It’s your money, and I wouldn’t presume to advise you how to spend it. But if you’re going to vote in favor of the Nassau County referendum to use public money to build a new arena for Charles Wang’s Islanders, understand it will cost more than the proponents are claiming, because it always does.
And if you’re OK with that, if you believe that passage of this referendum is essential to keeping the Islanders at home, and that’s a worthy use of your money, by all means go for it.
Brooklyn residents in the 1950s probably would have killed for the right to spend the adjusted equivalent of $100 or so a year — that’s what it may amount to for each Nassau County household — to have kept the Dodgers in Flatbush.
It is not, however, so clear cut that the referendum’s defeat necessarily means extinction of the once remarkable franchise, which sadly has been little more than a barnacle on the hull of the NHL for most of the last quarter century.
We have no indication if a potential buyer might surface in the wake of a defeat at the polls, someone who would keep the team in the area under a different scenario, even if not in Nassau County.
And we have no indication if Gary Bettman would be loyal to the market and to the team’s fans or whether he would be loyal to Wang, if the owner chose to sell or move the team out of market rather than selling it to someone like say Nets’ owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who might want to bring the club to Brooklyn.
I had been under the mistaken impression that the arena rising in Brooklyn would not have ice-making capacity. I was corrected this week by an arena/Nets representative who informed me that Barclay’s, which is scheduled to open in time for the 2012-13 NBA season, is being constructed to accommodate an NHL-sized rink.
It stands to reason that Prokhorov would be interested in acquiring a hockey team that would account for 44-60 dates a season to fill the arena if Wang puts the Islanders on the market.
It stands to reason that moving to a gleaming new home in Brooklyn backed by the individual who had the cash (but neither the cache nor climate) to be a player in the 2010 LeBron James Sweepstakes, would elevate the Islanders.
Brooklyn isn’t Long Island, so if you believe that tomorrow’s referendum is as much about the future of Nassau County as it is about the future of the Islanders, then Barclay’s and Prokhorov don’t enter into it.
Wang was willing to spend an enormous amount of his own money not only to build Lighthouse, but to campaign for it. He is not, however, willing to spend $350 million of his own money to build a new arena.
He doesn’t explain why. He just wants the county to build it for him.
If you think that paying for a new coliseum yourself is the only way to keep the Islanders here, and if you believe that’s a worthy investment, then by all means cast your vote that way in the referendum.
Just as long as you’re aware that there almost certainly are going to be other options to keep the Islanders where they belong, in New York, if the referendum goes down, even if not necessarily in Nassau County.
➤ If Brandon Dubinsky’s four-year, $16.8 million contract signing was a grand slam home run for the Rangers at a cap hit of $4.2 million per year, then Ryan Callahan’s three-year, $12.825 million deal was a summer walk-off grand slam for the Blueshirts at an annual charge of $4.275M under the cap.
Callahan took less to stay, there is no doubt about that. Dubinsky probably took less to stay. Marc Staal (five years at $3.975M per) probably took less to stay under the contract he signed last summer.
These are the Bluebloods. This is what you want from your core. These are the character people you want at your core.
And this is what the Rangers have — after so much time, after so many false starts and so much organizational dysfunction.
The games and the season remain to be played and coached, nothing is guaranteed, but mark 2011 as the Summer of Slats.
➤ If not for the floor, the Islanders wouldn’t have traded for Brian Rolston, we all get that, but the fact is that general manager Garth Snow could not have acquired a better teammate or character presence for his club. Guy can still play, too.
Contracts still are being finalized between the NHL and the Phillies’ ballpark. That’s why there’s been no announcement about the Winter Classic, but we’re told that Rangers-Flyers outdoors on Jan. 2 is not in jeopardy.
Finally, read the other day about Gary Bettman making upward of $7.5 million, and I’m just wondering how the NHL can fit him, deputy commissioner Bill Daly and VP Brendan Shanahan under the cap.
larry.brooks@nypost.com