![\"Pat](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/new-york-islanders-honor-new-117281710.jpg\")
Pat LaFontaine is pictured before a Dec. 13 ceremony. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\nThe decade-long thaw between the Islanders and Pat LaFontaine came to a happy and emotional end Saturday.<\/p>\n
LaFontaine was finally, deservedly, cathartically inducted into the Islanders\u2019 Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor in an emotional pregame ceremony with most of his family looking on just before the start of the Islanders shootout win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 60-year-old, who still lives on Long Island and runs his Champions in Courage Foundation long after his playing career ended, blew past his allotted three minutes of speaking time, in large part because he had so many people to thank.<\/p>\n
Pat LaFontaine is pictured before a Dec. 13 ceremony. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\n
He also grew emotional when talking about his family members who couldn\u2019t be in attendance: son-in-law Randal McCoy and his wife, Mary Beth. <\/p>\n
McCoy, he said, died of ALS just a week ago, whereas Mary Beth is having health issues.<\/p>\n
LaFontaine called her his \u201cbest friend\u201d and dedicated the honor to her.<\/p>\n
He then called his grandson, Patrick, up to the microphone to give a \u201cLet\u2019s go Islanders\u201d to the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought about the time I came here and all the things I learned as a 19-year-old. You don\u2019t really understand until you get older, then you realize playing with guys like Brian Trottier and [Mike Bossy] and Denny [Potvin] and Clarkie [Gillies], all these guys, Billy [Smith], you learn so much,\u201d LaFontaine said. \u201cAnd then you have gratitude and appreciation for the fact that you realize those guys really helped shape you as a player and a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was a day that seemed unlikely to happen. <\/p>\n
Not because LaFontaine, who was controversially traded from Long Island to Buffalo in 1992, wasn\u2019t deserving, but because of the falling out between LaFontaine and the Islanders after general manager Neil Smith was fired after six weeks on the job in 2006.<\/p>\n
LaFontaine had been brought in as an advisor to Smith and resigned in protest.<\/p>\n
He was omitted from the team\u2019s 40th anniversary celebrations in 2012 and his relationship with then-owner Charles Wang never recovered.<\/p>\n
LaFontaine, who was controversially traded from Long Island to Buffalo in 1992, had been brought in as an advisor to Smith and resigned out of protest. <\/p>\n
![\"Pat](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/new-york-islanders-pat-lafontaine-117282014.jpg\")
Pat LaFontaine is pictured during his Dec. 13 ceremony. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\n
He was omitted from the team\u2019s 40th anniversary celebrations in 2012, and his relationship with then-owner Charles Wang never recovered.<\/p>\n
In recent years, with the Isles under new management, he has been a more frequent face around UBS.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s appeared at games in the same ambassador role as other alumni, as well as the team\u2019s annual golf outing.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
His omission from the team\u2019s Hall of Fame \u2014 and the Ring of Honor, once it was constructed a year ago \u2014 was still a glaring reminder of a final step that needed to be taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cI credit ownership,\u201d he said. \u201cIt all starts at the top. I\u2019ve always been a principled guy. I\u2019ve always let it guide me. So I never say anything but I always believe things have a way of coming around if you stick to your values, stick to your morals. \u201cLast night and tonight, I was very touched by the fact that it feels like home again. It wasn\u2019t like that for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonathan Drouin (lower back) returned to the lineup, playing on the left side of Mat Barzal on the first line.<\/p>\n
Bo Horvat (lower body) was out and remained day-to-day, so Jean-Gabriel Pageau shifted back to center Anders Lee and Max Shabanov on the second line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decade-long thaw between the Islanders and Pat LaFontaine came to a happy and emotional end Saturday. LaFontaine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,6821,10,539,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-70177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-islanders","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}