The NY Islanders were where American hockey history was made when 9/11 happened

Few places in America carried more meaning for hockey than Lake Placid.

Twenty-one years after the Miracle on Ice captivated the country there during the 1980 Winter Olympics, the New York Islanders took the ice in Lake Placid for the opening of training camp on September 11, 2001.

What began as a day filled with optimism about a new Islanders season quickly became something nobody there would ever forget.

Now, 25 years after the September 11 attacks, there remains a striking connection between the Islanders, Lake Placid and two moments in American history separated by just 21 years.

For Peter Laviolette, it was supposed to be the beginning of his NHL coaching career.

"I was probably two minutes into my first training camp as a head coach in the National Hockey League," Laviolette later recalled. "Day 1. I'll never forget."

There was genuine excitement surrounding the Islanders that September. After years of losing, general manager Mike Milbury had dramatically reshaped the roster, acquiring Alexei Yashin, Michael Peca and Adrian Aucoin. For once, expectations were back on Long Island.

None of it mattered that morning.

Laviolette recalled Milbury approaching him shortly after 9 a.m. with the first information about what had happened. Like millions of Americans watching the news develop in real time, nobody quite understood the magnitude of it yet.

"We didn't really know," Laviolette said.

Reporters covering camp later recalled television monitors inside the arena carrying the news coverage. Laviolette wasn't interested in discussing hockey afterward, while players including, Alexei Yashin and Michael Peca, still spoke with reporters who were attempting to do their jobs under circumstances nobody could have anticipated.

Eventually, hockey returned.

That Islanders team would become one of the great turnaround stories in franchise history, finishing with 96 points and returning to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 1994.

But nobody in Lake Placid that morning was thinking about any of that.

Twenty-five years later, the coincidence remains striking.

The Islanders stood in the place synonymous with one unforgettable American moment when another, for entirely different reasons, changed the country forever.

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