UBS Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena located at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, United States, directly adjacent to the New York City limits. Opened in 2021, it is the home of the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League (NHL), replacing the Nassau Coliseum. The arena officially seats 17,250 patrons for NHL games and up to 19,000 for concerts and other select events. Fans and sports writers have affectionately nicknamed the arena "The Stable" due to the arena being located at Belmont Park, a famous thoroughbred racing venue. History The Lighthouse Project and Barclays Center The Nassau Coliseum was the second-oldest facility in the NHL, behind only the twice-renovated Madison Square Garden. It was also the second-smallest arena in the league, with only MTS Centre in Winnipeg being smaller. Various attempts had been made to pursue a renovation or replacement of the aging facility, including the Lighthouse Project—a 2004 proposal to renovate the Coliseum and build a larger sport, entertainment, and residential district around it (including a minor-league ballpark and a 60-story high-rise from which the proposal derived its name). While Nassau County approved a version of the Lighthouse Project, the town of Hempstead never granted a change in zoning that was required for its construction, and the project was reported to have been cancelled. In May 2010, Jeff Wilpon, then COO of Major League Baseball's New York Mets, had discussions with then-Islanders owner Charles Wang about constructing a new arena for the Islanders in the Willets Point neighborhood of Queens, adjacent to the Mets' ballpark, Citi Field. Wilpon also discussed the possibility of buying the Islanders. On July 12, 2010, Hempstead supervisor Kate Murray announced an "alternate zone" created for the Coliseum property, downsizing the original Lighthouse Project to half its proposed size and making the project, according to then-Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and the developers, "economically unviable for both the developer and owner of the site". From that point, the Lighthouse Project would no longer be pursued by Wang, Mangano and the developers. In June 2010, FanHouse reported that Jeff Wilpon and his father, then-Mets owner Fred Wilpon, had begun working with real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle (who also worked on the renovation of Madison Square Garden) on a feasibility study of a new Islanders arena in Queens. However, a source from Newsday indicated that the FanHouse report was not true. There were