Reviewing My First Regular Season Visit to Barclays Center

As I mentioned before on here, my first regular season game at the Barclays Center was on Monday night, the night of the Nets' excruciating loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. My dad and I took the train from Long Island to Atlantic Terminal to get to Barclays Center in time for the 7:30 game.

Because of Hurricane Sandy and its lingering effects on the New York metropolitan area's mass transit system, the LIRR was only offering trains every hour from the Island to the the city. Obviously, this complicated getting to Brooklyn a little bit. But, once I stepped out of the terminal and saw the bright blue lettering of the Barclays Center, my mind was on the game, and the arena as well.

Let me break my visit into a few categories to make the review a little more comprehensive:

New York Islanders to Move to Barclays Center For 2015-16 Season

I love this old logo of the Islanders; however, it probably (note: definitely) won't be accompanying the team to Brooklyn in three years.

This has been hinted at for awhile for became official today: The NHL's New York Islanders announced that they will finish out their lease at Nassau Coliseum, which runs through the 2014-15 season, and then move to the Barclays Center for the 2015-16 season and then on for 25 years, the length of their new lease at the Barclays Center.

It's pretty far into the future and it's silly to put emphasis on the 2015-16 season when the 2012-13 season hasn't even started yet but the move of the Islanders could have a big impact on the Nets in a few years. Like with MSG, scheduling is going to get a lot more tighter with both a NBA and NHL team sharing the same arena and the exclusivity of the Barclays to just the Nets will erode away as any does when regarding one arena shared by multiple teams.

Regardless, I'm excited for the potential of a close connection between the Nets and Islanders but as a native Long Islander, am a little disappointed that the "Islanders" couldn't find a way to stay on Long Island, the very geographic entity the team name represents.

My Tour of the Barclays Center

As a season-ticket holder of the Nets (shared with my dad, as equally die-hard Nets fan as myself), my dad and I were able to participate in the 1st public tour of the Barclays Center on Monday. The arena's much-hyped ribbon-cutting event was on Friday, and not being able to attend that day, we figured that a tour would suffice. During my tour, which was awesome, I took a lot of pictures, ate a lot of food, and awed at the wondrous arena that was in the making for nine years before coming to fruition.

When I walked into the Barclays Center and saw the Nets new logo plastered everywhere, I knew that it had finally come true. This team was in Brooklyn and was to be relevant yet again. Below is my diary of sorts as to how my first visit to the Nets' state-of-the-art home went:

I took the train from Long Island with my dad to Brooklyn and it was a relatively pleasant ride, round-trip of about one hour and 20 minutes give or take a few. One of the first references I saw to the Barclays Center that I saw in the Atlantic Terminal after my train ride was this sign, and even though plain and in stock NYC mass transit font, it hit home for me that I wasn't going to the Meadowlands or Newark to see the Nets, I was going to Brooklyn and the Barclays Center.

The Brooklyn Nets Are Officially Born

This recently leaked logo may be the Brooklyn Nets official one, but we won't be sure until Monday morning

As of right now (12:00 am EST on Monday, April 30th), the Brooklyn Nets are officially a member of the NBA and the New Jersey Nets are gone. This moment is a landmark for the Nets franchise as the much-excited move to Brooklyn has been in the works for years now and is sure to help the Nets be more successful than during their 35 years in New Jersey. This also means that Brooklyn Balling is now a Brooklyn Nets blog as opposed to a New Jersey Nets one. It also means that in a few hours (at roughly 6:50 am on CNBC) the Nets' new jerseys, logo, and team identity will be revealed by Nets CEO Brett Yormark. Congratulations fellow Nets fans, we have been waiting for this day and time to come for years now and its finally here. Now, as the blog has stated since January, the Nets are "Brooklyn Balling".

Brooklyn Nets Logo Leaked?

Yep, it looks like it. Deadspin, along with other sites, is reporting that this image above will be the new logo for the Brooklyn Nets. Supposedly, some guy on Twitter that is working IT at the Barclays Center site snapped this photo of an office wall at the facility. Maybe this is some sort of publicity stunt by the Nets but I think it might be the real thing and I kind of like it, other than the fact that it is missing red, which is one of my favorite jersey colors. 

I would love to see the jerseys for this logo which will probably be announced on April 30th which is the date that Nets' management set for the official release of the team's new logo. If this isn't the real thing, than we can hope that the real thing is nearly as good as this. If this is indeed the real thing, then the Nets got it right and the Brooklyn Nets' inaugural jerseys will be awesome. #HelloBrooklyn

Nets' Move to Brooklyn Officially Approved By NBA

Barclays Center, the future!

Well, we all knew that this would happen so the NBA's Board of Governors' approval of the move of the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn to become the Brooklyn Nets was more of a formality than anything else. Some other interesting happenings from that meeting today: the Hornets were bought by Saints' owner Tom Benson for $338 million and the Kings' efforts to stay in Sacramento took a pretty big hit.

Devils and Islanders to Play Preseason Game at Barclays Center

To quote Bart Scott, I can't wait for this thing to be built!

According to a press release by New York Islanders GM Garth Snow, the Islanders and New Jersey Devils will play the first ever hockey game at the currently-being-built Barclays Center on October 2nd, 2012 in a preseason match-up between the two clubs. The Barclays Center have been tossed around as a possibly permanent home for the Islanders who have been playing in the outdated Nassau Veterans' Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale until the franchise can find a new home.

I'm certainly looking forward to having the possibility to go to that game because right now, I would go to almost any event at the Barclays Center until the Nets open up there sometime next fall. I also think it would be pretty cool if the Islanders and Nets were co-tenants at the Barclays because it might introduce some NHL fans to the NBA as Nets fans and the bigger the fan-base the Nets grow when they move to Brooklyn, the better the atmosphere at the arena will be and hopefully, the better the product out on the court.

A major snag of the Islanders potential move is that the Barclays only seats around 14,500 for hockey which currently would function as the smallest seating capacity in the NHL, just less than the MTS Centre, where the Winnipeg Jets play their home games.