I know some of you are excited about Brooklyn after the interview with Ratner the other day during the Islanders intermission. While others are concern because of the New York Times article from a few weeks ago where the head of construction of the Barclays Center said the arena will use a horseshoe layout (at least for the lower bowl) for hockey.
According to Robert Sanna, Forest City Ratner’s executive vice president for construction and design development, the seating capacity will be reduced to 14,500 from 18,000 for basketball, which would make it the league’s smallest rink. Retractable seats will mostly be collapsed on one end, closest to the Atlantic Terminal side, and therefore the alignment around the rink will resemble a horseshoe.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/nyregion/at-barclays-center-islanders-to-play-where-hockey-was-an-afterthought.html?_r=3
John Brenan wrote an article on the topic and made a fair point about the layout of the arena.
Meanwhile, that Oct. 2 game will be one of the most important ones in Islanders’ preseason history.
No matter how many studies the Islanders and Barclays Center do, there is no market research that matches having real NHL fans in the building letting you know which sightlines are acceptable and which are not.http://blog.northjersey.com/meadowlandsmatters/2228/brooklyn-buzz/
The more seats turn out to be legitimately sellable on game nights, the better it is for the Islanders –and for the Barclays Center, which would get some Long Island folks into the building once the Islanders arrived who might not make the trek otherwise. If those fans like the arena, they’ll come back for more events, which means more money for the Barclays Center.
Without a doubt Brooklyn and its design for hockey is a last resort for the team to stay in New York, but I believe that we have reached that point.
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