Keeping Islanders is their goal

By profession, Robert Valli Jr. is a lawyer at a Garden City firm, Valli Kane & Vagnini.

But in his imagination at least, Valli is skating across the blue line as a member of the Islanders hockey team, lining up a shot on goal at the Nassau Coliseum.

Valli, 45, was at most of the Stanley Cup playoff games when the Islanders were on fire in the early 1980s, a period when they won four consecutive NHL titles beginning with the 1979-80 seasons.

Valli can't stand the thought of losing the Isles, even though they are hardly the team today that they were in the '80s. So he has formed the first private organization to try and save the team -- the Association for a New Nassau Coliseum, which Valli expects will soon have thousands of members ready to turn out for events all summer long in support of keeping the team on Long Island.

The only way to do that, Valli said, is to build a new Coliseum, whether it is Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano's plan or some other plan. So far, Valli said, the organization's membership has eight people.

"We're going to create a grassroots campaign," Valli said Tuesday at a rally, attended by about 100 people, at a restaurant on Hempstead Turnpike down the street from the arena, aimed at supporting a bill in the Nassau legislature to allow the public to vote on whether to borrow $400 million to build a new Coliseum.

Valli said his organization will use an information-technology company to create a website that will keep supporters informed of rallies and other Islander and Coliseum-related information.

"Everyone is looking at this as a short-term issue," Valli said. "But we have to look at this as a potential investment in our future and the future of our children. What do we lose if we lose the Coliseum? There are car shows, boat shows, that bring in revenue. And how many jobs would be lost?"

Valli said his 14-year-old son, Robert Valli III, got the ball -- or the puck -- rolling. "He said, 'Dad we're going to lose the Islanders. What are we going to do?' " Valli said. "I said we'll do what we always do, fight."