Brendan Witt Plays 200th Game as an Islander

On Thursday night against Montreal, Brendan Witt played his 200th game as an Islander. Last week on the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill interviewed Bill Bradley, former US Senator-NJ and NBA Hall of Famer (NY Knicks). At the end of the interview Bill Maher half-jokingly asked him why the Knicks “suck”. Bradley stated:

“They make the same mistake that a lot of teams do, they draft stats and not character and you gotta draft character to put a team together.”

If character is a crucial ingredient to a team’s success then Brendan Witt is the foremost symbol of Islander success, regardless of their standing in the NHL. Whether Witt is a fan of the ‘system’ or not, his challenge is to figure out how to not stand out on the team in regards to the system while also not fit in. With his work ethic and warrior ways this shouldn’t be a problem for Witt. My hope is that Coach Gordon’s expectation of Witt will be a balance between player compliance and player authenticity, the latter being what I believe to be Witt’s greatest strength and why so many fans wear his number, including Angie who finally got her #32 jersey from Santa this past Christmas, despite being on the naughty list. : )

LET'S GO ISLANDERS!!