"I'm part of Isles history," Kariamis said on Saturday. "It's just something amazing to be part of the history, regardless of what era it is, or when it was like, I'm still part of my team's history."
Kariamis' story goes back to 1995, when she was a 13-year-old girl from Massapequa Park and her last name was Gazes. She was sitting in the family kitchen when she saw an advertisement on TV about a contest to name the Islanders' new mascot. She had no expectations of winning the contest, but figured she had to be in it to win it, wrote out her submission on a piece of paper and had her mom mail it back to the team.
"My mom gets the assist on this, right," Kariamis said. "If she didn't mail it, then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."
When she got the letter notifying her that she won, which she still has, she hit the roof.
"It was extreme excitement," she said. "Especially because I've been a fan for my entire life, and I still am. So naming a mascot of the team that you've loved for your entire life and winning a contest is the most amazing moment. I still live it as an adult. Like, I still remember the feelings."
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The fisherman likeness didn't have much of an impact on Kariamis' thoughts on the name, who just liked the potential for some word play.
"They're the New York Islanders. Let's think NY ISLES, let's just make a play on words," she said. "I didn't think anything would come from it."
She wasn't the only fan with the idea to make Nyisles a play on NY Islanders. According to Nick Hirshon's book We Want Fish Sticks, Kariamis was one of 16 people with a variation of the name, but she was drawn from the pool of people with similar concepts and was invited to introduce the name at a game against the New Jersey Devils on Feb. 18, 1995. Nyisles had already debuted earlier during the shortened season.
Kariamis went onto the ice to make the introduction alongside Nyisles, who originally was a much larger and rounder figure than the one that graces the cover of Hirshon's book, or the 2022 update. She remembers walking out onto the ice and being awestruck at the situation.
"I don't remember much from that because it was still that surreal excitement for me," she said. "I wasn't really necessarily paying attention to everybody around me, it was more like, everybody's zoned out. I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing."