affiliate announces a reboot is coming, new name possible

The Bridgeport Sound Tigers have been the New York Islanders AHL affiliate since 2001. For 20 years the Sound Tigers been the developmental wing of the Isles franchise.

Current team players like Ryan Pulock, Adam Pelech, Scott Mayfield, and Casey Cizikas have spent significant time wearing that blue and orange jersey with the Tiger on the front. But it looks like that’s about to change.

The AHL team tweeted out today that a reboot is coming.

Name change coming for New York Islanders AHL affiliate

CT Posts’ Michael Fornabaio was the first to report on the possibility of a name change. And then minutes later, the teams released a cryptic video on Twitter with the words “refresh” and “reboot” appearing.

This has been building for a day or so now. At the conclusion of the 2020-21 AHL season “glitches” seemed to occur on the Sound Tigers site and with some of its social media posts. Pictures looked distorted and some even showed programming script with the words. “Bridgeport_Islanders.exe”.

You can see it in this Facebook post. It’s just above and to the left of “FOLLOW”.

https://www.facebook.com/soundtigers/photos/a.311740751201/10159523324371202/

A name change could be a part of a larger plan to bring the Islanders AHL affiliate to Long Island where they could play at the Nassau Coliseum once the Isles move to the UBS Arena.

Bridgeport, Connecticut isn’t far from Long Island but we’ve seen NHL bring their AHL affiliates closer to home base. The Vancouver Canucks just announced that their AHL affiliate would move from Utica, New York to Abbotsford, BC. That’s some 2,800 miles closer to home.

Having the Sound Tigers relocate there isn’t something new. We’ve heard talks of this since 2013 when a redevelopment plan for the Coliseum indicated an AHL could be one of the tenants.

There’s more to come on this. The buzz is undeniable.