Islanders games to be on WRHU, WNYE, WRCN radio stations
Hofstra's Julian Coltre, left, and radio announcer Chris King call the Islanders' game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014. Credit: Richard T. Slattery
Islanders games will be heard on a three-station radio network this season that is designed to reach fans from the city and across Nassau County and into eastern Suffolk.
The Islanders will play their first full season at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and open the regular season on Friday against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Chris King, who has been a part of the team's radio broadcasts for 22 years, will be back as the play-by-play man, joined by analyst Greg Picker.
The analyst role had been filled in recent seasons by Hofstra students. The Hofstra station WRHU (88.7 FM) will continue to produce the broadcasts.
To broaden the area reached by the broadcasts beyond WRHU's primary coverage area in Nassau, the team added WNYE (91.5 FM), which is operated by the City of New York, broadcasts from Times Square and can be heard throughout the five boroughs.
The third outlet in the network, WRCN (103.9 FM), can be heard in most of eastern Suffolk.
"The three-station tandem allows us to reach fans in Long Island, Brooklyn and Manhattan," Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark said in a news release.
In June, Yormark told Newsday he was hoping to place the Islanders on a far larger station than WRHU, saying, "I think it's fair to say that's probably not a place we'll end up."
The Islanders still are there, but now there are other listening options for fans.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
