Hempstead or Kansas City?

Charles Wang has yet to announce where he will be on Tuesday.

Why is that significant? Because two events piquing the interest of Islanders fans will take place that day.

Locally, Sept. 22 is the date of the Town of Hempstead’s zoning hearing on the Lighthouse project at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse on the south campus of Hofstra University. At the hearing, one of the final steps in the process of approving or rejecting the massive project, the town will ask the developers questions about the merits of the project. For it to pass, the town must approve both environmental and zoning applications.

The Islanders, meanwhile, are scheduled to face off with the Los Angeles Kings that evening in a preseason game at Kansas City’s Sprint Center.

When the game was announced last spring, rumors circulated that Kansas City was being considered as a possible new home for the Islanders should the Lighthouse project fail.

Wang has insisted that he intends to keep Long Island’s only major professional sports team in Nassau County, but he has also said that he will explore other options if he does not get an answer on the Lighthouse proposal by Oct. 3, the start of the regular season.

Zack Fisch, a college student in Minnesota who grew up in Kansas City and runs a Facebook group called “NHL in Kansas City” that has more than 300 members, suggested that Kansas City residents have grown frustrated after failed efforts to lure the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators to their city. “I think with the two teams rumored for so long and both not coming here, K.C. is a little burned out on ‘Team X is interested in K.C.,’” Fisch told the Herald. “Am I? No. I still follow the Islanders situation closely. However, at this point, to local citizens, it is really a side note.”