After All, the Islanders Will Still Be on an Island

Library of Congress A British military map from the Revolutionary War era outlining the Battle of Long Island.

John Donne wrote that no man is an island. Two of New York City's boroughs are (Manhattan and Staten Island), but not Brooklyn. So why would a hockey team called the Islanders keep its name when it moves there from an arena in Uniondale?

Check your geography: Brooklyn (like Queens â€" think Long Island City) is situated on the western edge of Long Island.

Check your history: During the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Long Island was fought in what is today Brooklyn (the old City of Brooklyn, a village dating from 1646, was in the northwest slice of the borough, which explains why the neighborhood still referred to by some residents as South Brooklyn is nowhere near Brooklyn's southern rim). Brooklyn was originally one of six towns in what became Kings County.

And check marketing reasons. While Brooklyn (with 2.5 million people) is Long Island's most populous county, Nassau and Suffolk comprise 37 percent of the island's population (and, with Queens, make up fully 67 percent).

For Brooklynites who feel slighted, consider that Long Island is bigger in land area than Rhode Island, is the largest island in the contiguous United States, and is the 17th most populous island in the world, ahead of Ireland and Jamaica.

Marty Markowitz, the borough president and Brooklyn's biggest booster, was unfazed that the team would still call itself the Islanders, and the New York Islanders, no less.

“The journey from Long Island is not a long one for the Islanders,” h e said. “After all, Brooklyn is where Long Island begins and Nassau County is just a short Zamboni ride away from the big stage of Brooklyn and the Barclays' Center.”