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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; The Isles are stuck in the Nassau Coliseum until their lease runs out in 2015. (Rich Stieglitz/Icon SMI)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;By Stu Hackel&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Monday\u00A0in New York's\u00A0Nassau County, a mere 104,000 voters -- or about one-tenth of the population --\u00A0turned out to turn down a new arena for the Islanders, among other projects.\u00A0 &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Team owner Charles Wang didn't say much after the results were clear other than to express his disappointment and heartbreak, and promise to honor the team's lease at crumbling Nassau Coliseum until it runs out (video).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That leaves the distinct impression in many quarters that the Islanders won't be around after that. They're going to Brooklyn! They're going to Kansas City! They're going to Quebec! They're going to Portland! They're going to Seattle! They're going to Hamilton! They're going to Hartford!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They're going nowhere.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Islanders were rejected by the voters because not enough people were motivated to vote, just\u00A0as not enough people are motivated to attend their games. And why is that? Because this team hasn't been a winner in a long time. But when the Isles were champions\u00A0or simply contenders, they were a tough ticket, a wildly and passionately supported club. And because\u00A0Long Island\u00A0is a proven market, that's all the NHL needs know.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is, for lack of a better term, The Bettman\u00A0Doctrine (or the second version of it after he was all about franchise-relocation and \"growing the game's footprint\" early in his tenure). No\u00A0franchise gets moved if the league believes\u00A0the team\u00A0has been or can be a success where it is and an owner -- any owner -- is\u00A0willing to keep it there. Charles Wang may not want to keep the Islanders on the Island, but Gary Bettman will find someone else who does.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, Bettman\u00A0has not always been on top of his game when locating owners for the Isles. To review, there was the John Spano swindle followed by the Milstein-Gluckstern debacle\u00A0prior to\u00A0the purchase\u00A0of the team\u00A0by Charles Wang and his proteg\u00E9 Sanjay Kumar, the top two executives at Computer Associates. Kumar is now serving\u00A012 years\u00A0for securities fraud and obstruction of justice. Kumar accused Wang of being the brains behind the $2.2 billion accounting fraud that sent him\u00A0to jail and nearly destroyed CA, but Wang was investigated and not prosecuted. He bought Kumar's share of the Isles in 2006 and reinvented himself as a real estate magnate, but his massive\u00A0Lighthouse Project development project\u00A0didn't pan out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That dubious track record, however, doesn't mean a worthy owner like Terry Pegula, who purchased the Sabres,\u00A0or the True North group that bought and moved the Thrashers, can't be located and successfully courted by the NHL for the Islanders. We're not talking about a poorly located franchise here. This isn't Glendale, AZ. We are talking about a team that has been historically mismanaged on a massive scale, but that\u00A0now\u00A0has a good amount of young talent\u00A0and a home in\u00A0a relatively prosperous region with\u00A0an obsolete arena.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The\u00A0Islanders are\u00A0a classic \"handyman's special,\" and if Wang plays his cards right, someone will come along and buy them, maybe even give him something closer to the $187.5 million\u00A0that he and Kumar paid for\u00A0the team\u00A0than the $151 million that\u00A0&lt;em&gt;Forbes&lt;/em&gt;\u00A0says\u00A0is the club's value. The new owner can become the hero of Long Island, finance a new arena on his own, spend money to finish the job of building a winner, pack his new building and make everyone happy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Think no one is out there who can do that? Think -- and I can't believe I'm typing this name -- Jim Balsillie.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once upon a time not long ago, I thought Mr. Balsillie, great hockey guy that he is, would never get a sniff at another NHL club (I've even made a bet with a friend on it), and with good reason, considering his backdoor attempt to hijack the Coyotes and move them to Hamilton. That\u00A0gave everyone involved a\u00A0huge black eye (except maybe for bankruptcy judge Redfield T. Baum). That was enough\u00A0to make him &lt;em&gt;persona non grata&lt;/em&gt; in the NHL owners club, not to mention his previous dalliances with the Penguins and Predators. But Forbes reported in June\u00A0that Bettman\u00A0told Balsillie that\u00A0if he behaved himself, he could still buy an NHL club one day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That day is here.\u00A0Balsillie\u00A0can become the Terry Pegula of Long Island.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;OK, maybe Balsillie\u00A0isn't the right guy. Maybe he only wants to be a hero in Canada and couldn't care less\u00A0about the Islanders unless he can move them north. And that's fine, but that's not going to work for Mr. Bettman. If not Balsillie, there is\u00A0someone out there for this team.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The hot rumor is that NBA Nets' owner Mikhail Prokhorov\u00A0buying the Isles\u00A0and moving them to Brooklyn, but is it really in the best long-term interests of the Islanders to move them away from their established fan base into Brooklyn, 26 miles west of where they currently play, and into a borough where most of those who are hockey fans have traditionally cheered for the rival Rangers? The huge number of Islanders fans who live east of Uniondale, in Suffolk County, would be loathe to travel into Brooklyn to see home games.\u00A0 Bettman has already seen that happen in Arizona, where the fanbase the Coyotes established in the East Valley during their years playing in downtown Phoenix hasn't migrated in great numbers to watch them play in Glendale. An Islanders' move to the Barclays Center might very well turn out to be a Phyric victory.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And is it really in the best interests of NHL, having three teams within 15 miles of each other? Those are probably just some of the reasons Bettman said on Tuesday, \u201COur goal is for the team to remain on Long Island and we still hope that objective can be realized.\"&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, nothing is impossible in the modern business of sports, but judging by the tenets of the Bettman Doctrine and Bettman's own words, the Brooklyn option or a new arena in Queens for the Islanders is not what the NHL wants.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One thing is sure: the NHL will do all it can to keep the Isles on the Island. They just need to find someone to save the day.\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/nhl/home-ice/2011/08/02/islanders-are-going-nowhere>