Islander News Articles 6/25

New York Islander Fan Central | 6/25/2008 03:53:00 AM | | | | | | | | |
Minnesota Daily: Brian Deutsch writes how Islander prospect Aaron Ness will fit on the Gophers this fall is one of the biggest mysteries in college hockey right now, along with the writer including Ness did not have much to say or was happy about not being drafted in the first round Saturday.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Should be interesting if Ness follows through on his comment he will come up to the Islanders when they think he is ready. Seems as though Aaron Ness is giving early notice to Don Lucia that the NHL is the priority for him.

Sarnia Observer: Dave Borody reports Jon Sim, former Islander Alan Letang, Justin DiBenedetto, Matt Martin, Sound Tigers Jamie Fraser will participate in the annual Sarnia Sting Golf Tournament for Sunshine, presented by Bell and Labatt, July 24 at Huron Oaks Golf Club.

NY Times: Michael Brick had former Islander Brent Hughes comments about the Austin Ice Bats club he coached twice ceasing operations along with the promotion guaranteed fight night for it's fans.

Toronto Sun: Lance Hornsby reports the Isles could have interest in waived forward Kyle Wellwood and that Andrew Raycoft, & Scott Clemmenson were also placed on waivers along with Darcy Tucker being bought out of the final three years of his contract by Toronto as of Wednesday.

Sportsnet.ca: Chris Nichols does a fantasy breakdown of the top picks in the NHL with a profile Islanders selection Josh Bailey.

Los Angeles: Eric Stephens reports on Ducks owner Henry Samueli was suspended indefinitely by the NHL for his role in an alleged stock option scheme but he will remain an the owners and that it will be business as usual for the most part but they won't be involved with the team until an August 18th hearing.

Nashvill Tennessean: Brad Schrade has more on Predators investor William Del Biaggio entering bankruptcy court as he lists his share in the Predators as his top asset showing he owes creditors $88.4 million but that the Nashville-based investors that makes up the other owners, led by former medical waste company owner David Freeman say this will not effect operations.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
I always find it kind of sad when Gary Bettman gets the blame for situations like this where people buy sports teams or attempt to purchase teams with no revenue to do so but try anyway and are good at hiding their trail for a while. The Ducks situtation is obviously different from Nashville.

Of course it's easy to get annoyed at Bettman when a con-man like John Spano surfaced and defrauded many but he tried to purchase a lot of teams before the Islanders so they did have plenty of opportunity to investitage him in advance. You can only put so many safeguards into a system in the end.

Also despite some perception Bettman is an elected king with authority beyond anyone else he answers to the others owners and what the decide is what he has to do in most instances.

That's why there are so many Board of Governors meetings.

Ct Post: Michael Fornabaio in his blog is already hoping to get some RFA answers for the deadline which is today.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
This is what I expect Greg Logan to be promising for Islander fans in Newsday's blog today.

Espn.com: Scott Burnside has the new Lightning owners along with new coach Barry Melrose and adds if the NHL had more owners like that, and fewer under investigation, the league would be a much more happening place.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
To be fair here Mr Burnside does talk about the potential downside of hiring the now former Espn announcer nor does he hide Melrose past coaching record. Having written that when Charles Wang took those kinds of chances writers like Mr Burnside were not this open-minded with the commentary.

Funny how in this article the new Bolt ownership is also going all out to copy Mr Wang in giving out a huge long-term contract off the bat.