Wang—one of the richest residents of the island—paid about $170 million for the team back in 2000, but since then has spent an additional $208 million out of his own pocket to keep the team afloat. That's about $23 million a season down the drain. He was doing the entire area a favor by bailing the team out back then, but now Wang says, "If I had the chance, I wouldn't do it again." Ya think?

Still, Wang says he is proud that he was able to save the Islanders from leaving Long Island nine years ago, and that it was important to him that the Island's only professional sports team got a legitimate shot to succeed. Before Wang's purchase of the team, many area public figures asked him to step in - an action that the financial documents show has cost him close to $300 million. "I knew going in," Wang said, "that I was going to lose money."

National Hockey League Deputy Commissioner William Daly said the league is aware of Wang's losses on the team. "His numbers are real," Daly said. "Yes, we're aware the Islanders lose money, a significant amount of money. And it goes back to the team's need for a new arena."

Ahh, yes. It's always the arena. Nassau Coliseum is a bit of a dump—and the smallest in the NHL—and the team's lease does not give them any money from concessions or parking, so they are getting kind of screwed there. And even though the town won't build a new arena, Wang offered to build one himself, but says bureaucratic wrangling is holding up the project.

The losses may also have something to do with the fact that the Islanders are a terrible, terrible franchise. They were easily dead last in points and attendance this year and haven't won a Stanley Cup playoff series since 1993. What is he spending that $23 million a year on? Zamboni repairs?

Charles Wang regrets buying Islanders [Newsday]
Background: Charles Wang Newsmaker [CBC]

The Islanders Will Have a Steak Sandwich and a...Steak Sandwich That's eight wins in 11 meetings for the Isles over the Rangers, the latter of which had their win streak snapped at five games with the 2-1 defeat. Ruslan Fedotenko and Josef Vasicek — two names that Fletch might enjoy in addition to Marvin, Velma and Provo — put the Islanders up 2-0 in the second before Dr. Rozsivalpenis brought the Blueshirts within one.

Big Bird Honored: On the night the Montreal Canadiens retired Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Robinson's No. 19, the Habs and Ottawa Senators turned back the clock and played some fairly entertaining hockey. The teams combined for 67 shots and six goals as the Sens won 4-2. Robinson is the 13th Montreal player to have his number retired joining the likes of these guys and, disgracefully, not Chris Nilan.

Olli, Olli, Four-to-Three, Hanlon Should Keep Hiding: Olli Jokinen scored two goals as the Florida Panthers took out the Washington Capitals, 4-3. The Caps are now 1-7-1 in the month of November and some of their fans have had enough of coach Glen Hanlon. The chant of "Fire Hanlon" was heard reverberating around the Verizon Center on Monday night, replacing the traditional chant of "Let's Go Flyers."

A Bone for the West: The Closer has been accused of having an East Coast bias, so here's something for the rest of the continent: the St. Louis Blues beat the Nashville Predators by a score of 2-1. It wasn't a particularly exciting game, but it sure was the last of the night to finish.

• It's A Good Old Fashioned Mediocre-Off — Nobody else can be the .500 team floundering in the Atlantic Division. That role is taken by either the Devils and Rangers. It took a shootout to determine which team is more adequate. The lone shootout goal was netted by Petr Prucha of the Rangers, which means New York hung on to win 2-1 over the Devils.

• Canadian Government Takeover — How come nobody is talking about the Ottawa Senators? ...oh, right. Because the NHL has fallen off the mainstream coverage. I keep forgetting that. Chuck Kobasew's back-to-back goals in the second period for Boston were equalized by consecutive power play goals, courtesy of Dany Heatley and Mike Fisher, and the Senators passed a resolution in favor of a 3-2 win over the Bruins. Ottawa is 11-1-0.

• Wild Card. Draw Four. The Color Is... Green. By The Way: Uno. Jerome Iginla scored a goal. That's nice. But Minnesota had four goals, which is three more, according to my second grade flash cards. The Minnesota Wild's 4-1 win over Calgary moves them back into sole first place of the Northwest Division, because Colorado lost.

• ____|\_____\o/____ AHHHH SHARK!!! — Jeremy Roenick scored his 499th career goal as his San Jose Sharks won 3-1 over the LA Kings. 15 years from now, caretakers will wheel him back into an NHL game, where Roenick will hopefully score his ceremonial 500th and receive a complimentary oversized banner.

Well, SI.com's Richard Deitsch was there for the opening of the box, and those guys, man, they're really being taken seriously.

There was a moment late on Saturday night at the Nassau Coliseum when blogging, journalism and public relations collided with the force of a Dion Phaneuf open-ice check. In a cramped interview room after New York's 3-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres, Islanders defenseman Chris Campoli was asked if the referees had treated his team unfairly. Before Campoli could answer the question, Chris Botta, the team's public relations director, interjected a warning.

"Let me remind you, Chris," Botta said, grinning, "we can get fined even by a question from a blogger."

Ho ho! We understand what the Islanders are going for, we suppose, but the condescension is running a wee bit thick. That said, we implore the "bloggers" to ask Garth Snow about this. Shoot, you'd think he'd want to talk about it.

Breaking The Ice [SI.com]
The Islanders Want Their Blog In A Box [Deadspin]

(UPDATE: Mr. Botta writes in: "For the record, Chris Campoli was asked a question about the officiating allegedly sucking. The kid could have let his guard down, thinking it wasn't going to be read by the league office. If he rips on the officiating to the Condescended 9, Campoli gets a big fine, our team spends all Wednesday night killing penalties and my kids go without Frosted Flakes for a while. Just wanted to set the record straight, since the Jocketty firing kept you from coming to our game. I look forward to dozens of witty, condescending and hilarious comments from the Deadspin apostles.")

It's true, actually: We were gonna try to come by, but Deitsch kind of kicks our ass on stories like this.

(To remind, our view remains that no blogger should want a press pass.)

Anyway, the Islanders are turning this less into a "bloggers are reporters too" issue and more into a "hey, fans, look ... you can be an Islanders blogger too! And you can meet the players!" type of thing. To quote:

We're setting up a BLOG BOX in the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum - sort of like a press box, but away from the scribes and broadcasters because we know you want to cheer, shout, have a pretzel and enjoy the game experience on your own terms.

We will provide you with a media pass for a few games next season and a seat in the NYI BLOG BOX. You will also receive your own set of Game Notes when you enter the Coliseum Press Gate. All you have to do is bring your note pad and/or voice recorder and cheer as loudly as you want. After the game you attend, we will set up an area where you can toss a few questions at a coach or players, based on your requests and their availability.

In a press release — that is, to "legitimate" press — the Islanders make it clear that "members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association should not be alarmed: The NYI BLOG BOX will be a completely separate entity from the traditional press box at the Coliseum. In addition, any post-game player and coach availability for bloggers will be separate and after all working members of the media have had their interview requests satisfied." So that's a relief!

Anyway, we're kind of fascinated by this, so we temporarily broke our longstanding "no public relations people" rule and talked to Chris Botta, VP of communications for the Islanders, about this policy, what it means, how they'll run it and all kinds of other matters. Can you have the very special privilege of writing about the New York Islanders? Sure! Great! Awesome!

Find out more than you wanted to know, after the jump.

——————————————-

We're really fascinated by the fact you're doing this, because we were waiting to see how the first team to deal with this whole blogger press pass thing would go about it. (We also figured it would be a hockey team.) First question: Make it clear to us EXACTLY what qualifications one needs to be put in the "blog box?"

You must be 18 or over and be able to write a sentence that makes at least a little sense. You can have an existing hockey blog or start a new one. Candidates apply thru the team site by linking their blogs or coming up with an idea for one and sending us a little writing sample.

Here's a question: What if, say, Neil Best from Newsday is covering the game but only writing about it for a blog but not his paper? Does he go to the regular press box, or the blog box? What if his blog isn't under the Newsday web address? (Like, say, Joe Posnanski of the KC Star.)

We only let Best in for NY Dragons games. But in your scenario, since Neil is with a "real" newspaper and went to Cornell (as he never hesitates to tell people), we would put him in the Big Boys Box, the main press box.

You seem to be selling this more as a fan-interactivity type thing than any sort of recognition of bloggers as a new medium to cover the games. Will you monitor to make sure they're writing enough to keep up their "blog box" pass? Is there any difference between a guy like Eric McErlain or James Mirtle, who runs their own site but also writes for plenty of print publications, and a kid who's hoping to one day start his own site, maybe, possible, if maybe you give him the pass?

That's been asked a lot by the more than 100 people who've already contacted us in the first 22 hours the thing got posted. My initial reaction to them is that we'd like to see them update their blogs, at least in-season, at least once a week.

On major bloggers like Mirtle or folks who already have established blogs with decent audiences, my hunch is they will not apply for fear of being accused of going to the dark side, the official team website side. But as we mentioned, we have thick skin and we're not censoring. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have a nod of approval from the owner and the general manager.

That said, I want to make clear this is fan-interactivity AND a recognition of a new medium. I hope we made that clear in the press release, but I'll check.

What does it mean "Blogs will be linked to newyorkislanders.com?" Does that mean they have to write it on your site, or just have a link somewhere to your page on there?

They create their own blogs with their own addresses. We will have a menu on the site where fans can click on to their blogs. We'll make it look nice with headshots and artwork. My bosses are gonna love me when were on a losing streak.

So let's say, hypothetically, that we applied to be one of your affiliate sites. You put our picture on your page, and you link to our site. We show up in the Blog Box for the first game, and, the next morning, we write, "The New York Islanders are not only the worst hockey team we've ever seen, but everyone who works for them is ugly and we think we saw Bryan Trottier molesting a puppy." (Or, say, link to this.) You gonna kick us out of the blog box for that? Or take out our link? We think it's reasonable if you would, but we're just asking: Where is that line, if it exists?

I think we'll know the line when we see it. But if we tank on opening night and everyone wants to flail away, so be it. We're not going to take down any links.

Could a guy like Mirtle apply for the "big boy" press box? Would you turn him down?

Yes and no.

You seem pretty concerned about how the actual hockey press "establishment" would react to this. Have you heard from some of the bigwigs since you announced it?

We want them to know they're still loved, appreciated, respected, welcomed and needed. That said, sure, I've gotten a few emails from members of the PHWA nominating the Blog Box for this week's Sign That the Apocalypse is Among Us. If they haven't gotten over it by then, they'll see when the season starts that their world hasn't changed.

Talk about the idea of the bloggers talking to the players after the "working members of the media have had their interview requests satisfied." We imagine the players being pretty cranky about that. And why not the opposing team's players?

Our players will be completely primed on what we're doing when we break camp in September. I've worked with hockey players long enough that I don't expect any problems. Sure, there might be a night when DiPietro might look at us like, "Uh, you gotta be frickin' kidding me." But that happens sometimes when Logan and Botte and Deb Kaufman want to talk to them.

Can't do opposing team players because I don't think my friend John Rosasco at the Rangers will be amused if I send a pack of bloggers - some wearing Islander jerseys - down the hallway to see Jags and Avery. It's simply not my jurisdiction. Who knows - maybe years from now this will get to the point where the NYR bloggers come to see my guys and vice versa. But I don't think we're that enlightened yet, eh?

How many seats do you have in the blog box? And where in the Coliseum is it?

This is very much a work in progress for the summer. Thinking right now is there will be room for about a dozen at each game, but that is very much subject to change. Most likely location at the Coliseum is a section we have in mind at the top of the 200s, a good view right off the concourse about halfway up.

"We understand the perception might be this is our answer to the recent dropoff in some coverage around the league, but that's not the case." What ever do you mean?

There were a lot of stories, especially by the media columnists in Canada, about how the finals were not covered by many of the papers in the States. I expect some stories about how this is the first shot across the bough in the battle to increase visibility. Not true. Even if the NYI were covered at the level we were pre-lockout, we would still be doing this. This is about the growth of the new medium, not the dropoff of coverage in the traditional media.

This thing came up recently with the NCAA and live-blogging games. Will bloggers be allowed to live blog?

I'd like to think our friends at Fox Sports NY would not have a cow if some guy from Valley Stream wrote in his blog that the Islanders just scored. But I guess I better talk to them before I give you an unqualified yes. That, and our techies need to start installing power lines and wireless in the Blog Box.

What do you mean, "select" home games? It's not all of them? What about playoff games?

At the rate we're going in just the first 24 hours, the interest is already off the charts. I don't see being able to cred 50 - 100 or more for every game. Let's face it, you know better than anybody you don't have to be at a game to blog. And besides, if I credded these people for every game, we'd likely lose season ticketholders. When I proposed this to ownership, that's not what any of us had in mind.

Do you have some extra security to protect the bloggers? Because they might need it.

If Garth Snow can make his way down from the Garden press box through Ranger fans unprotected, I think our bloggers will be okay.

He's been suspended for 20 games, and this would add a ton of intrigue and drama to the NHL playoffs ... if the Islanders weren't eliminated from the playoffs last night. Hill-less, they went out and lost 4-3 to Buffalo, eliminating them from the postseason. That's too bad. The NHL really could've used the publicity that a massive steroid scandal would bring.

Barring appeals and such, that leaves 19 games on his suspension to carry over to next year. I can't tell you what sort of effect that will have on the Islanders. Sean Hill had but one goal this year, but maybe he's one of those mucker/grinder types who punches European people in the face and makes Don Cherry delight with glee. Maybe he's a great defensive player. Maybe he pulled his dick out at a fashion show. I have no idea.

Sabres 4, Islanders 3 [NHL.com]
Islanders' Sean Hill Suspended 20 Games [Chippewa.com]

DiPietro did take a shot in the head the night before, but you know, "general body soreness" could really be caused by anything. Not enough sleep, arthritis, the flu, getting trapped under a Buick, or being made love to by Shaquille O'Neal. DiPietro was able to walk, however, so I think we can rule out that last option.

If Nolan really wants to start screwing with NHL injury reports, though, I think he should try, "period is three days late," and "hot dog fingers."

General Body Soreness [HockeyDirt.com]

Because we've never really shown it, here's the tomahawk chop by the Islanders' Chris Simon on the Rangers' Ryan Hollweg from Thursday. After mulling the attack over the weekend, the NHL doled out a 25-game suspension for Hollweg for thrusting his neck at Simon in a vicious manner. Or, no, the other way around actually. Sorry.

Just to prove how fast hockey is, the announcer initially says of the foul "I think he's going to get five minutes for that." Try the remainder of the regular season, plus the playoffs (If the Islanders play fewer than 10 playoff games this year, the suspension will carry over to next season). That's an NHL record, which confuses us. Because as bad as this is, it doesn't seem quite as vicious as some other shenanigans on frozen water surfaces we've seen, such as the infamous incident below, for which Marty McSorley drew 23 games. At least Simon's clout wasn't premeditated.

And something we hadn't realized before: A great Billy Packer moment, as one of the announcers says while watching the replay: "In all fairness to McSorley, I think he was trying to tap him on his shoulder." Yeeeaahhh. That's what he was doing.

Simon Suspended For Regular Season, Playoffs [MSNBC]

But he might have pulled the biggest doozy today: He has signed Rick DiPietro — the guy he himself was backing up just last year — to a 15-year contract. That's right: 15 years. It's $4.5 million a year ... for 15 years.

It's the longest contract in NHL history, and the second-longest in American professional sports history, behind Magic Johnson's 25-year, $25 million with the Lakers in 1981, which, now that we look at it, doesn't seem all that great a deal at all. DiPietro is guaranteed the whole $65 million even if he gets hurt; at the end of the contract, he will be 40. Or three years older than Garth Snow, right now.

DiPietro An Isle For Life [SportsNet]
Who Knew Strange Things Happened In Long Island? [Deadspin]

(By the way, with the Islanders, this very well could have been negotiated by insane owner Charles Wang himself, which wouldn't be that surprising.)

(UPDATE: It looks like the NHL is considering not approving the deal.)

Fortunately, there is the great Off Wing Opinion, which has the comprehensive look at this debacle from all angles, and the consensus is clear: The Islanders actually seem more poorly run than the Knicks, and that's just a staggering statement to make.

Remember: They hired a guy to be GM, fired him after one month and then hired the goalie.

Smith Out, Snow In As Islanders GM [Off Wing Opinion]

(UPDATE: Puck Update has some rejected GM candidates. Party on!)

(SECOND UPDATE: By the way, after the jump, a couple of photos of Snow and what he might have done to celebrate his new gig.)

We received a package in the mail today from The [New York] Islanders. Being life-long Rangers fans, my first inclination was to toss it. But curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it to find a "Family Fun" brochure. What got me were several things:

• Ride on the Zamboni between periods for $250. Or drop the puck at center ice for $500, or stand behind the radio broadcasters for a period (insert your own comment here) for $250.

• High-Five the team (HUH?) for $100. Does that include spit?

The other things that really got me was "Bring Sparky and the Ice Girls to Your Event." Seems you can "make a bang" (I'm not joking, this is in the copy!) at your next "family party" by inviting the Islanders cheerleaders — well, either "Sparky" or one "Ice Girl" starting at $150 for two hours. So, what do they do for two hours? Hmmm.

Honestly, we are getting out our checkbooks right now and writing a check for $100. We have always dreamed of high-fiving Petteri
Nokelainen, Oleg Kvasha, Janne Niinimaa and Mattias Weinhandl. Question, though: Do we have to be wearing skates when we high-five them? Because we'd probably fall down.

New York Islanders [Official Site]