The Abandoned Raiders
In the spring of 1971 the fledgling World Hockey Association announced an ambitious plan to anchor its East Coast presence at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, a venue that would later become synonymous with the New York Islanders.
County officials, however, dismissed the WHA as a minor league and turned down the request, a decision that cleared the path for the NHL to grant an expansion franchise to Long Island. The Islanders were born in 1972, inheriting the Coliseum and a fierce rivalry with the New York Rangers that would shape their early years.
William Shea, the businessman who had previously secured the New York Mets for Queens, was enlisted to shepherd an NHL team onto Long Island. His effort collided with the Rangers' territorial claims, resulting in hefty expansion and territorial fees that the Islanders were forced to pay.
The WHA’s intended tenant, the New York Raiders, was to call the Coliseum home while operating as a tenant of the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. After a single season marked by sparse crowds, the franchise defaulted on its obligations, folded, and was relocated to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where it resurfaced as the New York Golden Blades.
Had the WHA succeeded, the Islanders might have never been created, and the hockey landscape of Long Island could have been reduced to a single, short‑lived team. Instead, the Islanders went on to capture four Stanley Cups in the 1980s, cementing a legacy that might have been erased by a different outcome.