The New York Islanders Have An Official Cupcake

With the debut of the reality show D.C. Cupcakes coming to TLC on Friday, this could have been a more fitting marketing opportunity for the Washington Capitals to seize upon for next season, but credit - or perhaps scorn - to the Islanders for hopping on it first.

Yes, the Islanders will be the first professional hockey team to have an official cupcake.

Amy Brady, owner of the Cupcake Gourmet in Huntington Village, has reached an agreement with the Islanders to have her and her staff sell orange and blue tie-dye frosted cupcakes from cupcake carts inside the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

That a sports team would try to broaden its food offerings isn't exactly news, but given the precious nature of the item in question, it seems a little out of place at a hockey arena. The cupcake has never had a positive connotation in sports because the word is indicative of a weak player or a pushover team. Given that they finished third from the bottom in the Eastern Conference last season, some could be forgiven for mistaking the Islanders themselves for cupcakes. But professional sports teams have seldom been willing to let a silly thing like semantics get in the way of making a few more dollars.

The cupcake has become something of a trendy treat in recent years, though some would say that trend is on the wane. Sports franchises have never exactly been on the cutting edge of foodie trends, so this is a quick adoption by sports franchise standards. And if it's lucrative enough, it may not be long before the cupcake is an arena staple. At the same time, it seems like such a tantalizing thing to launch onto the ice.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.