EXCLUSIVE: Catching Up With Wade Dubielewicz 

Wade Dubielewicz may have been an undersized goalie, but he had an outsized impact on the New York Islanders.

In total, Dubielewicz only played 37 games with the Islanders over four seasons, but his run to help the Isles qualify for the 2007 playoffs – culminating in his playoff-clinching poke check in the final game of the regular season – gave the goaltender cult hero status on Long Island.

The notion that the 5’11 goalie was still a big deal for a generation of Islanders fans almost seemed to surprise Dubielewicz when he caught up with NewYorkIslanders.com at Friday’s practice in Calgary.

“I think it's a pretty neat feeling to have inside,” Dubielewicz said. “Long Island's a blue-collar area, and I was a blue-collar player, and I tried to act accordingly.”

The Invermere, BC, native has been far removed from Long Island, coaching junior hockey in the Canadian Rockies for nine years and living even further away from Isles Twitter, which he nearly broke when he resurfaced with a video message in 2024.

In the video to congratulate the Islanders for clinching a playoff berth, Dubielewicz was wearing his new uniform in the video, a safety vest, prompting speculation as to where he was, or what he was doing. Dubielewicz laughed when his girlfriend told one fan suggest he was working in a nuclear submarine in the North Atlantic. In actuality, it was a sawmill.

“I retired, I moved back home, and I helped run a junior hockey team for about 10-14, years or so, and when I was done with that, I took a year off and got a job at a sawmill,” Dubielewicz said. “Just some physical labor and it's kind of wonderful. And now I've met a wonderful girl, and I moved to Calgary, and it's been kind of nice.”

Dubielewicz is still Bridgeport’s all-time leader in goalie games played (164), wins (81) and shutouts (15) and his .920 SV% is tops among Bridgeport goalies with more than 100 games played. He was recently in Connecticut to visit his kids and stopped by team’s old practice rink in Shelton.

“To get into that area a little bit kind of brought back a lot of memories,” Dubielewicz said.

The memory for Islanders is his poke check on Sergei Brylin in the third round of a shootout of the final game of the regular season to send the Isles to the playoffs. As much drama as there was in the Meadowlands that day, the game has been distilled down the Dubie Poke Check, but in a colloquial and affectionate way. Dubielewicz remembers it fondly, too, and remembers what was going through his head.

“I definitely have a set of recipes that I run through if it's a righty or lefty,” Dubielewicz said. “So I was happy that it was Brylin and the way he came in, and I was able to throw that poke check out, and it worked out.”

The poke check wasn’t a fluke, but a key part of Dubielewicz’s game. Astute fans may remember Dubielewicz throwing a poke check on Brian Gionta in the Devils previous shootout attempt and two more poke checks during a shootout win over the New York Rangers three games prior to kick off the rally.

“It was a massive part [of my game],” Dubielewicz said of his poke check. “I was an undersized goalie, not in the greatest physical condition either. I don't look like a lot of these guys did, so I always tried to outthink guys. You put me in a situation where it's one-on-one, I'm trying to outthink you and push you to a spot where I know what I can do.”

The Dubie poke check was the end of a dramatic four-game win streak for the Islanders that vaulted them 11^th in the Eastern Conference to the eighth and final playoff spot, knocking out the Toronto Maple Leafs in the process.

“We kind of ended up with our backs against the wall,” Dubielewicz said. “Just the momentum that one win started and it kind of snowballed into something big. And I love the fact that was Toronto that we booted out, but I think that made it even bigger, because Toronto is such a big hockey city.”

“And then you add the fact that that weekend was on Easter and everyone was with their families, I think it holds a pretty special place with a lot of people, including me,” Dubielewicz said.

Dubielewicz’s other big memory from that Easter Sunday win over the Devils? Head-butting Head Coach Ted Nolan, which sent the bench boss in for postgame stitches.

“I had my helmet on,” Dubielewicz said. “As a call up goalie, that's not something you really want to do.”

Dubielewicz played 20 more games for the Islanders the following season before his career took him to Russia, Columbus, Minnesota, Houston and Germany before retiring after the 2010-11 season. He still keeps in touch with teammates and Islanders staff, which is how he wound up at Friday’s practice, watching from the stands and later telling Patrick Roy the story about the time they met in Colorado when Dubielewicz was at DU and Roy was with the Avalanche.

The goaltender said the arrival of Matthew Schaefer had reinvigorated his interest in closely following team after a couple years of being out of the game and that he was hoping to make it back to Long Island next season to catch a game.

Whenever he does come back to Long Island, his return may even be a little like a poke check, something that looks unassuming before having a big impact. Just like the man himself.