Owners of Barclays Centre pitch it as New York Islanders future facility-NHL News
The owners of the state-of-the-art facility in New York, Barclays’ Centre, have offered to play hosts to the New York Islanders as they aim to accommodate the National Hockey League (NHL) games in the centre permanently in the future.
Brooklyn's new centre, which is located in heart of the city, will start hosting the National Basketball Association (NBA) games next year.
Bruce Ratner, the developer and owner of the facility, is hoping to attract the ice hockey games to the facility permanently.
Given the centre has an ice room and lockers for both games, the owner is confident about capacity of the facility to organise the ice hockey games successfully.
The Islanders, who do not own a facility and are looking for one, can be attracted to accommodate their training and game related activities there.
Although there is no word of willingness or rejection from Islanders’ managers, the owner of the centre is hopeful about the prospects. He said:
"(Barclays Centre) was made for hockey and basketball. It could easily support a hockey team. It holds 14,500 for hockey."
Islanders currently use the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale. However, the facility is on the lease, which is going to expire after the 2014-2015 season.
Islanders’ owner, Charles Wang, has already said that they will not be using that facility after expiry of the previous lease, which could possibly make them look for alternative options such as Barclays Centre.
Meanwhile, NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, has also ruled out that Islanders will use Nassau facility after 2015 but he said the team can stay at the place in the longer run.
Still, the commissioner has said to be flexible and can accommodate their relocation to some other place in the city.
The way situation has been projected to develop, the Barclays Centre remains as an attractive place for Islanders. To start with, the developers said they are happy to play hosts to the NBA games from next season.
This can also prove their potential for hosting ice hockey games. Furthermore, they can also organise some of the NHL games to prove success of the facility for the ice hockey events.
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