A quarter-century later, Patrick Dowd — the beloved Islanders superfan known throughout the fanbase as the team’s “sign guy” — continues to lift spirits with the clever, heartfelt posters he presses against the glass, including the enduring “always believe” message that became part of Long Island’s post-9/11 healing.
“9/11 inspired my sign,” said Dowd, a familiar figure to generations of blue-and-orange diehards who have watched him raise his messages as the Islanders skate onto the ice.
“Really, it was a model of always having faith through crises in life – whether it’s on the ice or not,” he told The Post of the uplifting slogan, which has remained a fixture at the franchise’s biggest games for decades.
The words resonated far beyond hockey during the unforgettable 2001-02 season, when the Islanders ended a long playoff drought and gave grieving fans a reason to celebrate after the Sept. 11 terror attacks devastated so many lives.
For Islanders defenseman Eric Cairns, a Canadian living on Long Island at the time, the magnitude of the tragedy became painfully real as he heard the stories of loss from neighbors in Garden City.
The impact deepened when Cairns and the promising Islanders squad led by then-head coach Peter Laviolette visited Ground Zero, where they encountered an “emotional” wall of photos showing the countless people still missing in Lower Manhattan.
“I think we chose to let it galvanize us as a team – and really vibed off that.”
That sense of shared purpose was evident early, beginning with a rare moment of togetherness during an exhibition matchup against the rival Rangers, when the usual hostility between the teams seemed to thaw on the ice.
“We all lined up on the blue lines as one – Ranger, Islander, Ranger, Islander,” he said.
“Which doesn’t happen very often, if at all.”
Fans were without a doubt ready to believe in something, said Bill Kain, the Isles vice president of sponsorship that season.
“Everybody had been to a lot of funerals, a lot of services, including myself.”
“It just made it really hard to enjoy life again,” added Kain, a diehard season ticket holder in his personal life.
Hockey finally returned to the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in mid-October, when an eagle flew down to the American flag-draped surface before puck drop.
Newly acquired and beloved captain Mike Peca wore an NYPD uniform and an ESU pin as teammates skated out with FDNY and police gear, while famed boxing announcer Michael Buffer called their names.
Long Island native Joan Jett then introduced the NYPD and FDNY’s hockey teams, who unfurled a massive American flag on the ice to thunderous “USA!” chants – just before “Sopranos” star and Jericho’s Jamie Lynn Sigler belted out the national anthem.
“It gave me goose bumps…you could just feel the patriotism,” center Shawn Bates recalled.
“Just the camaraderie between everyone during that tragedy…it was inspiring,” added the Massachusetts born player.
Dowd, 65, remembered a friend at the game saying he used the Islanders to preoccupy his mind while fleeing the Financial District on 9/11, too.
“Even though 9/11 kind of brought you down a notch,” Dowd said, “in another way, it bonded us closer.”
The new-look Islanders, who also onboarded 32-goal scorer Alexei Yashin and quick-stick goalie Chris Osgood, became the hottest thing on ice with only one October loss in an emotional year that coincided with the team’s 30th anniversary.
It was a stark contrast to the franchise’s notorious blunders of the decade prior, which started with getting swept by the Stanley Cup-winning Rangers in the 1994 playoffs – the Isles’ most recent postseason appearance at the time.
They became the NHL’s bottom feeders by 1996 and endured the humiliation of fraudster and criminal new owner John Spano around that time.
“When they were relevant again and the [post-Spano] ownership, the new players, and renewed excitement,” Kain said, “I think that was what brought everybody back to a feeling of, ‘wow, we can have a little fun with this team.’”
The 42–28–8–4 Islanders drew the Maple Leafs in first-round playoff action that reinvigorated the raucous Coliseum, nicknamed “Fort Neverlose” from the palpable energy it gave during the team’s four-straight Stanley Cup dynasty of the early 1980s.
New York was the tri-state’s only team in that postseason and put up an epic seven-game grudge match that Isles nation talks about fondly.
“We laid it on the line every shift, every game, every minute,” Bates said.
“People that lost loved ones who were still coming to the games, we wanted to show some appreciation for their loyalty.”
Cairns earned his iconic Isles moment of punching the lights out of Leafs Shayne Corson at the end of a must-win Game 6 that the Islanders took 5-3.
He skated off the ice holding a finger up in the air to a roaring ovation.
“Our fans were unreal. They were the best.”
“Prior to warm-up, you could hear them cheering from the dressing room,” Eric Cairns said of that electric postseason in Nassau County.
“If you can’t get up for something like that, what can you get up for as an athlete?”
But the showstopper belongs to Bates in a heroic goal fans put up there with the dynasty days.
Deadlocked at 3-3, he drew a penalty shot in Game 4 with two and a half minutes remaining while trailing the series two games to one.
The forward buried an immortalized game-winner against sharp goalie Curtis Joseph – and “kind of almost blacked out” as the fever pitch of fans let loose and nearly shook the ground.
Lifelong fan Jonathan Ansbacher doesn’t remember all the details from 25 years ago, but will never forget, “that penalty shot was the loudest I’ve ever heard the Coliseum.”
Bates agreed.
“The old Coliseum goal horn – that thing seemed like it just kept going and going,” added Kain.
With a late lead to defend, Bates just remembers “it was just so loud – so loud.”
“I was like, ‘Is this really happening?’ It certainly did.”
The Shawn Bates penalty shot turned into a moment as cathartic as Mike Piazza’s tear-jerking homer when the Mets brought baseball back to the Big Apple after Sept. 11, and touched heavy hearts similar to the Yankees’ World Series run.
“It was the highlight of my NHL career.”
Bates’ only regret is that the Islanders couldn’t beat the Leafs in the double-elimination game, bringing the moving season to a close.
Fans like Dowd say the team did its job in bringing joy and excitement back to those who needed it most, regardless of the outcome.
“Everybody just came together as one.”
