The Islanders are returning to the Coliseum — for one preseason game.
The team announced Thursday they will open their preseason Sept. 17 by playing host to the Flyers at NYCB Live, home of the newly refurbished Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, for a Sunday 1.pm. matinee. Tickets go on sale June 29 (earlier for season-ticket holders).
The Islanders haven’t been back to the Coliseum since they left for Brooklyn’s Barclays Center after the 2014-15 season. It has been a rough go in Brooklyn, and owners Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin are looking at other options for a home rink for the future.
The Coliseum just underwent a $165 million renovation by Bruce Ratner, who originally developed Barclays Center before selling his stake. Part of his proposal to Nassau County that won him the bid to renovate the old building was the Islanders would play six games there per year — two in preseason and four in the regular season — for the next decade.
The NHL has confirmed no regular-season games will be played this season at the downsized Coliseum, which now has a capacity of 13,900 for hockey games. (The full NHL regular-season schedule is set to come out in the next week or so.) Despite getting one preseason game, Ratner remains vulnerable to a monetary penalty from the county for not coming through on what he promised in his bid.
The hope was the new Coliseum would be the home to a minor league team, at first thought to be the Islanders’ AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. But that was halted once they developed the pipe dream that the Islanders might come back — which at this point seems like an impossibility.
Ledecky and Malkin likely arewaiting for the state to open up a window of Request for Proposal (RFP) to submit a plan to build a new arena next to Belmont Park race track. They reportedly also might be interested in developing the Willets Point area near Citi Field.
This adds one more wrinkle into the Islanders’ scattered preseason schedule, which also includes at game against the Rangers at Webster Bank Arena, the current home of the Sound Tigers in Bridgeport, as well as a game against the Flyers at their minor league arena in Allentown, Pa.