Taking Note of the Double Standard

To make up for not watching the Isles-Vancouver game completely (3-2 VAN loss, SO, Rick DiPietro with 43 great saves), I shall turn attention to something that has been bothering me for a while... and which really shouldn't.

Apparently the media doesn't think we're worth much time, because I flipped on the TV this morning to find that "MSG, NY" spent time on the Rangers, and on the Devils, but unless I missed some small segment of the show I didn't see anything pertaining to the Islanders, and the game they played last night. I opened up the paper to find a small column by AP about the game, next to one about the Devils game, right under a relatively bigger article about the Rangers' loss to Tampa Bay.

This has been for the better part of the season now. And it's distressing to Islanders fans who would like to see a little more coverage of their team. If the Islanders won, it would be the same thing. My question is- why in the world does our team not deserve the same amount of coverage that the Rangers do?

The fact is, the Knicks losing constantly get more exposure than our hot streaks and our goaltending success. We have a rising star goaltender, and despite our four-game losing streak, we have the drive and the potential, in my opinion, to go farther than we've gone in the last few years. And where is that? The Rangers, being put on a pedestal for scoring the two biggest names in the FA pool in the offseason, haven't fared much better than we have with our relatively cheaper players, and they still get a bigger part of the newsprint than we do.

I suppose we'll have to deal with it until we win another Stanley Cup.

However, that could be the sweetest part of the deal... seeing the amount of coverage we would get had we won New York's first Stanley Cup since 1994. After all, whenever people talk about who will win a major sports championship first, the Islanders aren't even mentioned in the same breath.

That, plus the lack of coverage, will perhaps make it easier for us to fly high... under the radar.

But when that happens, it better change.