The New York Islanders’ move to the Barclays Center has been filled with problems which is why rumors are swirling again surrounding yet another move for the Isles. In March, the Islanders called out the “awful” ice at the Barclays Center and how it’s impossible to play quality hockey when the ice is in that bad. Now it is being reported that the problem could be a structural problem which would require some massive changes.
[link_box id=”22277″ site_id=”17″ layout=”link-box-third” alignment=”alignright”]According to the report, the Barclays Center has PVC piping beneath the floor which doesn’t meet the NHL requirements which call for steel piping in order to allow an ideal temperature of 21 degrees.
1. NHL source: Floor piping system at Barclays Center in Brooklyn does not meet NHL standard requirements for ice-making.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) October 22, 2016
2. Barclays has PVC piping. All other NHL rinks have steel pipes. PVC cannot maintain ideal temp of 21 degrees for NHL play.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) October 22, 2016
3. Only solution is to tear up Barclays Center floor and install proper piping.
Not easy, but should have been done in offseason.— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) October 22, 2016
4. Arena mgt knows this and hasn't fixed it yet, which is inexcusable, brings down caliber of play and is potentially dangerous.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) October 22, 2016
Barclays ice will be fine when weather is freezing. But (heaven forbid) there's a long Cup run someday…disastah.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) October 22, 2016
6. New Islanders owners want to fix the ice problem. Likely another big reason they are looking at other arena deals.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) October 22, 2016
And that's all I got. Hope it gets fixed. Players need to be safe. NHL play should be elite. Fans and Islanders deserve the best.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) October 22, 2016
This sounds like a massive problem which doesn’t have an easy solution. Assuming the old owners knew about the issue prior to moving, this just piles on all of the other complaints surrounding the old group. Seeing as the ice was already in awful shape last March, warm weather near the end of the season could be a disaster. Even if the Islanders don’t make a deep playoff run, the recent warming trend could prevent big problems for the ice sooner than later.
Did the NHL know about this? Surely they would examine all aspects of an arena before it hosts an NHL team, so it seems pretty likely that this problem was known before the Isles moved.
Based on the information regarding the ice and all of the other issues (those sight lines for hockey fans are just awful), a future move for the Islanders seems pretty likely.
