Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, a handmade sign that once hung inside Nassau Coliseum still carries weight for Long Island hockey fans. Longtime Islanders superfan Patrick Dowd, 65, known simply as “Sign Guy,” created his “Always Believe” placard, which was inspired by 9/11 and became an enduring rallying cry for a fan base searching for something to hold onto during the 2001-02 season.
Dowd's connection to the franchise runs back to its very beginning — he attended the Islanders' inaugural game at Nassau Coliseum in 1972, according to Eyes On Isles. His decades of sign-making devotion have followed the Islanders to UBS Arena. As the New York Post reports, Dowd said 9/11 directly inspired the sign, telling the paper it represented having faith through crises in life and that the tragedy bonded Islanders fans closer together.
A Team Reborn Just Weeks Before Tragedy Struck
The Islanders that took the ice that fall were barely recognizable from the dysfunctional club of the prior decade. General Manager Mike Milbury had engineered a sweeping overhaul, acquiring center Alexei Yashin from the Ottawa Senators on June 23, 2001, in a blockbuster trade that sent away future Hall of Fame defenseman Zdeno Chara, forward Bill Muckalt, and the 2001 first-round pick used to draft Jason Spezza second overall, according to The Hockey Writers. Yashin went on to lead the team with 32 goals that season, per the Post's reporting.
New captain Michael Peca arrived that June from the Buffalo Sabres and went on to win the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the NHL's top defensive forward for the 2001-02 season, per The Hockey News Archive. Just weeks before opening night, on September 28, 2001, the Islanders also claimed two-time Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Chris Osgood off waivers from the Detroit Red Wings after Detroit acquired Dominik Hasek, according to DetroitHockey.Net. Osgood served as the team's goalie throughout the 2001-02 season, per the Post.
By 1996 the Islanders had become NHL bottom feeders, the Post notes, an organization that had been swept by the Stanley Cup-winning Rangers in the 1994 playoffs and hadn't returned to the postseason since. The franchise also endured coaching changes under Milbury, and even endured the ownership tenure of the fraudulent and criminal John Spano, per the Post's reporting — a far cry from the four consecutive Stanley Cups the franchise won in the early 1980s.
Ground Zero Visits and a Locker Room Bonded By Loss
When the attacks struck weeks before the season opener, the newly assembled roster found itself pulled into a role far bigger than hockey. The Islanders visited Ground Zero and were galvanized by the experience, per the Post's reporting, joining players and coaches from the Rangers, Mets, and Yankees who also visited the site to support rescue workers clearing debris, according to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Those visits were later highlighted in the museum's Comeback Season exhibition documenting sports' role in community healing.
At the site, the team saw a photo wall of missing people in lower Manhattan, the Post reports. Islanders defenseman Eric Cairns, a Canadian playing for a grieving American community, heard stories of losses suffered by his Garden City neighbors. Bill Kain, then the team's vice president of sponsorship, told the paper the tragedy made it hard to enjoy life again and that fans had attended many funerals and services that fall.
An Emotional Home Opener Unfolds at Nassau Coliseum
Hockey returned to Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in mid-October 2001, and the home opener became a night of raw civic emotion. The NYPD and FDNY hockey teams unfurled a massive American flag on the ice, introduced by musician Joan Jett, while Islanders teammates skated out wearing FDNY and police gear — captain Michael Peca wore an NYPD uniform and an ESU pin, per the Post's account. Actress Jamie Lynn Sigler sang the national anthem as an eagle flew down to the flag-draped ice before puck drop, and ring announcer Michael Buffer announced the players' names.
Forward Shawn Bates said the patriotism of that home opener gave him goose bumps, according to the same account. The Islanders and Rangers had already played an exhibition game together after 9/11, lining up alternately along the blue lines in a gesture of unity — and on September 20, 2001, during a preseason game between the Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers, play was halted after two periods so players and 19,000 fans could watch President George W. Bush's live address to Congress on the arena videoboard, according to Blue Line Station. Players stood on benches and knelt on the ice before the two teams took part in an impromptu handshake line, and the game itself ended in a symbolic tie.
The Best Start in Franchise History
What followed on the ice defied every expectation set by the previous decade. The Islanders lost only one game in October. Coming off a last-place 52-point finish in the Eastern Conference the prior season, the team improved by 44 points to reach 96 points in 2001-02 — at the time the fourth-largest single-season turnaround in NHL history — and finished 42-28-8-4, per the Post's reporting, under rookie head coach Peter Laviolette.
The turnaround qualified the Islanders for the playoffs for the first time in eight years, ending a postseason drought that had left Long Island starved for success, and the season also coincided with the franchise's 30th anniversary. The Islanders were the tri-state area's only team in the 2001-02 postseason, according to the Post, and they played for hurting fans throughout the run, bringing joy and excitement back to a community still grieving.
Shawn Bates's Penalty Shot Shakes the Coliseum
The Islanders drew the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first playoff round, a series that stretched to seven games. Trailing two games to one heading into Game 4, the Islanders got a signature moment when Shawn Bates drew a penalty shot and scored the game-winner with two and a half minutes remaining, beating Maple Leafs goaltender Curtis Joseph. Bates later called the goal the highlight of his NHL career, per the Post.
Fan Jonathan Ansbacher said the penalty shot was the loudest moment he had ever heard at the Coliseum, an arena nicknamed Fort Neverlose, per the Post's reporting. The series ultimately turned against the Islanders, who won Game 6 by a score of 5-3 at Nassau Coliseum — a game in which defenseman Darren Van Impe celebrated Alexei Yashin's goal against Joseph, and Eric Cairns punched Maple Leafs player Shayne Corson at the end of the contest — before the Islanders ultimately lost the decisive double-elimination game to Toronto.
The series loss didn't erase what the season had meant. A franchise that had spent years as a punchline had briefly become something else entirely for a grieving region: a reason to gather, to cheer, and, as Patrick Dowd's sign still insists a quarter-century later, to always believe.
