The owners of the New York Islanders – Scott Malkin and Jonathan Ledecky – have reportedly been in talks for the past few months with the owners of the New York Mets – Sterling Equities – to build a new hockey arena adjacent to Citi Field, in Willets Point, Queens. The New York Islanders aren’t fond of their current home at Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, after negotiations failed to address some issues with the venue, like poor ice quality and seats with obstructed views, Bloomberg reported. Oak View Group has been tasked with consulting duties. It’s unclear where the new hockey arena would go, but the likely location would be immeadiately to the west of Citi Field where a parking lot exists. The location would be easily accessible to the Mets-Willets Point Station on the 7 train and the Long Island Rail Road.
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Great building with an area of Citi Field, neighborhood can’t cover this huge structure every side.
“some issues with the venue, like poor ice quality and seats with obstructed views”
— How is that possible? Who designed this?
I can’t speak to the ice quality, but the arena was designed for basketball, not hockey. They have to remove/truncate several sections of seats from one end of the arena to fit hockey so there are fewer seats, the rink is not centered, and the angles are off: http://www.barclayscenter.com/assets/img/hockey_seating_chart.gif I don’t know what they did not design the place so that a few rows (and fewer seats) from each end could be removed and the viewing angles preserved but that might have meant a larger building and admitting publicly that they wanted to bring in the Islanders, which would have made the public fight over the whole project more difficult (to make the comment more relevant to this website).
“some issues with the venue, like poor ice quality and seats with obstructed views”
BS—The real reason they want the move is to make it easier for LI’ers to drive to the game. Simple as that.
@Haruki “Look, man, Barclays Center for B-ball. For my Nets. Not for some stupid hockey.” -Jay Z
With the fourth and twenty-second picks in the 1974 draft , the Islanders added young forwards Clark Gillies and Bryan Trottier to continue Torrey’s building plan.