Patrick Dowd has kept his “always believe” sign raised at Islanders games for 25 years since the message first helped heal a wounded fanbase after 9/11.
Dowd, 65, told The Post that the terror attacks themselves inspired the now-iconic poster he holds against the glass when the team takes the ice. “9/11 inspired my sign,” he declared. “Really, it was a model of always having faith through crises in life – whether it’s on the ice or not.”
The sign’s debut coincided with a season that gave shattered Long Island fans something to rally around. Defenseman Eric Cairns, a Canadian who lived in Garden City, felt the devastation personally through neighbors’ stories of loss. The team’s visit to Ground Zero, where they saw the seemingly endless photo wall of the missing in Lower Manhattan, left a deep mark. “I think we chose to let it galvanize us as a team – and really vibed off that,” he said.
That unity showed in an exhibition against the rival Rangers, where players from both sides lined up alternating on the blue line. “We all lined up on the blue lines as one – Ranger, Islander, Ranger, Islander,” Cairns recalled. “Which doesn’t happen very often, if at all.”
The regular season home opener in mid-October became a ceremony of defiant patriotism. An eagle flew down to the American flag-draped ice at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Captain Mike Peca, newly acquired and quickly beloved, wore an NYPD uniform and ESU pin as teammates skated out with fire and police gear, their names called by boxing announcer Michael Buffer. Joan Jett introduced NYPD and FDNY hockey teams who unfurled a massive American flag to thunderous “USA!” chants before “Sopranos” star Jamie Lynn Sigler sang the national anthem.
Center Shawn Bates still gets goose bumps remembering it. “You could just feel the patriotism,” the Massachusetts-born player said. “Just the camaraderie between everyone during that tragedy…it was inspiring.”
Bill Kain, the Isles vice president of sponsorship that season, understood why fans needed this. “Everybody had been to a lot of funerals, a lot of services, including myself,” he said. “It just made it really hard to enjoy life again.” A diehard season ticket holder himself, Kain saw the renewed excitement around the team as a path back. “When they were relevant again and the [post-Spano] ownership, the new players, and renewed excitement,” he said, “I think that was what brought everybody back to a feeling of, ‘wow, we can have a little fun with this team.'”
The franchise had been a punchline for years. After getting swept by the Stanley Cup-winning Rangers in the 1994 playoffs—their most recent postseason appearance at that point—they bottomed out by 1996 and suffered through the humiliation of fraudster owner John Spano. But the 2001-02 squad, also adding 32-goal scorer Alexei Yashin and goalie Chris Osgood, lost just once in October and surged to a 42–28–8–4 record.
Dowd remembered a friend at that home opener who had fled the Financial District on 9/11 and used the Islanders to occupy his mind during the escape. “Even though 9/11 kind of brought you down a notch,” Dowd said, “in another way, it bonded us closer.”
New York became the tri-state area’s lone playoff representative, drawing Toronto in a first-round series that reawakened the old “Fort Neverlose” magic at the Coliseum. The seven-game grudge match became instant lore. “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 provided the series’ most visceral moment in Game 6, punching out Leafs forward Shayne Corson at the end of a must-win 5-3 victory, then skating off with one finger raised to a deafening ovation. “Our fans were unreal. They were the best,” he said. “Prior to warm-up, you could hear them cheering from the dressing room,” He added: “If you can’t get up for something like that, what can you get up for as an athlete?”
But no moment matched Bates’ penalty shot in Game 4, deadlocked 3-3 with two and a half minutes left and the Islanders trailing the series two games to one. He beat sharp goalie Curtis Joseph for the winner and “kind of almost blacked out” as the building shook. “It was just so loud – so loud,” Bates recalled. “I was like, ‘Is this really happening?’ It certainly did.” He called it “the highlight of my NHL career.”
Lifelong fan Jonathan Ansbacher doesn’t remember every detail from 25 years ago, but he’ll never forget: “that penalty shot was the loudest I’ve ever heard the Coliseum.” Kain agreed about the old goal horn: “that thing seemed like it just kept going and going.”
The moment drew comparisons to Mike Piazza’s post-9/11 homer for the Mets and the Yankees’ World Series run that fall—cathartic sports miracles for a grieving city. Bates’ only regret is that the Islanders couldn’t close out Toronto in Game 7.
Dowd and fans like him never needed a championship for that season to matter. “Everybody just came together as one,” he said.
