At least for now, Charles Wang is the fan's dream owner. He doubles player payroll and doesn't complain about hemorrhaging team expenses. He lives close to his team and makes it clear that he has no intentions of leaving. He has an intense hunger for victory and disgust for defeat.

	Goalkeeper Chris Osgood has helped put a stop to the Islanders' losing ways of recent seasons.

Music to any sports fan's ears, but it's especially sweet to Islanders fans, who have heard phrases like "payroll dumping" and "fire sale" from the team's previous ownership.

A willingness to add high-priced talent like Chris Osgood, Michael Peca and Alexei Yashin to the lineup has hastened the Islanders' turnaround, 18 months after they were acquired by Wang (pronounced Wong) and Sanjay Kumar, respectively the chairman and CEO of Computer Associates -- the world's third largest independent software vendor behind Microsoft and Oracle -- for $175 million. At the time of the sale, Wang knew that if he wanted to win, his spending wasn't done. The sale became official only nine days after the Islanders missed the playoffs for the fifth straight season.

"Obviously, if you try to do a business model for what we are currently doing -- costs versus expenses -- someone is going to tell you that you are foolish," said Wang, whose net worth is estimated at $900 million.

"I know if we don't make the playoffs we will definitely lose money, but I think of that as an investment for the future, instead of a yearly loss," said Wang, whose predecessors Steven Gluckstern and Howard Milstein predicted $20 million annual losses in their last season of ownership. "I've got the funds to make this team very competitive. We might not make money for a while, but we realize that we stepped up to do this and we are committed."

So he put his full faith into beleaguered Islanders GM Mike Milbury, who has failed to lead the team into the playoffs during his 6½-season tenure, and then opened up the purse strings.

"Let's face it," Milbury said earlier this season, "the new owners didn't come into this business to wait another five years for us top make the playoffs. They'd rather make this happen sooner, and that was the direction that we had from them."

Given the latitude to make things happen at all costs, Milbury traded for Yashin, the Ottawa Senators' standout center who had made a name for himself by holding out the entire 1999-2000 season in a salary feud, and then signed him to the richest contract package in NHL history, a 10-year deal worth nearly $90 million. The Islanders later picked up Osgood in the waiver draft from the Detroit Red Wings, then resigned him to a three-year deal.

"Of the top 18 scorers in the league, 12 were available either by trade or through free agency," Milbury said after the Islanders signed Yashin in June. "That's a statement on the economic realities of our game today. The only reason these guys are being traded is for money. Fortunately, in our case, we now have a little extra to play with."

The investment already has paid off in the standings. The Islanders have averaged 24 victories over the past seven seasons, but could double that total this season.

If the Islanders keep up this pace, ticket revenues could be higher than any season over the past 10 years. Through 14 games, attendance is up 31 percent from a season ago, when the team had the worst attendance of any team in the four major professional sports leagues. The Islanders, 18 seasons removed from its last of four straight Stanley Cups, drew 11,332 fans per game last season, roughly 100 fans per game less than baseball's Montreal Expos did during the 2000 season.

"I didn't anticipate we'd be this competitive this quickly, but with the right kind of commitment, vision and investment any organization, not just a sports team, has a good chance of being successful," Wang said.

	“	I'll be living in Long Island for a long time, so I want to operate this team well, because if I don't, I'll still be around for the boos. ”
		— Charles Wang

Since the Islanders wouldn't raise ticket prices until the product on the ice warranted it, the team's fans are among those getting the best value in the NHL. According to Team Marketing Report, only the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames are less expensive than the Islanders' average ticket at $34.68.

They also might be getting the best value because Wang spends more time thinking about what goes happens on the ice than daydreaming about the building that the ice is in. He said he's not expecting a new publicly-financed arena, despite the fact that the Nassau Coliseum will turn 30 years old in May. That's partly because he knows, as a Long Island resident, that Nassau County's debt problems are among the worst in the country, coupled with the fact that the lease is scheduled to run through 2015.

"We have no leverage for a new arena," said Wang, aware that a new building would give the Islanders more revenue streams and would enable the team to recoup his free-spending faster. "I've always said, 'Listen, we shouldn't be talking about a new arena until we have a competitive team.' The bottom line is that the game starts on the ice and, yes, we'd love to have a new home right now, but we can't afford it. When I was a kid, we played baseball without any uniforms because we didn't have enough money and that didn't make the game any worse."

Instead of waiting for progress, Wang has done his best to make visiting the Coliseum a better experience. He said he's happy with the stadium acoustics and the sitelines, but he's spent more than $1 million redoing the seats and bathrooms and installing a new halo board and a digital scoreboard. There also are more choices of things to eat at Islanders games as evidenced by the vendors walking through the aisles peddling sushi.

Wang is as committed to his players as he is to his fans. He said he wants the Islanders to be one of the best teams to play for, much like his Computer Associates, which was once named Fortune's "Best Companies to Work For." The best way of showing commitment, he said, is to give players like Yashin long-term deals.

"It's a privilege for me to know that I will be spending the rest of my career on Long Island," Yashin said at the news conference announcing his deal.

"When I was a kid you never needed a scorecard to find out who the new stars were that year," Wang said. "Willie Mays always played for the Giants and Duke Snider always played for the Dodgers. We want to build a core group of players like that that are there for the long run."

With the long term in mind, he doesn't pick his employees on performance alone.

"I don't know everything about hockey, but I do know how to measure heart," Wang said. "When Alexei Yashin and the Islanders first talked, I not only talked to his agent (Mark Gandler), but also his parents. That's important, because you are expecting parents to make the long-term commitment to the Islanders, too."

Wang wants to be part of their families. As a case in point, he rattles off the names of head coach Peter Laviolette's two sons, Peter and Jack, and chuckles when talking about Michael Peca's son, Trevor.

If you think the 57-year-old Wang, who moved from Shanghai, China, when he was 8, is going to be on the move any time soon, think again. A fan would be hard pressed to find an NHL owner who is more committed to his sports community than Wang is.

When the Long Island Surf of the United States Basketball League was running short of capital three weeks into the season last May, Wang covered the team's operating budget. Six months later, he bought the Iowa Barnstomers of the Arena Football League, renamed them the New York Dragons and made them co-tenants at Nassau Coliseum.

"I'll be living in Long Island for a long time, so I want to operate this team well," he said, "because if I don't, I'll still be around for the boos."

Darren Rovell covers sports business for ESPN.com. He can be reached at darren.rovell@espn.com.