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Islanders Face a Mixed Welcome in Their New Brooklyn Home

The logo would remain the same: the block N, the Y with a hockey stick for a leg, the orange map of Long Island that just happened to leave out the inconveniently citified, if geographically attached, Brooklyn and Queens. The public address announcer would make the trip from Nassau County to Kings, as would the team’s four Stanley Cup banners.

Even the organ would be imported, along with its organist.

The powers that be at the Barclays Center thought they had done everything that could reasonably be done. But what with the extra 30 miles separating many New York Islanders fans on Long Island from their team’s new home in Brooklyn, the much-discussed release of “alternate” jerseys without a trace of blue or orange, the loss of the mascot Sparky the Dragon and the cheerleading Ice Girls, and an ill-fated attempt to replace the foghorn blast that followed game goals, reconciling Long Island fans to that home was destined to be painful.