Islanders Soak in Practice at MetLife Stadium

Ryan Pulock stated the obvious when he walked out onto the field at MetLife Stadium to check out the rink for the first time.

It’s big. Really big.

“The arena feels small, but the stadium feels large,” Pulock said. “Once you fill it up, it's going to be pretty cool. Just walking in here today I think the guys were pretty excited and really enjoyed it.”

Everything was bigger for the Islanders on Thursday, as they took the ice for practice ahead of Sunday’s 2024 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series game against the New York Rangers. The venue, MetLife Stadium, has more than four times the seating capacity of UBS Arena. The Giants locker room, which the Islanders used to change before and after practice, was so big that the team only needed about half of it, but that all added to the experience on Thursday.

“It's like four times the size of ours and ours is pretty big,” Pulock said of the locker room. “Just checking out how it's different and how it's the same as our setups. This whole experience is great. And it’s something that you'll cherish forever and remember forever and I’m thankful to be a part of it.”

There was a practical use to skating at MetLife Stadium before Sunday’s big game. The 3:30 p.m. practice time, which is considerably later than their usual start, mimicked the start time for Sunday’s 3 p.m. puck drop. That allowed the Islanders to experience the conditions they’ll likely face when it comes to ice quality, any potential glare from the sun and the different depth perception of having the fans being a few hundred feet away from the glass.

“It's great to come out and just get a feel for the place,” Anders Lee said. “Get the first skate out of the way, have an opportunity to touch the ice and all that stuff and then at the same time, just kind of sit back, relax and enjoy it. It does give you an opportunity to just process everything and understand the significance of the event.”

Before the Isles got down to business, the team had a little side-business to attend to. Lee was one of several Islanders players throwing a football on the field at MetLife. A standout quarterback in high school, the Isles wanted to test the captain’s arm, betting whether he could launch a pass past the lower bowl.

“He's got a gun on him,” Matt Martin said. “He was quite the football player prior to this, so we were seeing if he could make it to the second deck and it just came up a little short. He said he threw a little bit of a duck so he might try it again in a couple of days.”

The outdoor practice was a new experience for a lot of the Islanders, but skating outdoors felt familiar and made Thursday’s skate stand out from the hundreds of practices throughout a season.

“This was a great experience for everybody,” Semyon Varlamov said. “Skating out there in open ice brings back a lot of memories from back in days when I played hockey when I was young. It was a great atmosphere out there everybody had a great practice and I feel like everyone had a lot of fun skating.”