Latest news with #Isles
New York Post
17-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Post
What to know about Islanders' 2025-26 NHL schedule
The Islanders unveiled their 2025-26 season schedule with a notable change to their home games. After sticking with a puck drop time of 7:30 p.m. in their first four seasons at UBS Arena, the new default start time for Islanders home games is 7 p.m. Twenty-six of their 41 home games will begin at that time, while the team also has 10 home contests that will start at 4 p.m. or before, including five at 1 p.m. Advertisement 3 Islanders head coach Patrick Roy speaks to the media after a loss tot he Kraken at UBS Arena on Dec. 5, 2024. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST The lone 7:30 p.m. start at UBS will come against the Rangers on Jan. 28, which will be the third of four meetings between the two teams before the March 6 trade deadline. That game is also the first of a back-to-back, home-and-home slate to conclude the Islanders and Rangers regular-season series. Advertisement In total, the Isles will have 16 back-to-backs in the 2025-26 season. Brock Nelson, who was traded to Colorado in March after 12 years on Long Island, returns to UBS Arena with the Avalanche on Dec. 4. 3 Brock Nelson Michelle Farsi/New York Post The NHL will then break for the Olympics from Feb. 6-24, which UBS Arena will celebrate with a send-off event scheduled for Feb. 6-8. Advertisement Upon return from the international tournament in Milan, Italy, the Islanders will take on Noah Dobson and the Canadiens on Feb. 26 in Montreal. After he was traded to the Habs for Emil Heineman and the 16th (Victor Eklund) and 17th (Kashawn Aitcheson) picks in last month's draft, Dobson signed an eight-year, $76 million contract with Montreal. 3 Islanders' Noah Dobson skates with the puck during a game against the Capitals at UBS Arena last season. John Jones-Imagn Images Dobson, who the Isles drafted 12th overall in 2018, will make his return to the Island in the second-to-last game of the regular season on April 12. Advertisement In addition to a six-game home stand from Nov. 22 to Dec. 2, their longest of the season, the Islanders will play 10 of their last 12 games of the regular season at home. It could be an important stretch in the schedule should the Isles be fighting for playoff position.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
No. 1 pick in 2025 NHL Draft fuels local rivalry: ‘We're going to beat the Rangers every time we play them'
The No. 1 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft didn't take long to warm up to the rivalry between the New York Rangers and New York Islanders. 'We're going to beat the Rangers every time we play them,' defenseman Matthew Schaefer said Friday night after the Islanders made him the first player taken in the draft, highlighting a day that saw the Rangers' archrivals trade their best defenseman before making three of the first 17 picks. Advertisement Recently hired general manager Mathieu Darche started the retooling of the Islanders by trading Noah Dobson, a restricted free agent defenseman, to the Montreal Canadiens for 23-year-old forward Eric Heineman and the 16th and 17th picks in the first round of this year's draft. A few hours later — and after the Canadiens signed Dobson to an eight-year, $76 million contract — the Isles surprised no one by selecting Schaefer, a defenseman with Erie of the Ontario Hockey League, with the No. 1 pick in the draft. They capped their night by taking two more promising young players with the picks they received from Montreal for Dobson. Schaefer (6-foot-2, 186 pounds), is the second player from Erie to be chosen first overall. The other was center Connor McDavid, who went No. 1 to the Edmonton Oilers in 2015. 'It's such an honor, and especially the first overall pick, Mathieu Darche's first pick,' Schaefer said. 'So happy for him to get the GM job, and very honored to be his pick. But I've heard so many great things about the organization, the team, the players. I know (Islanders center) Bo Horvat really well. … They have very skilled players, so I can't wait to get there this week and train. I'm looking forward to it.' Darche was thrilled to land the consensus No. 1 player available this year. Advertisement 'Matthew the hockey player is outstanding,' he said. 'The human being is as outstanding as the hockey player. We're so excited to have him here.' And clearly Schaefer is fired up to join the local rivalry against the Rangers. Related: Why Rangers draft history since 2000 not pretty without 1st-round pick Rangers rivals trade Noah Dobson, take Matthew Schaefer No. 1 in draft The Islanders hope Schaefer, their first No. 1 overall pick since John Tavares in 2009, will be able to step into Dobson's skates next season. They'd be thrilled if he turned out like the only defenseman they've taken with any of their five No. 1 overall picks. Denis Potvin, the first player taken in the 1973 draft, tortured the Rangers during a 15-year career that included four Stanley Cup championships and ended with induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Advertisement You may have heard those chants of 'Potvin sucks!' at Madison Square Garden. There was a lot of speculation that the Isles would try to use the two first-rounders they obtained from Montreal to grab James Hagens, a center from Boston College and a Long Island native who grew up an Islanders fan. Though fans at the Islanders' draft party were chanting his name, Hagens went to the Boston Bruins with the No. 7 pick. Instead, Darche opted to keep the two picks he acquired from Montreal and selected forward Victor Eklund of Djurgarden in Sweden's second division with the No. 16 pick. He's the brother of San Jose Sharks forward William Eklund and played for Sweden at the World Junior Championship in 2024 and 2025. Eklund will need to get stronger to enable him to make the most of his plentiful skills and hockey smarts, and he said he plans to return to Sweden after attending development camp in July. Kirby Lee-Imagn Images They used the No. 17 pick on another defenseman, taking Kashawn Aitcheson from Barrie of the OHL. Aitcheson's physicality and style of play are reminiscent of former Rangers captain Jacob Trouba – he plays with the kind of edge NHL teams love, is a good skater and has good hands and hockey smarts. Advertisement Aitcheson looks like he has all the tools to be a top-four NHL defenseman, although he's likely to need at least one more season in juniors. The Rangers were one of a handful of teams that watched the action but won't get to make a pick until the second round begins on Saturday. Their first pick will be No. 43, the 11th choice in the second round. New York owned the No. 12 pick in the draft, but opted to send it to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who had acquired it from Vancouver after the Canucks obtained it in the Jan. 31 trade that brought center J.T. Miller to the Rangers. The Penguins opted to trade it to the Philadelphia Flyers for two lower picks in the opening round, Nos. 22 and 31. The Flyers used the choice to select Jack Nesbitt, a center from Windsor of the OHL. Related Headlines
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Seeing climate change like this, it changes you': dance duo Bicep on making an album in Greenland
Russell glacier, at the edge of Greenland's vast ice sheet, sounds as if it's crying: moans emanate from deep within the slowly but inexorably melting ice. Andy Ferguson, one half of dance duo Bicep, walks around in its towering shadow recording these eerie sounds. 'Everyone comes back changed,' he says of Greenland. 'Seeing first-hand climate change happening like this.' It's April 2023 and, in the wake of Bicep's second album Isles cementing them as one of the leading electronic acts globally, Ferguson has travelled to Greenland as part of a project to collaborate with Indigenous musicians and bring the momentous struggle of this region – and even the planet – into focus. The project will take two years to come to fruition but next month sees the release of Bicep's first soundtrack and accompanying film Takkuuk, pronounced tuck-kook. It's an Inuktitut word that came from throat singing duo Silla, one of the Indigenous collaborators: 'It translates to literally 'look' but has the connotation that you're urging someone to look at something closely,' says Silla's Charlotte Qamaniq. 'The Arctic climate is changing rapidly so in the context of the project it's: 'look, the adverse effects of climate change are obvious.' But it's also: 'hey, look how cool Inuit culture is!'' I join Ferguson on this first trip along with representatives from EarthSonic, a non-profit organisation dedicated to raising awareness about the climate crisis through art projects. Ferguson's Bicep partner Matt McBriar stays home ahead of the birth of his first child. When we land at Kangerlussuaq airport, first opened as a US airbase in the second world war, it's -10C, bright and crisp. Ferguson is staying with our driver Evald who, on learning that Ferguson and I are Man United fans, exclaims: 'Manchester United is my religion! Old Trafford is my church!' His home has a huge Lego model of the stadium. Across the next week we see the northern lights – in Inuit myth, it's dead souls playing ball with a walrus's head – and ride dogsleds and snowmobiles, but there's a sobering tone to the beauty and adventure. Russell glacier is a 20km journey by four-wheel drive on a rough dirt road. The ice sheet covers 80% of the country, but loss of ice from Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has quadrupled since the 90s due to climate change, and is the principal driver of rising sea levels. Scientists predict if the world continues on a course towards 2.5C heating it will take us beyond a tipping point for both ice sheets, resulting in a catastrophic sea level rise of 12 metres. Standing under a vast glacier that is hundreds of thousands of years old, but which could disappear within my daughters' lifetime, is discombobulating. Next morning it's on to Sisimiut for Arctic Sounds, a showcase for music from across the Arctic region and beyond. Sisimiut is Greenland's second city, home to 5,000, and a thriving metropolis compared with Kangerlussuaq. Rock and metal are the most popular music, alongside rap and other Indigenous music and the standout acts include an incendiary performance by Greenlandic rapper Tarrak. 'Seeing Tarrak perform was so powerful,' Ferguson says, with 'everyone chanting in this language I'd never heard before. It felt punk. It's rare to see that nowadays when everything is so homogenised.' The project is allowing Bicep to flex different musical muscles. Playing a simultaneously melancholic and euphoric style of tech-house and electronica, Bicep broke through in the mid-2010s. Their track Glue became a ubiquitous rave anthem among gen Z, and led to the success of Isles, which reached No 2 in the UK charts and earned them two Brit award nominations. Everything was rosy, but it was, in Ferguson's words, 'all sugar, no sour', so they created alter egos Chroma and Dove to show their harder, headier side. The Arctic was an opportunity to challenge themselves again. After Ferguson returned from Greenland, the first thing Bicep did was construct a drum kit from ice samples and other field recordings of local sounds including husky chains, then created demos, 'really just chord structures we know we can write around' and sent them to the Indigenous artists. They didn't expect to get almost full songs in return, but on hearing what came back, the duo realised 'we needed to step back and not be the focal point'. A gig on a glacier had been one initial mooted idea, but the Greenland trip made it obvious such a gig would be 'tone deaf', says Ferguson. Through conversations with Indigenous artists, 'it became clear this needed to be us shining a light on them'. At times, progress seemed suitably glacial, but eventually a collection of Indigenous artists from Greenland and the wider Arctic region recorded their contributions at Iceland Airwaves festival in Reykjavík in November 2023, where many of them were in town performing, including Tarrak, Silla, vocalist Katarina Barruk and more. When I catch up with Ferguson and meet his Bicep-mate McBriar in late 2024, they're buzzing about the results, and by late May, I'm finally able to hear the full thing in their Shoreditch studio. From the first bars of opener Sikorsuit, featuring Greenlandic indie band Nuija, it's clear the duo have managed to pull myriad styles and dialect into a cohesive whole. 'It doesn't sound anything like us – and it doesn't sound like them,' McBriar says. 'That's what you hope to achieve from a collaboration.' Tarrak collaboration Taarsitillugu opens with a sparse breakbeat and becomes a full-on rave banger, while on her track Dárbbuo, Barruk sings in Ume Sámi, an endangered Uralic language spoken by fewer than 20 people. 'I went in to the studio and just poured my heart out because of the tragic state the world is in,' she says, 'then Matt and Andy worked their magic.' There was synchronicity, despite different languages. 'It shows a strong connection between us Indigenous sister and brothers,' explains Barruk, who is Swedish. 'Without me knowing takkuuk means look, I created lyrics which ask the other person to vuöjnniet, to see, so one doesn't need to feel so alone. Alone in the fight for our lands, our ways of living, our language, culture and taking care of the Earth.' As the project developed it was clear it needed context, so Bicep asked Zak Norman, who designs their brilliant on-stage visuals, to create an immersive installation. Norman worked with Charlie Miller, a documentary film-maker who went on the original Greenland trip, on a film that introduces the artists and explores the displacement and marginalisation of their communities, cultures and language. Norman used adapted infrared cameras to give the footage otherworldly pink and purple hues, reminiscent of Richard Mosse's 2013 video artwork The Enclave. The film is a series of vignettes for each track, and it certainly deepens the music, with eerie landscapes layered with interviews. The work will premiere on the giant wraparound screens at London's Outernet next month, before touring venues and festivals across the world. The project has taken on yet another hue in the wake of Donald Trump's recent expansionist proclamations. 'It's a circus,' says Tarrak. 'The first time Trump asked to buy Greenland [during his first. term as president] we took it as a joke. Now I can see there's some seriousness – but it's still just weird, in 2025, to try and buy a country. I know they're more interested in what's under the ground than the people, but we have to be smart about it as Greenlanders, stick together and be aware of people trying to divide us.' Bicep experienced their own existential crisis when McBriar had to have surgery for a large tumour on his brain's pituitary gland last year, from which he's thankfully made a good recovery. They're now deep into their third album proper, though it won't see daylight from their basement studio for at least another year. 'We wrote [Isles] pre-pandemic so it's a complete different world now. With Chroma we wanted to get that aggression out and cleanse ourselves of what we wanted to do, just straight club tracks. Now I think we're coming full circle.' How will you judge the success of Takkuuk, I ask. 'You can't quantify awareness,' says Ferguson. 'If it starts people on a journey to learn more about Greenland then it's achieved something. 'It's easy to switch off with climate change, I switch off myself sometimes,' he continues. 'But if you start telling the story in different ways, different narratives, ways people can visualise it, at least it's a start. Because for the next generation it's going to be the focal part of their life.' Takkuuk premieres at Outernet, London, 3 July, then tours. The soundtrack Takkuuk is released by Ninja Tune on 25 July
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Seeing climate change like this, it changes you': dance duo Bicep on making an album in Greenland
Russell glacier, at the edge of Greenland's vast ice sheet, sounds as if it's crying: moans emanate from deep within the slowly but inexorably melting ice. Andy Ferguson, one half of dance duo Bicep, walks around in its towering shadow recording these eerie sounds. 'Everyone comes back changed,' he says of Greenland. 'Seeing first-hand climate change happening like this.' It's April 2023 and, in the wake of Bicep's second album Isles cementing them as one of the leading electronic acts globally, Ferguson has travelled to Greenland as part of a project to collaborate with Indigenous musicians and bring the momentous struggle of this region – and even the planet – into focus. The project will take two years to come to fruition but next month sees the release of Bicep's first soundtrack and accompanying film Takkuuk, pronounced tuck-kook. It's an Inuktitut word that came from throat singing duo Silla, one of the Indigenous collaborators: 'It translates to literally 'look' but has the connotation that you're urging someone to look at something closely,' says Silla's Charlotte Qamaniq. 'The Arctic climate is changing rapidly so in the context of the project it's: 'look, the adverse effects of climate change are obvious.' But it's also: 'hey, look how cool Inuit culture is!'' I join Ferguson on this first trip along with representatives from EarthSonic, a non-profit organisation dedicated to raising awareness about the climate crisis through art projects. Ferguson's Bicep partner Matt McBriar stays home ahead of the birth of his first child. When we land at Kangerlussuaq airport, first opened as a US airbase in the second world war, it's -10C, bright and crisp. Ferguson is staying with our driver Evald who, on learning that Ferguson and I are Man United fans, exclaims: 'Manchester United is my religion! Old Trafford is my church!' His home has a huge Lego model of the stadium. Across the next week we see the northern lights – in Inuit myth, it's dead souls playing ball with a walrus's head – and ride dogsleds and snowmobiles, but there's a sobering tone to the beauty and adventure. Russell glacier is a 20km journey by four-wheel drive on a rough dirt road. The ice sheet covers 80% of the country, but loss of ice from Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has quadrupled since the 90s due to climate change, and is the principal driver of rising sea levels. Scientists predict if the world continues on a course towards 2.5C heating it will take us beyond a tipping point for both ice sheets, resulting in a catastrophic sea level rise of 12 metres. Standing under a vast glacier that is hundreds of thousands of years old, but which could disappear within my daughters' lifetime, is discombobulating. Next morning it's on to Sisimiut for Arctic Sounds, a showcase for music from across the Arctic region and beyond. Sisimiut is Greenland's second city, home to 5,000, and a thriving metropolis compared with Kangerlussuaq. Rock and metal are the most popular music, alongside rap and other Indigenous music and the standout acts include an incendiary performance by Greenlandic rapper Tarrak. 'Seeing Tarrak perform was so powerful,' Ferguson says, with 'everyone chanting in this language I'd never heard before. It felt punk. It's rare to see that nowadays when everything is so homogenised.' The project is allowing Bicep to flex different musical muscles. Playing a simultaneously melancholic and euphoric style of tech-house and electronica, Bicep broke through in the mid-2010s. Their track Glue became a ubiquitous rave anthem among gen Z, and led to the success of Isles, which reached No 2 in the UK charts and earned them two Brit award nominations. Everything was rosy, but it was, in Ferguson's words, 'all sugar, no sour', so they created alter egos Chroma and Dove to show their harder, headier side. The Arctic was an opportunity to challenge themselves again. After Ferguson returned from Greenland, the first thing Bicep did was construct a drum kit from ice samples and other field recordings of local sounds including husky chains, then created demos, 'really just chord structures we know we can write around' and sent them to the Indigenous artists. They didn't expect to get almost full songs in return, but on hearing what came back, the duo realised 'we needed to step back and not be the focal point'. A gig on a glacier had been one initial mooted idea, but the Greenland trip made it obvious such a gig would be 'tone deaf', says Ferguson. Through conversations with Indigenous artists, 'it became clear this needed to be us shining a light on them'. At times, progress seemed suitably glacial, but eventually a collection of Indigenous artists from Greenland and the wider Arctic region recorded their contributions at Iceland Airwaves festival in Reykjavík in November 2023, where many of them were in town performing, including Tarrak, Silla, vocalist Katarina Barruk and more. When I catch up with Ferguson and meet his Bicep-mate McBriar in late 2024, they're buzzing about the results, and by late May, I'm finally able to hear the full thing in their Shoreditch studio. From the first bars of opener Sikorsuit, featuring Greenlandic indie band Nuija, it's clear the duo have managed to pull myriad styles and dialect into a cohesive whole. 'It doesn't sound anything like us – and it doesn't sound like them,' McBriar says. 'That's what you hope to achieve from a collaboration.' Tarrak collaboration Taarsitillugu opens with a sparse breakbeat and becomes a full-on rave banger, while on her track Dárbbuo, Barruk sings in Ume Sámi, an endangered Uralic language spoken by fewer than 20 people. 'I went in to the studio and just poured my heart out because of the tragic state the world is in,' she says, 'then Matt and Andy worked their magic.' There was synchronicity, despite different languages. 'It shows a strong connection between us Indigenous sister and brothers,' explains Barruk, who is Swedish. 'Without me knowing takkuuk means look, I created lyrics which ask the other person to vuöjnniet, to see, so one doesn't need to feel so alone. Alone in the fight for our lands, our ways of living, our language, culture and taking care of the Earth.' As the project developed it was clear it needed context, so Bicep asked Zak Norman, who designs their brilliant on-stage visuals, to create an immersive installation. Norman worked with Charlie Miller, a documentary film-maker who went on the original Greenland trip, on a film that introduces the artists and explores the displacement and marginalisation of their communities, cultures and language. Norman used adapted infrared cameras to give the footage otherworldly pink and purple hues, reminiscent of Richard Mosse's 2013 video artwork The Enclave. The film is a series of vignettes for each track, and it certainly deepens the music, with eerie landscapes layered with interviews. The work will premiere on the giant wraparound screens at London's Outernet next month, before touring venues and festivals across the world. The project has taken on yet another hue in the wake of Donald Trump's recent expansionist proclamations. 'It's a circus,' says Tarrak. 'The first time Trump asked to buy Greenland [during his first. term as president] we took it as a joke. Now I can see there's some seriousness – but it's still just weird, in 2025, to try and buy a country. I know they're more interested in what's under the ground than the people, but we have to be smart about it as Greenlanders, stick together and be aware of people trying to divide us.' Bicep experienced their own existential crisis when McBriar had to have surgery for a large tumour on his brain's pituitary gland last year, from which he's thankfully made a good recovery. They're now deep into their third album proper, though it won't see daylight from their basement studio for at least another year. 'We wrote [Isles] pre-pandemic so it's a complete different world now. With Chroma we wanted to get that aggression out and cleanse ourselves of what we wanted to do, just straight club tracks. Now I think we're coming full circle.' How will you judge the success of Takkuuk, I ask. 'You can't quantify awareness,' says Ferguson. 'If it starts people on a journey to learn more about Greenland then it's achieved something. 'It's easy to switch off with climate change, I switch off myself sometimes,' he continues. 'But if you start telling the story in different ways, different narratives, ways people can visualise it, at least it's a start. Because for the next generation it's going to be the focal part of their life.' Takkuuk premieres at Outernet, London, 3 July, then tours. The soundtrack Takkuuk is released by Ninja Tune on 25 July
BBC News
01-07-2025
- BBC News
Historic Kintyre sites given emergency funding
Three historic sites on Kintyre could form part of a heritage trail on the peninsula after emergency funding was secured.£40,000 worth of emergency works will be completed at a trio of medieval church sites - Kilkivan, Killean and Kilchenzie - affected by ageing and weathering. The three ancient buildings were built when Kintyre was still part of the Kingdom of the Isles and are considered historically significant. Now two of the island's charities and Argyll & Bute Council are hoping to secure further funding to make the sites safe, and then create to a trail to spotlight the area's ancient past. Each church has intricately carved grave slabs dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, showing connections between Celtic history and Vikings. Kilkivan possesses eight medieval carvings depicting a range of characters, including a knight in full body armour and an abbot delivering a mass. The stones have suffered damage from weathering and acid rain since at least the 1960s, and the funding has paid for a stone conservator to work on restoring them. The ancient walls at Killean have been affected by ivy overgrowth, making it impossible to see carvings on the east gable wall windows, with the grant covering temporary bracing to be placed at the most vulnerable areas. A three-year project to consolidate the ruins and the 14 medieval grave slabs there is already being worked Kilchenzie specialist limecrete bags are now being used to shore up parts of the crumbling walls.A spokesperson for Argyll & Bute Council said: "All three churchyards are now in a good position to move forward together with a large grant application to various funding bodies for the money needed to consolidate and stabilize the ancient walls, and also to provide a safe space in which to display the wonderful collection of grave slabs."Laggan Opportunity and Amenity Fund (LOAF) and Killean and Kilchenzie Churches Preservation Association (KKCPA) secured the grants from Historic Environment Scotland and the National Heritage Lottery Fund, with council support.
