UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Driving on the Meadowbrook State Parkway on Saturday morning, Robert Cincotta felt a chill when he saw the exit sign for Nassau Coliseum.
“When it’s not there, I’ll cry,” said Cincotta, an Islanders fan dressed in a white away jersey.
Three hours before the puck dropped for Game 6 of the Islanders’ first-round playoff series against the Washington Capitals, Cincotta took a photograph in front of the arena’s main entrance, just in case it was the last time he would attend a game there.
Many fans followed suit throughout the afternoon, admittedly nervous that Saturday might be the Islanders’ final home game at the arena that, when built in the early 1970s, was described in The New York Times as “shaped like a loaf of bread and rising above a 500-acre wasteland in Mitchel Field.