John Olen Pickett Jr. (born August 30, 1934) is an American businessman who was owner and Board Chairman of the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League during their dynasty period in the 1980s.
During its championship years under Pickett, the team was the highest paying professional organization in ice hockey, with stars like Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin and Billy Smith at or near the top of the league in compensation by position.
In 1985, after signing a new lease that would keep the Islanders in Nassau Coliseum for another 30 years, Pickett moved to Florida to focus on other business interests and severely reduced his involvement in the team's daily operations.
The Islanders continued to struggle, and Pickett's ownership and budgeting of the team came under fire in early 1991 when star player Pat LaFontaine asked to be traded after negotiations on a team-initiated contract extension collapsed.
[3] Pickett initially declared his allegiance to the Islanders, but by late February he had officially put the team up for sale and indicated his desire to obtain an NHL expansion franchise closer to his home in Florida.
[6] On August 18, 1992, it was announced that Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan, who had first attempted to acquire an interest in the Islanders over ten years earlier, had reached an agreement to purchase the team from John Pickett.
[8] The "Gang of Four" minority owners continued to run the team, but after missing the playoffs five times in seven years, and with the committee making deeply unpopular decisions such as a change of logo, Pickett finally wanted out for good.
However, in June 1997, after Spano missed several payments on his purchase contract, Bettman ordered him to relinquish day-to-day control of the team to Pickett until the dispute was resolved.
Following the Spano fraud, and after several years of trying to find a buyer, Pickett finally sold the Islanders to a group headed by Phoenix Coyotes co-owner Steven Gluckstern and New York City real estate developer Howard Millstein in September 1997.