Letting Go of the Past

Today marked a day of spring cleaning for me, seeing as it's been my first day of doing absolutely nothing outside of home all week. As I went through my piles of books and bags of stuff, I happened upon my old notebooks full of Islanders game notes. Most of them were messy, some were extremely short, but all of them were full of my excitement and disappointment over a given game. The names, I realized, have changed a hell of a lot as well- I've been keeping notes since my second year as an Isles fan. Arron Asham, Chris Simon, Josef Vasicek and Bill Guerin- those names, along with many others, have been seen on plenty of other teams by now. And it was a bittersweet feeling I experienced when I decided that these books would have to go bye-bye.

Let's face it: none of us likes letting go of the past. The Islanders have had a great many awful seasons since their Cup days, yet they hold onto them like they were yesterday- not unlike me with these notebooks.

However, the best thing about letting go is being able to move forward. And I look forward to getting Gamecenter Live next season, and sitting down every night to watch Matt Moulson, John Tavares, Michael Grabner, Frans Nielsen and Al Montoya, among others, play to win. We have a bright future complete with two 30-goal scorers, a 60-point scorer, the best shootout specialist in the league-and soon a PP quarterback and a young goaltender coming back from injury with a vengeance. Despite the team's rank in the standings, the Islanders have posted a fantastic record since February, and that cannot be discounted.

So, while I have loved former players just as much as the new guys on the roster, I let go of the past and look forward, as the Islanders must do now.

Game on!