2010 marked the 30th anniversary of the 1980 Stanley Cup win of the remarkable Islanders. They would go on to win the Cup four straight seasons and build a hockey dynasty. 

Sports

Hockey

New York Islanders

ny-spisles30th

Thirty years later, the truth can be told. The play that will live forever began with a pass that the Islanders would not recommend in a million years. 
"<a href="/topics/Al_Arbour">Al Arbour</a> said that he would have choked me if we hadn't scored," Lorne Henning said from Vancouver this past week, referring to what hockey people call a "back-ice pass." Players recall that the coach had a strict rule against looping back into their own zone and passing against the flow, as Henning did in overtime against the Flyers at <a href="/topics/Nassau_Coliseum">Nassau Coliseum</a> on Saturday afternoon, May 24, 1980. 
Radio play-by-play man Bob Lawrence described it: "Henning comes back to his own blue line and shoots it up ice for Tonelli . . . " 
"If that gets picked off, do you know how many guys get trapped?" former general manager Bill Torrey said from <a href="/topics/Florida">Florida</a>. "But I always tell Lorne, there's no arguing with skill." 
There's no arguing with history, either, and it reads like this: Henning made a terrific pass to left wing John Tonelli, who was heading up the right side. Tonelli "laid a perfect pass on my stick," said Bob Nystrom, who got a step on Flyers defenseman Bob Dailey and tapped in a goal that resounds to this day. 
"It was just phenomenal," Nystrom said. "It changed my life." 
Nystrom has been on Long Island ever since: as a businessman, youth coach and charitable volunteer. But it wasn't just his life that was affected when he beat Pete Peeters at 7:11 of overtime to win the Stanley Cup. It changed the Islanders and the Island. As <a href="/topics/Bryan_Trottier">Bryan</a> <a href="/topics/Bryan_Trottier">Trottier</a> said this past week, "It's still the biggest moment in my life." 
The Islanders transformed their reputation from "chokers" to one of the great clutch teams in pro sports history. Their reign would comprise four straight Stanley Cups and an unprecedented 19 consecutive playoff series wins. Torrey, Arbour and five players would make the Hall of Fame. The Coliseum would add luxury suites and a press box. Management would negotiate what was considered the most lucrative cable TV contract in sports. Players would go on to successful careers in hockey and other businesses. Youth hockey would blossom on Long Island, producing a bunch of <a href="/topics/National_Hockey_League">National Hockey League</a> players. 
Maybe some or all of that would have happened anyway, but there is no denying that the Islanders couldn't have won four Cups without having won the first. Had the Islanders not come through on that warm <a href="/topics/Memorial_Day">Memorial Day</a> weekend 30 years ago, who knows if people today would be so passionate about the future of the team? Given that then-owner John O. Pickett had just rescued the team from the prospect of bankruptcy, who knows if there still would be such a thing as the <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">New York Islanders</a>? 
"It is certainly a question worth asking," said Pat Calabria, who covered the 1980 Islanders for Newsday, later became a vice president of the franchise and now is an administrator at <a href="/topics/Farmingdale_State_College">Farmingdale State College</a>. "If the team hadn't started to win and increase its value, it might have been in such a position that even John Pickett would have had to give up." 
You couldn't say the 1980 Islanders were running on a shoestring back then, but they did still keep their season-ticket accounts in a shoe box. They lived on a thin margin, especially after ruining two perfectly good regular seasons in 1978 and 1979 by being ousted from the playoffs by the Maple Leafs and <a href="/topics/New_York_Rangers">Rangers</a>. 
"I just remember a feeling of tremendous relief," former defenseman Bob Lorimer said from his office in a <a href="/topics/Toronto">Toronto</a> financial firm. "We had the feeling that if we didn't do it that year, there would have been substantive changes." 
Instead of leaving town, individually or collectively, the Islanders left a legacy. 
"It really put Long Island on the map," said Trottier, the 1980 playoffs' Most Valuable Player and a Hall of Famer. "Little Long Island, a little team with no-names. Long Island had always embraced us, but it really embraced us then. It made us all feel like we had a home." 
"Unless you're my age or older, you don't know how great that was," said current Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, who recalls having been a big fan as a Hofstra student during the Cup years. "The spirit, the feeling in the county, the sense of success and achievement, it was the American dream in many respects." 
Thirty-year-old memories are crystal-clear: 
By that night, Henning (now an executive with the Canucks) was celebrating more than his wife's birthday. His 17-day-old son Brett was photographed atop the Cup. 
Trottier leaped over the boards to join the happy scrum around Nystrom in the corner. "But somebody took my arm out from under me and I ended up doing a header," he said. "I never did make it down to the corner." 
Team publicist Hawley Chester III was so overcome by the heat and emotion that he almost passed out after regulation and had to be treated in the locker room. 
Trainer Ron Waske was relieved and proud of the way players had followed his advice through four brutally physical rounds (with much more to come over the years). "When you look back on it, you shake your head in awe at what that group of men did," he said. 
Torrey and former players still cite the key March acquisition of <a href="/topics/Butch_Goring">Butch Goring</a>, and how draftee Ken Morrow's play for the U.S. Olympic team helped convince the Islanders it was OK to trade defenseman <a href="/topics/Dave_Lewis">Dave Lewis</a> so they could get Goring. 
<a href="/topics/Mike_Bossy">Mike Bossy</a> recalls being elated, and young. "As mature as we were portrayed to be back then, I had just turned 23. Bryan was 23. Clarkie [Gillies] was 26," he said. 
Long Islanders <a href="/topics/Christopher_Higgins">Christopher Higgins</a> of the present-day Flames and <a href="/topics/Mike_Komisarek">Mike Komisarek</a> of the Maple Leafs credit the Islanders' legacy as the genesis for a generation of local pros. One of them, <a href="/topics/Rob_Scuderi">Rob Scuderi</a>, won the Cup last year with the Penguins and brought it home to Nassau. 
Eric Nystrom is part of that legacy, having played for the junior Islanders on his way to the NHL. His dad had a lump in his throat March 25, watching Eric finally play in the old rink. The kid scored a goal. 
Islanders fans can identify. They know how much a Nystrom goal at the Coliseum can mean. "To me, the Islanders are emblematic of a time, the way the Brooklyn Dodgers were," Calabria said. "The way my father told me stories about Duke Snider going on the subway, Islander fans can tell you about running into those Islanders at the supermarket." 
"Sports rallies cities and towns and people," said <a href="/topics/Mike_Bossy">Bossy</a>, who works in the Islanders' business department. "So many people tell me that that day was one of their fondest memories." 
The Islanders still matter dearly to many people, even now, when they are out of the playoffs and possibly headed to Queens or elsewhere. (Said Mangano, "I will do all I can as county executive to make sure the Islanders stay here in Nassau County.") And all these years later, the heart of the matter is the back-ice pass, the goal and everything else from May 24, 1980.

SPISLES23

Could it be 30 years since Islanders won first Stanley Cup?

A few key figures for the Islanders still are doing basically the same jobs they were doing when the team first won the <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a> 30 years ago Monday. Joanne Holewa, manager of hockey administration, and Ralph Sellitti, vice president of ticket operations, still are at their posts. And so is <a href="/topics/Nassau_Coliseum">Nassau Coliseum</a>. 
The latter is the problem for the current team. The home of the Islanders then and now is considered too small and outdated to generate much revenue or attract top free agents. The Coliseum is at the heart of the proposed Lighthouse development and is at the center of all the questions about whether the Islanders will remain on Long Island. 
If events had evolved differently 20 years ago, those questions would have been moot by now. Bill Torrey said this past week that in the early 1990s, when he still was the general manager, the franchise had worked up two proposals. One was for a refurbished Coliseum, the other was for a new building. 
"Somewhere in the bowels of the Coliseum, there are two sets of plans," he said on the phone from his home in <a href="/topics/Florida">Florida</a>. "We even had little scale models of both." 
The new Coliseum would have been built between the current arena and the Long Island Marriott. "The old building would have been turned into a convention center, something Long Island could use," he said. 
The other proposal was to renovate the current building, which present owner <a href="/topics/Charles_Wang">Charles Wang</a> would like to do as part of his Lighthouse project. 
So what happened to those ideas from years ago? "Well, the team changed hands," Torrey said, referring to a series of real estate-minded new owners, beginning with a management team that took over in 1992. 
"I'm still hopeful that somehow the team doesn't have to leave the area. To me, that's where it belongs," said the original general manager, who is an adviser to the <a href="/topics/Florida_Panthers">Florida Panthers</a>. "There's still a lot of time left on their deal with the county. Whether the whole Lighthouse project works or not, I don't know."

SPISIDE23

Former Islanders GM Torrey ponders club's future

<a href="/topics/New_York%2C_NY">New York</a> never has seen a year in hockey like 1980, nor has anywhere else. The United States won the Olympic gold medal at Lake Placid in February; the <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> won the <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a> on Long Island in May. 
What the two events had in common, aside from the state, was Ken Morrow, who was in a state of exhaustion. 
Morrow's season actually had started the previous June with the U.S. Olympic camp. It kept right on going through the pre-Olympic tour, then the Miracle on Ice. 
"I did go home for two days after the gold medal," he said. "Then on the third day, I was on Long Island for the next part of my really long year - and great year." 
During the playoffs, the <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> had pregame skates in the morning at Coliseum and games at night, which meant twice going up and down two flights to the locker room. "The second time,'' Morrow said, "you'd have to hang on to the rail because your legs were so tired." 
That was the same for an Olympian and for veterans who had played 82 games. "You look at pictures and it seems like everyone had lost 10 or 15 pounds,'' he said. "I call the playoffs 'Survival of the Fittest.' "

SPIKEN23

What a year 1980 was for Morrow

Where are they now? Tracking down the 1980 <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a> champion Islanders. 
<a href="/topics/Al_Arbour">Al Arbour</a>, Hall of Fame coach. 
Retired in Longboat Key, Fla., but did come back to coach his 1,500th game in 2007. 
<a href="/topics/Denis_Potvin">Denis Potvin</a>, Hall of Fame defenseman, captain. 
<a href="/topics/Florida">Florida</a> resident had been TV analyst on Panthers games. This season, he became a studio analyst for the <a href="/topics/NHL_Network">NHL Network</a>. 
<a href="/topics/Mike_Bossy">Mike Bossy</a>, Hall of Fame, right wing. 
Splits time between home in his native <a href="/topics/Montreal">Montreal</a> and Long Island, where he works as executive director of the Islanders Business Club. 
<a href="/topics/Clark_Gillies">Clark Gillies</a>, Hall of Fame, left wing. 
Long Island resident and low-handicap golfer is a money manager for Hilton Capital Management and heads the Clark Gillies Foundation, which raises money for children's charities. 
<a href="/topics/Bryan_Trottier">Bryan Trottier</a>, Hall of Fame center. 
Splits time between home in <a href="/topics/Pittsburgh">Pittsburgh</a> and Long Island, where he is the Islanders' executive director of player development. 
<a href="/topics/Billy_Smith">Billy Smith</a>, Hall of Fame, goalie. 
Former Islanders and Panthers goaltending coach, he lives in <a href="/topics/Ottawa">Ottawa</a> and tours with NHL legends for old-timers games. 
Bob Nystrom, right wing. 
Long Island resident and executive vice president of Kinloch Consulting also coordinates Islanders alumni functions and is involved in many local charity endeavors. 
Ken Morrow, defenseman. 
Only player to win an Olympic gold medal and then four consecutive Stanley Cups; lives in <a href="/topics/Kansas_City">Kansas City</a> and is the Islanders' director of pro scouting. 
Glenn "Chico" Resch, goalie. 
Having been traded to <a href="/topics/Colorado">Colorado</a> in 1981, he came back east when the team moved to New Jersey. Now a fixture as analyst on <a href="/topics/New_Jersey_Devils">Devils</a> telecasts, during which he samples concessions at arenas in the segment "Chico Eats." 
Anders Kallur, forward. 
Despite having said upon the arrival of rookie Patrick Flatley in 1984, "He's Flatley, I'm history," he still works for the team as a European scout. 
Bob Lorimer, defenseman. 
Traded to Colorado for future considerations that became No. 1 pick <a href="/topics/Pat_LaFontaine">Pat LaFontaine</a>. Has had an accomplished business career and is vice president of marketing for Sceptre Investment Counsel Ltd. In <a href="/topics/Toronto">Toronto</a>. 
Duane Sutter, left wing. 
Director of player personnel for <a href="/topics/Calgary_Flames">Calgary Flames</a>, working for his brother Darryl, the general manager, and with his brother Brent, the head coach (an Islander for the final two Stanley Cups). 
Lorne Henning, center. 
Coached the <a href="/topics/Minnesota">Minnesota</a> North Stars and Islanders. Settled in <a href="/topics/California">California</a> but spends much of his time in Vancouver, where he is VP of player personnel and assistant GM of the Canucks. 
Bob Bourne, forward. 
Runs a hockey legends camp and is a realtor in Kelowna, B.C. His son Justin, a former minor-league hockey player, is engaged to Clark Gillies' daughter. 
<a href="/topics/Butch_Goring">Butch Goring</a>, center. 
Former Islanders and Bruins head coach is studio analyst on Islanders telecasts and panelist on MSG hockey talk shows. 
Steve Tambellini, forward. 
General manager of the <a href="/topics/Edmonton_Oilers">Edmonton Oilers</a>. His son Jeff plays for the Islanders. 
<a href="/topics/Stefan_Persson">Stefan Persson</a>, defenseman. 
Back home in Sweden; involved in administration of hockey leagues and in private business. 
John Tonelli, left wing. 
Lives in New York City and is senior vice president of Fidelity National Title. 
Wayne Merrick, center. 
Had been in private business in <a href="/topics/London">London</a>, <a href="/topics/Ontario">Ontario</a>, but his old team and teammates have not heard from him in years. 
Gord Lane, defenseman. 
A former Washington Capital as well as an Islanders alumnus, he settled in Columbia, Md., and established a financial services company. 
Dave Langevin, defenseman. 
Back home in Minnesota, where he is a real estate assessor and assistant coach for Edina High School boys hockey team. 
Garry Howatt, forward. 
Ran a driving range in New Jersey; retired to <a href="/topics/Arizona">Arizona</a> and raises horses 
Ron Waske, trainer. 
Retired this past week after 25 years as head athletic trainer at St.. Lawrence University. 
Jim Pickard, equipment manager. 
Retired after working as equipment manager for <a href="/topics/Tampa_Bay_Lightning">Tampa Bay Lightning</a>. 
<a href="/topics/Barbara_Williams">Barbara Williams</a>, skating coach. 
Resides in Kings Park, where she runs a summer hockey school. She is also involved several writing, lecturing and clothing ventures, including a book entitled "Positive Power," due out next spring. 
Jim Devellano, scout. 
Executive vice president of <a href="/topics/Detroit_Red_Wings">Detroit Red Wings</a>, having been general manager and built four Cup winners there. 
<a href="/topics/Neil_Smith">Neil Smith</a>, scout. 
Won 1994 Stanley Cup as Rangers general manager, briefly was Islanders GM in 2006, now is an analyst for NHL Network and other TV outlets. 
Bill Torrey, Hall of Fame GM. 
Lives in Florida and serves as a consultant to the <a href="/topics/Florida_Panthers">Florida Panthers</a>, for whom he had served as president.

SPWHERE23X

Islanders flashback: Where are they now?

UNIONDALE - With shrieks of joy and tears of exhaustion, Bobby Nystrom wobbled off the ice after his goal at 7:11 of overtime and planted a kiss on the Stanley Cup. To that, he said: "Can you believe it?" 
The Islanders believed. 
Eight years, 11 months and 18 days after the franchise was christened in the poverty of an expansion draft, the Islanders had a 5-4 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers. They had their emotions. And they had the Stanley Cup. 
With the sixth game of the final series ending on Nystrom's sudden, spectacular goal, Nassau Coliseum erupted, ribbons of confetti showered the ice and the words of the players shook at the thought of it all. Those who could speak, anyway. 
"All I want to do is cry," Bob Bourne said. "Cry, cry, cry, that's all." And he did. 
After 101 games, and after taking a two-goal lead and then watching it evaporate in the third period, the team ended its longest season. The ending came, appropriately enough, through the efforts of two players who were there from the beginning. 
The Flyers had rallied from a 4-2 deficit to tie the score and send the game into overtime. The Islanders had trouble rallying their own enthusiasm. "Worried?" Dave Langevin. "Wouldn't you be?" 
But in the overtime, goalie Bill Smith preserved the game after a spray of shots and then Lorne Henning, a member of the first team in 1972, poked the puck ahead to John Tonelli. The race was on. 
Tonelli skated up the right flank and twisted past defenseman Andre Dupont. "That's when I saw Bobby out of the corner of my eye," he said. Nystrom raced past Bob Dailey to the doorstep of the net and Tonelli snapped a pass. 
In one quick motion, Nystrom - a member of the first team in 1972 - took the puck on his backhand and deflected the pass behind goalie Pete Peeters. Nystrom dropped his stick and pumped his fist. 
"I was stunned," Bob Lorimer said. "We were in shock." 
The goal gave the Islanders their sixth overtime win of the playoffs and it gave a New York team the Stanley Cup for the first time in 40 years. For the Islanders, it seemed like forever. 
So Bryan Trottier, winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP, somersaulted over the ice and a carousel of teammates swirled around him. Denis Potvin clutched the Stanley Cup and Langevin wept openly. 
"It's the greatest feeling in the world," Nystrom said. "It's everything it's supposed to be. It's everything you dream about. It is." 
Nystrom's goal was his fourth in overtime, second in the NHL only to the six scored by Maurice (Rocket) Richard. More than that, Nystrom thought, it made the frustration of two stunning eliminations the last two years vanish completely. 
"Say anything you want," he said, "but you can't say we choked." 
In their 716th game, the team had completed general manager Bill Torrey's quest, becoming only the second expansion team, along with the Flyers, to win the Stanley Cup. It wasn't easy. 
Thinned by injuries and wracked by turmoil, the team did not climb above .500 until Jan. 15. It was still in pieces when Torrey completed the surprising trade for Butch Goring on March 9. With Goring aboard, the team surged. There were others to remember. 
"I look back and I think of the guys who helped along the way," Henning said, his eyes stung by champagne and his face dripping with perspiration - or tears. "I think of Dave Lewis and J.P. Parise and Jude Drouin and Andre St. Laurent. I think of so many." 
He didn't say he thought of himself after fighting hard all season for the chance to play, but he smiled at the suggestion. Then his voice choked and he wiped his eyes. 
The Islanders had their 15th victory of the playoffs, three more than they had their entire first season, but it had not been accomplished easily. For one thing, the Islanders scored twice in the first period while the Flyers hotly disputed both goals. 
First, Potvin tied the score at 1-1, chopping the puck in with a stroke from his shoulder to his waist, but the Flyers protested that the high stick should have erased the goal. Referee Bob Myers said the goal counted. 
Then Duane Sutter scored after a drop pass from Clark Gillies to Goring had drifted nearly a foot offsides. Linesman Leon Stickle, who made the call - or didn't make it - said: "I guess I blew it." 
Still, the game was not decided right there. The teams exchanged goals by Brian Propp and Mike Bossy and then, with just 14 seconds left in the second period, Nystrom shoveled a shot past Peeters for his first goal and a 4-2 lead. The crowd of 14,995 was frantic with anticipation. 
"They wanted it over with," Bossy said. "And so did we." 
Instead, goals by Dailey and John Paddock tied the score and silenced the crowd. But when the overtime began, the Coliseum shook again and the banners flapped and the stomachs of the players churned. 
Then Nystrom deposited his shot past Peeters and the team, including coach Al Arbour, leaped over the boards, some of them crashing onto the ice. Peeters' head dropped to his chest. 
"What's there to say?" Peeters whispered later. "It's over." 
It was not over for the Islanders. Ken Morrow, the first player ever to win an Olympic gold medal and a Stanley Cup - both in the same year, yet - was swallowed in the arms of Gillies. Tonelli, cherishing the moment of his assist, wrapped his gloves around Nystrom. Smith, another original Islander, hugged the Cup to his breast. 
"You can't know this feeling," Bourne said. "For 25 years, I've seen guys walk out on the ice and hold that Stanley Cup over their heads and parade around. And now I'm one of them. I've done it, too." 
Torrey embraced managing general partner John O. Pickett Jr., the man who helped rescue the club from bankruptcy two years ago, and a glaze covered their eyes. Bob Lorimer hugged his wife, Sheila. Garry Howatt howled in laughter. 
And Wayne Merrick charged off the ice and pleaded: "Where's my dad? Where's my dad?" 
He felt a tap on his shoulder and then turned around to grab his father. Together they cried.

SPWEBCUP23

Flashback: The Cup stops here

This column appeared in the May 25, 1980, edition of Newsday 
<a href="/topics/Uniondale%2C_NY">UNIONDALE</a> - <a href="/topics/Hewlett%2C_NY">Hewlett</a> Bay Harbor and <a href="/topics/Huntington%2C_NY">Huntington</a> Harbor rose up and met at the <a href="/topics/Nassau_Coliseum">Nassau Coliseum</a> to form the <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a> sound, flooding the building with joy unbounded - and a whole lot of relief. Maybe the day after tomorrow they would fragment again into the countless unrelated communities of <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a>, and even <a href="/topics/Queens%2C_NY">Queens</a>, too, but for one glorious moment, they were <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> from the real, the one and only <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a>. 
The <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> had given them a sense of unity worthy of the small-town Brandon Wheat Kings. The Islanders dragged their fans up and down and up again on a day more suitable for surfing than hockey. It was their longest hockey season, on into overtime on the last game that would be played in that building this season, and their most rewarding. Those fans had their own bubbling of smuggled-in champagne. 
Fans jiggled and jumped up and down and opened that champagne in the seats that had barely contained them all afternoon. The red light still glowed like a phrase from "The Star-Spangled Banner" over the goal at the North Shore end of the ice, and overhead the scoreboard hung in a frozen page of the <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a> record book: Islanders 5, Flyers 4, time stopped at 12:49 at the image in lights of Bobby Nystrom. It was sudden death and the sudden rush that Long Island really never had before, a come-together party the poor Nets never felt. 
It was an identity, dispelling the shadow of the big-city superiority the Rangers had cast for so long and the embarrassment of losing to them last year in what could have been called a civic disaster if there had been anything to be called a civic. 
"We're not <a href="/topics/New_York%2C_NY">New York</a>, <a href="/topics/New_York%2C_NY">New York</a>ers, we're Long Islanders,'' proclaimed Ted Theodoreopolis of <a href="/topics/North_Babylon%2C_NY">North Babylon</a>. "It's a poor man's way to be involved with the team, to be a winner. If they win, you're a winner.'' 
He had gone to Republic Airport in the middle of the night to cheer the Islanders home from their Thursday night disappointment in <a href="/topics/Philadelphia">Philadelphia</a>. He said he shook hands with all of them except goalie Bill Smith. Bill Smith never shakes hands. 
Friday night Theodoreopolis felt at least as much anxiety as the players. Carol, his wife, attested to that. "I said, 'Aren't you coming to bed?' she said. "And he said, 'I can't, I'm too nervous.' '' 
Finally, he and all of them, except the handful of <a href="/topics/Philadelphia">Philadelphia</a> fans who braved the Coliseum solidarity, were winners. 
Bill Stuart was rewarded for his afternoon being parboiled inside a <a href="/topics/Levittown%2C_NY">Levittown</a>-made human <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a>, created by Mike McEnaney from a plastic garbage can, its lid and two plastic chlorine jugs all sprayed genuine silver. They were escorted by Carmine Evola with his hands and face bodypainted - well - carmine. He's a Navy man stationed in South Philadelphia and he enjoyed going to the Spectrum in his makeup and rooting for the Islanders - except for Thursday night. 
"I was worried for my life,'' he said. "But I suppose we'd give it to their fans just as bad.'' 
None of the three had a ticket, but they showed up at the Coliseum at 11 a.m. to present their preview of things to come, and in the great spirit of community, an understanding gatekeeper parted the barriers. The Islanders gave those people their little Miracle on <a href="/topics/Hempstead%2C_NY">Hempstead</a> Turnpike. A team that vibrated and rattled and struggled in the disappointing aftermath of last season came together through the playoffs to the championship. The game is foreign to Long Island and its trophy is a piece of hardware of mythic significance in another country, but the Islanders taught those people to love it like their own. 
But it wasn't easy. 
"It's only the first period and I'm exhausted,'' said Susan Sturges of <a href="/topics/Malverne%2C_NY">Malverne</a>. It wasn't the heat. When the Islanders stormed down the ice, the fans roared in anticipation. When <a href="/topics/Bobby_Clarke">Bobby Clarke</a> took the puck the other way, women shrieked and grown men implored "Hit him!'' 
It wasn't easy, no matter what assurance Barbara Stabiner gave. She identifies herself as the resident psychic of <a href="/topics/Seaford%2C_NY">Seaford</a> and Sec. 226 and her white-on-purple business card - the one with the picture of the all-seeing eye - says she is a clairvoyant consultant by appointment only. 
She said there would be nine goals scored and the Islanders would win. "She said it before the game,'' attested the woman in the next seat, who would identify herself only as Linda. "Actually, she's pretty good,'' said Marty Stabiner, her husband. 
"Before we came to the game,'' Barbara said, "I let my mind be quiet and stay free so I could feel the vibrations of the crowd. I could actually feel the outcome.'' 
The psychic was talking while the game was 4-4. Others may have been nervous; what she said she felt was excitement. She was wearing a cobra ring of green and red stones she said had been given to her when she was a queen of Egypt and she had reclaimed at an antique shop. 
There's one quick way to tell if a psychic is a fraud: If you telephone and she says, "Who's calling?'' you know. This psychic has that covered; her answering machine begins, "I knew you would be calling . . . I'm busy at the moment, so please leave your name . . . '' 
This clairvoyant consultant smiles a lot. Before the overtime she offered a quick psychic reading to her questioner. "Something good is coming for you,'' she said. "In two months or so. It's an opportunity for some other work, and if I was you, I'd go for it. It will give you a hell of a lifestyle, double your salary. Take it.'' 
Very interesting. But who's going to score the winning goal for the Islanders? "It's very hard to see under pressure,'' she said. "I just got a flash of <a href="/topics/Denis_Potvin">Denis Potvin</a> being the hero.'' 
But she conceded that she was not always right. Maybe the Islanders would lose and not win the Cup. "This is the end of what they call the seven-year cycle,'' she said. "If they don't win now, they can't win for four more years.'' 
They played seven minutes and 11 seconds and Nystrom put the goal home and Barbara Stabiner kissed Marty Stabiner. "What I saw was Potvin holding the Cup over his head,'' she said. "It doesn't matter who scored it.'' Soon after on the ice, Potvin was holding the Cup over his head in triumph. 
Out in the lobby, Dom Valenez was roaring with joy, sweat running off his face onto his tuxedo. He said he had postponed his wedding from afternoon to last night in order to watch the game was going directly to join Ann Slattery at St. Luke's. 
Just down around the arc of the building, Linda Dinamonti and her brother Tom of Maspeth were sipping their own joyful champagne. She smiled, her eyes brightened and she emptied the bottle over his head. 
It was their moment, and don't think they didn't work for it, too.

SPJAKE23

Steve Jacobson: Isles' first Cup overflowed with joy

This column appeared in the May 25, 1980, edition of Newsday 
<a href="/topics/Uniondale%2C_NY">UNIONDALE</a> - Clark <a href="/topics/Clark_Gillies">Gillies</a> is talking into a camera. He is still in his skates, which means he is standing very tall, and he has his left arm wrapped around teammate John Tonelli. With his right hand, Gillies deftly slips the microphone under Tonelli's chin. 
"John,'' Gillies begins in his best television manner, "you've just won the <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a>. How does it feel?'' 
Behind the home movie camera, which belongs to Gillies, is his cousin from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. The man's name is Don Crook ("Crook, as in thief,'' Gillies says), and he interrupts here to say that the lens is foggy, perhaps because the temperature-humidity index in the dressing room is 150 and it is raining champagne. "Blow on it,'' Crook says to Tonelli, who does as told. 
And now back to you, Clarkie. 
Suddenly, however, bright lights freeze the pair and a CBS microphone, attached to the arm of Sal Marchiano, forces its way into the picture. "We're here live from <a href="/topics/Nassau_Coliseum">Nassau Coliseum</a>,'' Marchiano says, raising the mike to Gillies' lips. Clearly, this is a great moment in electronic journalism, life imitating art imitating life. A take-off on a parody perhaps. Or a serious joke. 
"Gee,'' Gillies says, "I was having my own interview.'' He smiles through his whiskers and speaks briefly to the folks out there in televisionland. And then returns to the camera held by his cousin from Moose Jaw. "About the overtime goal, John,'' Gillies says, straightfaced, "I saw you slide it over to Nystrom. Can you describe that goal for us?'' 
Tonelli, the man whose pass set up the goal that won the Cup in overtime of the sixth game of the final series between the <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> and <a href="/topics/Philadelphia_Flyers">Philadelphia Flyers</a>, is precise and analytical in his comments. "John, you're not usually so well spoken,'' Gillies says, still looking at the camera, when it is done. "Enjoy your summer and don't drink too much tonight.'' 
That's a take. Gillies hands the microphone to Crook, who turns and hands it to Garry Howatt. "Talk about the overtime period,'' Crook tells the Islander forward. "Hey,'' Howatt says, "I wasn't even on the ice during overtime.'' But Howatt finds something to say, which is just as well because they seem to have run out of champagne. 
It is a time for improvisation, madcap nonsense without rhyme or reason. It is a time for silliness, for laughing out loud. It is a time for crying out of joy. That's what Gillies' mother, Dot, does when her son reaches out to kiss her as he comes off the ice. That's what Wayne <a href="/topics/Merrick%2C_NY">Merrick</a>'s father, Len, does as the two men hug in the corrider outside the dressing room. That's what trainer Ron Waske is doing as he helps carry the Cup into the dressing room. 
They are having the time of their lives, all of them. <a href="/topics/Al_Arbour">Al Arbour</a>, the coach, is embracing John Pickett, the chairman of the board. Bill Torrey, the general manager, is dancing with Bill Smith, the goaltender. And the dish is running off with the spoon. 
All because the <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> have won the Cup. Tomorrow, perhaps, the saucer. 
Smith, the winner in all 15 playoff victories, is the first to pop the cork. He does so while his teammates are shaking hands with the Flyers, a gesture the goalkeeper considers hollow. He clomps into the dressing room as the Cup is being carried to the ice by Lefty Reid of the <a href="/topics/Hockey_Hall_of_Fame">Hockey Hall of Fame</a> in <a href="/topics/Toronto">Toronto</a>, and reappears two minutes later with a bottle of bubbly concealed under his jersey. "I want to spray the guys,'' he says. 
The spray is welcome. They are tired and hot as they skate around underneath the Cup. It is a day for the beach, the start of <a href="/topics/Memorial_Day">Memorial Day</a> weekend for goodness sakes, and here they have just played 67 minutes and 11 seconds of hockey in heavy sweaters, pads and longjohns. 
"This is hockey,'' Smith says. "It's supposed to be cold out there. No way. It was an oven. I'm about ready to lie down.'' 
But even in the dressing room, there is no space to recline. It is filled with wives and parents and friends and acquaintances and just about everyone in the Coliseum who thought to bring an Instamatic. They are jostling for position with several camera crews, including Gillies', which are trailing enough cable to raise a bridge across the Sound. "Excuse me,'' an unidentified woman with white hair says at one point, "the Cup's coming through.'' And so it is, filled with champagne for another Islander to drink. 
<a href="/topics/Bryan_Trottier">Bryan</a> <a href="/topics/Bryan_Trottier">Trottier</a> makes it to the dressing room, which is quite an upset. He is the last player to reach sanctuary. He has won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the playoffs and people paw at him as he leaves the ice. He had this dumbstruck smile on his face and he waves back and forth between the clutching fans lined up by the rails. 
"Bryan, you've just won the <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a>. How does it feel?'' 
The question is not Gillies', who has tired of the business and found something to drink. Actually, the identity of the interviewer doesn't matter. It is the one universal question asked on Saturday evening, May 24, 1980, in the <a href="/topics/Nassau_Coliseum">Nassau Coliseum</a>. 
Trottier says he is happy. But he hasn't yet decided whether it is the happiness of relief or exaltation. "When Bobby put the shot in,'' he says, "I don't know whether I was happy because the season was over or because we won the Cup.'' And he talks about the long playoff season, about the difficulty of beating <a href="/topics/Los_Angeles">Los Angeles</a>, <a href="/topics/Boston">Boston</a>, Buffalo and then <a href="/topics/Philadelphia">Philadelphia</a> in succession. He sounds 100 years old. 
Over in another corner of the locker room, Olympian Ken Morrow is peeling the wrapper off a bottle of beer with his right thumb and shaking his head at the magnitude of it all. "I'm in a dream world right now.'' 
It is hot and it is humid and it is crowded in that dream world. Morrow doesn't seem to mind. Nor does anyone else in those heavy white uniforms. <a href="/topics/Merrick%2C_NY">Merrick</a> yells to his wife, Carol, who is standing on the shelf of a locker with some other wives. "She's done more than I have,'' he says. "You know, this is the greatest experience of my life, except maybe when my son was born.'' 
The Islanders have won the Stanley Cup. And the cow jumped over the moon.

SPGERG23

Joe Gergen: It's a mad, mad, mad locker room

This column appeared in the May 25, 1980, edition of Newsday 
UNIONDALE - Peter Peeters, his helmeted head bowed, skated slowly away from the scene of the disaster and was approaching center ice when he was met by Reggie Leach and <a href="/topics/Bobby_Clarke">Bobby Clarke</a>. The two veteran Flyers tapped the rookie goalie on the top of his helmet. The trio then moved into the procession of Flyers offering their congratulations to the victorious <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a>. 
A friendly scene. It wasn't until the Flyers reached the dressing room that the bitterness of their loss in the climactic game of the <a href="/topics/Stanley_Cup">Stanley Cup</a> playoffs seeped out. 
First, they locked the door to the room and kept it locked for 20 minutes - 10 minutes beyond the prescribed time allotted for breath-catching and temper-soothing. 
Hardly anybody waiting outside the closed door complained. Most realized the Flyers would need that extra time to compose themselves before meeting reporters. So while the Flyers cooled off inside the room, Ed <a href="/topics/Ed_Snider">Snider</a>, the team's chairman of the board, stood in a nearby corridor, squawking about the work of referee Bob Myers and linesman Leon Stickle. 
"I know I can be fined for this, but I don't give a damn," Snider said. "The officiating was absolutely disgusting. That was a good hockey team that beat us, but their first two goals were questionable. <a href="/topics/Denis_Potvin">Denis Potvin</a> had his stick too high when he scored and the <a href="/topics/New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> were offside on their second goal." 
In a room adjoining the visiting team's dressing room at the Coliseum, Stickle admitted he failed to notice that the Islanders were offside on a play that led to Duane Sutter's goal. "I was in the right position [at the left side of the Flyers' blue line] and the puck came back across," Stickle said. "I guess I blew it. Maybe I was too close to the play. Apparently the replay showed I missed it." 
Myers was quite emphatic in defending his non-action on Potvin's goal. The Flyers had squawked that Potvin was carrying his stick too high when he whacked a rebound behind Peeters. "It was not a high stick," Myers said. "The stick was around the chest area and that is not illegal. Potvin came down with his stick and tapped it in front." 
By this time, the Flyers had opened the door to the dressing room. Peeters was already dressed. He stood in front of a mirror, combing his hair. Asked about the two disputed goals, Peeters said, "There's no point in discussing them now. They're not going to call 'em back and replay the game. But the tapes will always be available. They will be able to see for themselves what really happened." 
Peeters then turned away from the mirror and said, "I've got to go now. I'd like to be alone now with my thoughts." 
Bob Kelly was seated across the room, his face beet-red from a combination of the heat and his temper. "There was a lot of emotion out there and it's a shame that in the sixth game of the final series, when a championship is riding on the outcome, that you wind up with questionable officiating. It's also a shame that some characters involved do not measure up to the league standards." 
Bill Barber, standing alongside Kelly, said, "This is the toughest since I've been with the club. I won't forget what happened today. I mean I won't forget the officiating. The Islanders were at least two feet offside on that second goal." 
There were other Flyers who modified their squawks with praise for the Islanders. Pat <a href="/topics/Pat_Quinn">Quinn</a> was one. The coach spent the first 10 minutes after the game with his players. His eyes were misty as he left the room and embraced his wife, Sandra. 
"What's done is done," Quinn said. "Certainly it should be an embarrassment to that official, but that is part of the business and it is not going to change the outcome. And I don't want to taint the Islanders' victory. It was a fantastic victory and they earned it." 
Flyers captain <a href="/topics/Mel_Bridgman">Mel Bridgman</a> said, "I guess some of those goals were questionable but I won't use them as an excuse. The Islanders are a tremendous hockey team. They played great and they deserved it. And <a href="/topics/Bryan_Trottier">Bryan Trottier</a> is very deserving of the MVP award."

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