text: UNIONDALE, N.Y. — As the Islanders’ final home game of 2014 began, Tom LoFaso stood poised in the next-to-last row of Section 329 surrounded by dozens of his orange-and-blue-clad brethren.
  
  With a team-colored Santa Claus hat over his favorite 1997 pin-covered Islanders baseball cap and wearing a white No. 91 John Tavares All-Star jersey, LoFaso, 24, could not wait to stampede from his perch. When Anders Lee obliged with a tip-in goal eight minutes into the game, against the Washington Capitals last Monday, LoFaso’s opportunity arrived.
  
  “Watch this,” he said before bolting down the stairs to the section’s base, where, like an orchestra maestro, he prepared to lead more than 16,000 Islanders fans in their favorite chant this final season at Nassau Coliseum.
  
  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” the fans bellowed in unison with arms raised high. The arena-shaking chant started sporadically last season before catching on during the Islanders’ opening-night victory over Carolina in October.
  
  “We just did it again when they scored the first goal that night and it became a thing,” LoFaso said. “Now we have the whole arena doing it. It’s really cool.”
  
  The Islanders, 26-11-1 heading into Sunday’s game at Edmonton, have 14 victories in 18 home games and certainly are giving LoFaso and friends many reasons to celebrate. The top two rows of the fans’ section and the arena itself — where members of the so-called Blue and Orange Army stand for the entire game — are emblematic of the Islanders’ rabid fan base.
  
  “We’re like a family up here because we’ve been together for so long,” said Tom Ballantyne, 22, part of the Section 329 crowd since the 2006-7 season. “We’re not just jumping on the bandwagon. Like this team, we’ve grown up together.”
  
  Section 329 does not have an official membership list, but LoFaso said that as many as 60 fans congregated there, singing and chanting and wearing Islanders scarves.
  
  Most are too young to remember the last time the Islanders won a playoff series, in 1993, not to mention the four straight Stanley Cups of the early 1980s.
  
  For Jeremy Musella, a 22-year-old Hofstra senior, the gatherings are amusing and life-affirming.
  
  “We may get carried away saying stuff with varying levels of appropriateness, but it’s all in fun,” he said. “The best part is we’re all friends because of how much we love hockey. I can’t imagine anything bringing this many people together like this has.”
  
  All plaudits are music to the ears of LoFaso, who is enjoying every game to the fullest before the Islanders move next season to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the group hopes to have a new home section.
  
  “I take it one game at a time,” LoFaso said. “I’m not even thinking about the playoffs or next year. All of that is a long way off.”
  
  With the Islanders battling Pittsburgh atop the Metropolitan Division, players and coaches laud their fans and the home-ice advantage they help generate.
  
  “You can feel the emotion in the building — it’s terrific,” Islanders Coach Jack Capuano said. “We’ve got a passionate fan base, and I’m as passionate as they are.”
  
  The fans in Section 329 have chants for forwards Josh Bailey, Kyle Okposo and Frans Nielsen. Bailey’s, sung to the theme of the DJ Ötzi version of the Bruce Channel song “Hey! Baby,” is a particular favorite. The words have been changed to “Heeey Josh Bailey! — Ooo! Ahh! We wanna know! Will you score a goal?”
  
  When Bailey does score, the last two lines become: “What do you know, you scored a goal.”
  
  Bailey, 25, who scored a career-high 16 goals in 2009-10, enjoys the cheering.
  
  “You can definitely hear them on the bench when they get it going,” Bailey said, laughing. “It’s awesome. As long as I’ve been here, they’ve been helping us. They bring great spirit to the games.”
  
  This generation of Islanders fans had a playoff taste in May 2013, when the team reached the postseason for the first time since 2007, losing to the top-seeded Penguins in a six-game opening-round series.
  
  LoFaso recalled a late goal by Casey Cizikas to cement a Game 4 win that sent the Coliseum faithful into full frenzy.
  
  “I still don’t know how, but I wound up in a dogpile at the other end of the section,” he said. “I never celebrated a goal that hard. It was pandemonium.”
  
  A similar scene ensued Monday as the Islanders-Capitals game reached overtime. The Islanders had a 4-on-3 power-play in the extra session when defenseman Johnny Boychuk scored on a slap shot from the point. The arena erupted. Islanders players raised sticks and arms at center ice, saluting the crowd.
  
  Lee, 24, who played hockey at Notre Dame, said he appreciated the advantage of fan support.
  
  “They are loyal and passionate and they are funny,” he said. “We need that.”
  
  “If you want to get to the big dance, you have to play hard, disciplined hockey and win at home,” he said. “Right now, we are, and the sixth man — our fans — they are a big part of it.”
  
  A version of this article appears in print on January 4, 2015, on page SP8 of the New York edition with the headline: Raucous Advantage for Isles in Soon-to-Be Former Home. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
summary: Many of the singing, chanting fans in Section 329 of Nassau Coliseum are too young to remember the Islanders’ last victorious playoff series, in 1993.