The New York Islanders will be reborn and re-branded tonight as a Brooklyn hockey team. The team will play its first home game of the 2015 season at the Barclays Center after 43 years on Long Island. But the Islanders cannot claim to be the borough's first pro hockey team. That would be the Brooklyn Americans, whose demise in 1946 involves mobster Big Bill Dwyer, the boardroom betrayal of legendary player-coach "Red" Dutton and a funky pair of woolens.
This story draws on an exhibit about the Brooklyn Americans that is on view at The Brooklyn Historical Society until March 27, 2016.
