Islanders president of business ops Kelly Cheeseman 'blown away by the response' of jersey contest

It’s about that time to look ahead to the product the Islanders are putting on the ice, as Wednesday marked four weeks until their 2026-27 season opener in Toronto.

But off the ice, the Islanders’ first-of-its-kind fan contest to design their third jersey for the 2027-28 season was the story of the summer. There were 80,490 designs submitted, eight finalists put in a bracket and one winner: the navy lighthouse jersey designed by Elmont native James Doyle.

Islanders president of business operations Kelly Cheeseman, the mastermind behind the project, was “blown away by the response.”

“I was thinking 1,500 submissions was going to be a really good success,” Cheeseman said Wednesday at the Cross Island YMCA in Bellerose. “To see 80,000 blew my mind. To see the whole hockey world's engagement, along with Isles nation, was phenomenal. I expected the strong debate at the end, and I think that's healthy. And if I were to look at the data from the beginning and see exactly how the submissions were, I think we were landing where it landed.

“So it's fascinating to me. I'm really excited about where we're going to get to, and we got another 18 months before this thing actually comes out.”

Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche was a big fan of the contest. He noted that it was all over the sports news coverage, even for his friends in Canada.

“I thought it was a great initiative for our business side, get the fans involved,” Darche said. “Listen, whatever jersey you do now, not everyone is going to agree. That's the point. That's why we did a contest, and submissions were great. My boys voted for the lighthouse, so I guess that's what they wanted.”

Cheeseman also resonated with Doyle’s story. Doyle’s father died earlier this year, and they both were big Islanders fans.

“He just recently lost his father not too long ago, and I've gone through that in the last few years,” Cheeseman said. “Just hearing his story about what going Islanders games meant to him and his dad, and that was why he did this. It wasn't about the design he submitted. It was more that's what it meant to him and his dad.”

Cheeseman said the contest was a “hot topic” at the NHL marketing meetings in July, and the team received a lot of outreach about it from other franchises. Simone Perrin, the Islanders’ senior vice president of marketing and fan engagement, led a presentation to the rest of the league at the meetings.

“I think the league was really happy with the outcome,” Cheeseman said.

Darche didn’t submit a jersey himself, but his sons tried to have a say in the outcome.

“My son joked that he wasn't in the final eight,” he recalled. “He goes, ‘Hey, go rig it so mine is in the final eight.’ But no, that's for the fans. If you ask my wife, I'm [certainly not] a fashion person, so I don't think mine would have been that great.”

By Ben Dickson

benjamin.dickson@newsday.com@bendickson__

Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.