Bound for glory.

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Can we score/win please?

I want my free chili! Score 3 for me!!!

Take the shot!!! – eventually it’ll go in.

In this installment of Islanders Top Shelf video, Dee Karl interviews Bobby Nystrom about his involvement in the MetRX "Skate With The Greats" event and a variety of other topics.

Greetings bloggers,

This article is an update from one I created several years ago regarding the state of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the NYI blogging community.

There has been a sharp drop in the amount of "live" blogs (blogs that are up to date and that haven't been abandoned). Also, please bear in mind that this was done for fun and is not a critical evaluation of how good your site is. My apologies if you have an Islanders blog and I didn't list it. Please leave a comment on the page and I will be happy to add it.

I was curious how the blogs relate to each other, or more specifically rank against one another according to different ranking systems so I did some checks using Firefox and the SEO Quake Addon.

I just made a Facebook Page for this website. I'll be tweaking it and trying to uncover why I went through the effort of creating this over the next several days. Apparently, if you like this site, you should click on the like link and officially like Yes! Islanders. I'd appreciate it if you did. Thank you much, and stay tuned for more.

It's that time of year. Not much going on in the hockey world for the general public to consume so I spent some time with Dee Karl, aka the 7th woman, consuming some freshly baked New York Islanders cupcakes at the Cupcake Gourmet in Huntington Village. Amy, the owner, was kind enough to whip us up some snacks, similar to the ones that will be sold at the coliseum during home games for the 2010 - 2011 season.

What is the NYI I.C.E. tour?

From NYI.com

The goal of the New York Islanders is to have the ability to reach out and touch the lives of people throughout the community. The Islanders strive to involve the fans interactively, making them become better involved with the organization. The New York Islanders I.C.E. Tour is an interactive NHL theme park geared towards achieving this goal each time they step foot in the community. The tour reaches out to local schools, community festivals, hockey rinks, charity events, and neighborhoods. The objective of the I.C.E. tour is to make Long Islanders know they are fundamentally part of the Islanders community 365 days of the year, while keeping the game of hockey alive all year long.

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The Isles had an impressive 23-14-4 record at home during the 2009 - 2010 season. Looks like that old barn is good for something. Too bad the team had an even more lopsided record of 11-23-7 on the road. These stats bring up some seriously obvious questions. Why can't the team win on the road? My hunch is that it means that they are an emotional team and feed off the home fans to an extreme, and vice versa can be affected negatively on the road. It's up to coach Gordon to help even them out and keep them playing 3 full periods every game.

Now with free agent Ilya Kovalchuk signing with the Devils, there is one less piece of drama in Islanders Country. We all knew it was too good to be true, a pure goal scorer to lead the team into the promised land. That 10 year/100 million dollar contract offer sounded just crazy enough to be true. Haha. Slow down though... I have to admit being swept up into the idea that the Isles were going to make a big statement, however, I've seen nothing yet that shows that "The Regime" is going to stray from the hard core draft-first rebuild.

In other news:

Official Islander cupcakes? Yeah, I'm going to hit that store up this week to see if they really have what it takes to be the official cupcake of the Islanders. You'd better be one bad ass cupcake to handle that job...

Orange and Blue Scrimmage and Skills Competition:

I have to admit, I thought the name Nino Niederreiter was very similar to the name Ned Nederlander (the character from the movie 3 Amigos) from the day El Nino was drafted. The PA announcer at the Orange vs. Blue scrimmage felt so too as he misspoke and called Nino Niederreiter - Nino Nederlander.

Here some clips of the two:

Ned Nederlander:

Nino Niederreiter:

While I was at the Orange vs. Blue scrimmage and skills competition, I had the opportunity to ask several fans, blog boxers, and journalists what they thought of the prospects and the day. I would have had more but I learned that we aren't allowed to make videos in certain areas and it happened to be where we were doing our interviews with the players. Note to self: If you get the Blog Box gig, get a voice recorder.

The Islanders prospect camp began this week, and culminated with their Orange vs. Blue scrimmage and skills competition on July 10th, 2010. I was given the privilege of sitting with the blog boxers and allowed to interview several players and coach Gordon.

I was hyped up before the scrimmage, and was having daydreams of what might transpire. I had delusions of Nino Niederreiter going end to end, carrying 5 defenders on his back while he deked the goalie for the magical goal. I imagined the local guys called in to participate in the game were going to amount to nothing more than pylons like the Washington Generals, the Harlem Globetrotters long time foil. I'm not sure why I thought that some players would play this scrimmage as if they were men playing against children. I suppose that is one thing I learned from tonight. There were players that stood out, but noone really looked like Wayne or Mario.

The team's prospects will be participating in the orange vs. blue skills competition and scrimmage Saturday, July 7th @ 7 PM. Tickets are available on the Islanders' main website. I'll also be there evaluating the talent in the hopes of being hired to fill Ryan Jankowski's old job. I know, Garth Snow is taking over the scouting reigns but I am hoping my acute ability to eat hot dogs and guzzle beers all while watching the youngsters play will be more than enough to solidify my place in the teams' history books as director of amateur scouting and possibly even assistant GM. I'm not the kind of assistant that makes coffee for my boss though so let's get that out of the way right away.

Honestly, I'll be there trying to see who stands out. They are all at different stages of their young careers, and I will use some common sense in relaying the little things that I can observe from the bunch.

The Islanders are making changes. Or are they?

The draft: Pundits say the Isles did well. Only time will tell. Do you think any players from this year's draft have a chance at playing for the team full time this year? I honestly don't. They'll need to be absolutely amazing to stick. I'm not expecting any of them to impact the team this year. Again, that isn't to say they didn't do a great job. I choose to remain optimistic about the youngsters.

Free agency: Minor changes and hopes of recycling some 3rd and 4th line talent. Will there be a diamond among the lot of Milan Jurcina, Mark Eaton, Zenon Konopand, and Pierre-Alexandr Parenteau? What we do know is that there haven't been any major additions. The Islanders could really use a game-changer, a sexy name that will win games and sell tickets. No one on the team has shown that ability on a constant basis. Not yet anyway. JT may get there this year.

The Islanders were quiet on day one. believes they were outbid for Paul Martin and Dan Hamhui.

As expected, the Isles lose several free agents. They cede UFA's Martin Biron (to the NYR), Jeff Tambellini (to the Canucks), and Tim Jackman (to the Flames). I'd like to say I wish them all the best but honestly, I've got nothing. I do wonder, however, if Tim Jackman got a sore deal. If he didn't get sucker punched and didn't have to wear that goofy cage (and not be allowed to fight), if he would have been able to do enough to remain an Islander.

Here is a video showing another vantage point of the fan response to picking Nino Niederreiter with the #5 overall draft choice at the 2010 coliseum draft party.

You'll notice some people making noise and being excited, but many people were sitting in their seats with little response, positive or negative. I was surprised by the pick, and apparently so were the majority of fans in attendance. One thing most Islanders fans have come to expect from the Garth Snow Regime, is that they are willing to go after their guy no matter what anyone else thinks.

As I've said numerous times, only time will deliver the verdict regarding which team did the best job in this year's draft. I appreciate them drafting some bigger guys though. I hope it means that they see and are trying to address the same issues I see about team size and strength on the puck.

I noticed this earlier today. Maybe it is just the photo but doesn't Nino looks like Eminem?