📍 Bridgeport, Connecticut
🏒 Home of the Bridgeport Islanders

For more than twenty years, the Bridgeport Islanders of the AHL have been a staple of the coastal Connecticut community, competing at the highest level of minor league hockey. Since their founding in 2001, the Islanders have played at Total Mortgage Arena in Connecticut’s largest city, located just across the Long Island Sound from their NHL affiliate.

The team was formerly known as the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, a one-of-a-kind moniker that alluded to both the body of water where the city is situated and to world famous circus showman P.T. Barnum, who was a Bridgeport native. In 2021, the Sound Tigers were rebranded to more closely align with their parent organization, also adopting the Islanders name.

Opened in 2001 as The Arena at Harbor Yard and lying adjacent to the former Ballpark at Harbor Yard, now an amphitheater, Bridgeport’s home ice at Total Mortgage Arena sits just a few hundred yards from the water. In fact, the ferry to Long Island can be accessed from within the complex, providing easy – or at least, unique – access to a cross-Sound fanbase and the Isles’ arena in Elmont, New York. With a seating capacity of close to 8,500 for hockey games, Total Mortgage Arena has hosted almost a dozen NHL preseason games featuring the New York Islanders and hot-ticket rivals like the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins. And for more than two decades, until Leo D. Mahoney Arena opened in 2022, the venue was also home to the basketball teams from nearby Fairfield University.

The arena itself features lots of luxury suites and club seating on its second level, giving the Islanders’ fanbase a small taste of an NHL-caliber facility. The upper concourse is also decorated with photos from Bridgeport’s storied past, and a nice open-concept bar at one end features large bay windows that look out over the amphitheater next door and the harbor beyond. Downstairs, a Fanatics Sportsbook offers folks a similar bar experience, but with more food options, a plethora of televised sporting events and a live scorefeed crawler.

In their inaugural season, the Sound Tigers got off to a hot start. The club won their divisional championship and stormed all the way to the Calder Cup Finals. There, they’d sadly fall to the Chicago Wolves in five games, but that did nothing to diminish their incredible first year as a franchise. While Bridgeport hasn’t quite been able to replicate that level of success in the seasons since, the team’s loyal fans continue to turn out to see the next wave of Islanders stars take to the ice here in the Nutmeg State.