On a day when the Barclays Center Twitter feed pointed fans to the outline of a hockey pad on the arena floor, the commissioner of the NHL appeared to throw cold water on the idea of moving the Islanders to Brooklyn. The reason he cited was not the arena's limited capacity for hockey, but its location.
Brooklyn, he told AP Sports Editors, is hard to reach for the team's fan base in Long Island and Queens ... despite the presence of the LIRR Atlantic Terminal at the arena's front door. Bettman added that the league was helping the Islanders explore their options "in the metropolitan area" and that moving the team to outside New York was not currently being considered. The Islanders have a lease at Nassau Coliseum that runs through 2015 and a lucrative TV deal with Cablevision that will pay them $30 million a year in 2031.