If it weren't for the fans, the Islanders would have been gone a long time ago.

Think about it for a minute, let it sink in.

I almost quit watching hockey tonight. After reading the fanpost on this website about how the franchise is dead, I had declared in all seriousness to my mother that I was done with hockey, because I didn't want to live in a world where the ex-franchise player would leave in the worst way possible. It feels personal, the way he did it. It feels like being stabbed not by one knife, but a thousand of them, and they stab and stab you repeatedly until you don't have any blood left. Make no mistake, that was what he did. He stabbed the Islanders with a thousand knives, and those knives will never stop stabbing and causing fresh wounds, because the "honor" he gave us of being the first franchise to lose a number one overall pick in the salary cap era will never go away. We've been through the ringer thousands of times, and somehow, we've come back every time, but Judas, with the help of an ex-GM who was either sent from hell or lives in a fantasy world/alternate reality, has made sure that we will have to take the most sadistic punishment that anyone could think of for such a beaten-down franchise. That's true.

But then again, nearly everyone thought something similar about a different situation when I was born. People thought that when I turned three in 2000, seven in 2004, eleven in 2008, and fifteen in 2012. I'm twenty-one years old now, and the Islanders are still here. That is a true miracle. There are so many times that this franchise was "declared dead," I can't keep track of them all. But the Islanders are still alive. I couldn't begin to guess why that was until Bill Torrey died in May. I wrote a sullen comment on the Facebook tribute to him, thanking him for all he did for us, even though it was all in vain, and, in spite of it all, reaffirming my love for the franchise. To my intense surprise, one of Bill Torrey's grandsons responded to me. He said that if it weren't for the fans, the Islanders would have been gone a long time ago.

There. If it weren't for the fans, the Islanders would have been gone a long time ago.

That sentence can't be repeated enough, because the Islanders are in serious trouble, arguably the most since the 2000s. There is a real danger that the team could be relocated. The enemy this time, though, is not the owner or GM: it's the players. You know that players from other teams do not and will not want to sign with us for at least one season (best case scenario), and since Judas came from our current squad, every single remaining member should be regarded with unrelenting suspicion, especially Anders Lee, Jordan Eberle, and Mat Barzal. Anders and Jordan are the first players who can follow Judas' example and wrench those thousands of knives in us further still; until they sign seven or eight-year contracts, their words cannot be trusted. Mat is in a different situation; he is young, but that is now, and he shares his agent, Pat Brisson, with Judas. If we don't drastically improve in two years, you know people will throw offer sheets at him, and that Brisson could very well encourage him to accept one of them. Until Mat gets rid of Brisson or signs an eight-year contract as soon as he is able to in two years, he cannot be trusted, either.

The only people we can rely on to truly look after the Islanders' interests are ourselves, the fans. That's who saved this team from the fraudulent owner and from relocation after the Lighthouse Project failed. We have already created real change where the current owners of this team are concerned: Garth and Weight would not have been fired otherwise. I can't tell you how I know this, but the information is true: As of April 3, Malkin and Ledecky still trusted Garth to do his job well and liked Weight. While they did half-heartedly entertain the notion of firing Weight, they were concerned that he would become a great coach like Peter Laviolette (what kind of kool aid were they drinking?). We persuaded them to think otherwise, and we were rewarded with the most stable GM/coach since the Dynasty years.

Now, we need to let them know that the Islanders still have a home on the geographical area known as Long Island (that includes both Hempstead and Brooklyn, and will include Belmont when applicable). We need the players to know that even if we have a hard time trusting them right now, we will still offer them our support as long as they proudly wear the Islanders crest, or at least do the classy thing and tell the truth about their intentions much earlier than one hour before free agency. Unlike some people, I think it is totally fine to burn Judas' jersey (please only do this if you can do so in an environment where fire can be contained) or destroy it with other methods. I wrote profanity and other accurate words to describe Judas all over mine, cut the back half up, threw the whole thing in the garbage, continued to throw trash on it all day, and finally took it to the incinerator where I shoved it, July 1's trash, and the trash bag down the chute (every stage was equally satisfying). We are allowed to be angry at Judas because he betrayed us after we gave him support and love.

The Islanders are not Judas, nor are they an individual player. The team needs our love and support right now, because we are the ones who control their fate. We are the ones who decide whether they stay or go, so we cannot afford to abandon them and hope they'll be here in a few years when it's less painful. This might seem impossible to some of you, but please, listen to your heart. One of the Architect's relatives taught me a valuable lesson: As long as we, the fans, keep caring, the Islanders will never die or leave.

I will be at the Barc on October 7, wearing an Islanders jersey, and cheering loudly. Will you?