Pat LaFontaine and the impossible price tag
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We all know by now that the Islanders are perhaps the worst-run organization in the NHL, with all apologies to Phoenix.
There is just something about Charles Wang’s deathlock on the Isles that seems to not only sap the team of its ability to be in any way likable or successful, but also to ensure that all its missteps are considerable, and its attempts to appear relevant laughable. Witness, for instance, the Islanders being the only team in the National Hockey League, to my knowledge, that has an in-arena tattoo parlor, for those fans who want to talk about and commemorate 1980-84 like it wasn’t 30 years ago or whatever.
People have long called for Wang to sell the team, but it doesn’t seem likely. The Nassau Coliseum, itself decaying around the decades-decaying team inside it, can’t be gotten rid of because the county in which it’s located won’t approve a replacement. The team might move to Brooklyn or Kansas City or Quebec or literally anywhere that isn’t Long Island, but it probably won’t. Rick DiPietro, meanwhile, is still signed through like 2170.
Islanders fans have long hoped for someone, almost literally anyone, to take over this team. They might even accept you, dear reader.
Enter Pat LaFontaine, and a shadowy cabal of European investors, but mainly Pat LaFontaine. Remember that guy? The guy Wang has basically tried to write out of the Islanders’ history books might buy the team. Yeah, okay.
First sign that LaFontaine won’t buy this team unless he’s backed by Sir Richard Branson — The New York Virgin Islanders! — Wang’s asking price is, get this, THREE-HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. A three, then two zeros, then six more zeros. Really. For the Islanders, a team that is losing $40 million a season.
When you’re dealing with any Islanders-related rumors, the first thing you’ll have to ask yourself is, “Am I stupid?” If the answer is yes, then please, feel free to believe any kind of cockamamie garbage the rumor-pusher of the week is trying to get you to swallow. If the answer is no, then congratulations, you fully understand the lengths to which Charles Wang will go just to be a jerk for no reason and continue to torture the few fans his previous actions haven’t actively driven away.
This franchise is a joke, and will be until Wang sells, which will be never. He’s like a slightly less evil Bill Wirtz if Wirtz also told Stan Mikita to take a hike.
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