NHL and NBA Playoffs Give New York Fans a Lot to Celebrate

“It’s awesome for local fans,” said Kyle Palmieri, the Islanders winger. “I grew up as a local fan, and I watched all these teams.”

He also played for two of them. Palmieri was born in Smithtown, Long Island, and moved with his family to Montvale, N.J., as a boy. He played for the Devils from 2015 until he was traded to the Islanders in 2021, just in time to participate in the Isles’ last game at the old Nassau Coliseum — a dramatic 3-2 overtime win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on June 23, 2021.

Now, even with his focus on his own club’s series against Carolina, he can marvel at all the local teams playing at once.

“It’s a special thing to have everyone involved,” he said. “It doesn’t happen too often.”

Through Saturday, there will have been more than 120,000 total fans at the games. One of them is Lucas Whitehead, 27, from Saskatchewan, Canada, who was in the area to attend a conference at the United Nations on Indigenous governance. He bought an Islanders jersey and marveled at the atmosphere of the UBS Arena’s first playoff game.

“The energy in here was like nothing I’ve seen before,” he said after Friday’s game. “I’ve been to a lot of arenas. We went to M.S.G. and the Prudential Center, and I’ve been to a lot in Canada. This was the craziest.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/sports/basketball/nhl-nba-playoffs-new-york.html