NY Islanders playoff schedule presents TV conflicts for fans that root for NY Knicks

If there is one thing that's tough about your favorite hockey team making the post-season is scheduling conflicts. The spring is full of weekend activities with the kids, from soccer and lacrosse to baseball and softball. There are also those milestone events such as communions, graduations, and weddings that happen predominantly in May.

The longer your team's playoff run is, the more likely there will be a few games where your team is able to sit down comfortably in front of your biggest TV and watch the game from start to finish.

There's another conflict that has some New York Islanders fans upset this spring and that's the start times of the New York Knicks playoff games. Not all hockey fans are basketball fans and probably fewer basketball fans care about the Islanders, but there is a segment of the fanbase that roots for all teams that wear orange and blue.

When the rest of the Round 1 schedule with the Carolina Hurricanes was released, fans quickly realized that the dates and times for almost all games were exactly the same as that of the Knicks, who are the two seed in the Eastern Conference after a 50-32 season and are set to play the Philadelphia 76ers starting on Saturday afternoon. The only date that the two teams don't share is for Game 4. All the start times are the same or within an hour of each other.

The schedule works great if your hockey and basketball teams both play at Madison Square Garden, and venue availability certainly played a big part as to why the Islanders and Knicks are playing at the same time while the schedule allows for New York Rangers fans to watch both of their favorite teams without the same conflict. There's also the NFL Draft on Thursday night, where the New York Giants and New York Jets have top-10 picks when the Isles and Canes will be playing Game 3 at UBS Arena.

Of course, between laptops, smartphones, and extra TVs, there are plenty of ways for fans to track what's going on with both games at both times. These are good problems to have and surely beat the many years where the Islanders and Knicks were missing the playoffs with regularity. Then deeper both teams go in their respective post-seasons, the less likely scheduling conflicts will be going forward.