Devils and Islanders to Play Preseason Game at Barclays Center

To quote Bart Scott, I can’t wait for this thing to be built!

According to a press release by New York Islanders GM Garth Snow, the Islanders and New Jersey Devils will play the first ever hockey game at the currently-being-built Barclays Center on October 2nd, 2012 in a preseason match-up between the two clubs. The Barclays Center have been tossed around as a possibly permanent home for the Islanders who have been playing in the outdated Nassau Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale until the franchise can find a new home.

I’m certainly looking forward to having the possibility to go to that game because right now, I would go to almost any event at the Barclays Center until the Nets open up there sometime next fall. I also think it would be pretty cool if the Islanders and Nets were co-tenants at the Barclays because it might introduce some NHL fans to the NBA as Nets fans and the bigger the fan-base the Nets grow when they move to Brooklyn, the better the atmosphere at the arena will be and hopefully, the better the product out on the court.

A major snag of the Islanders potential move is that the Barclays only seats around 14,500 for hockey which currently would function as the smallest seating capacity in the NHL, just less than the MTS Centre, where the Winnipeg Jets play their home games.