A closed Sports Authority storefront, representing one of the major sporting goods chains once familiar to Long Island shoppers. Photo: Retail Photographer / Shutterstock.com.
Long before online shopping made it possible to order a baseball glove, pair of running shoes, lacrosse stick, or set of skis without leaving the house, Long Island had an enormous variety of sporting goods stores. Some were national chains that became fixtures along Sunrise Highway, Jericho Turnpike, and the shopping malls. Others were family businesses built around one sport and generations of local customers.
The sporting life of Nassau and Suffolk Counties helped support all of them. Little League baseball, high school football, lacrosse, hockey, soccer, tennis, running, cycling, surfing, skiing, and the devotion Long Islanders have always had to New York’s professional teams created a retail culture all its own. A trip for equipment could mean getting skates sharpened at the rink, having a racket restrung, buying a first real baseball glove, getting fitted for ski boots, or heading to the mall for the newest pair of sneakers.
Some of the stores below are gone. Others are still serving Long Island after decades in business. Together, they represent the sporting goods and athletic stores generations of Long Islanders remember.
1. Modell’s Sporting Goods
- Physical Store Era: 1889–2020
- Founder: Morris Modell
- Long Island Footprint: Numerous Nassau and Suffolk locations, including East Meadow, Commack, Bohemia, Centereach, Massapequa, Bay Shore, and others
No sporting goods retailer was more closely tied to New York sports fandom than Modell’s. Morris Modell opened the first store on Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan in 1889, and the family business eventually grew into a regional chain with a major Long Island presence. Modell’s sold everything from youth-league equipment and running shoes to Yankees, Mets, Jets, Giants, Rangers, and Islanders merchandise. The familiar “Gotta Go to Mo’s!” slogan became part of New York advertising culture, and the stores became especially busy when local teams reached the playoffs or won championships. Modell’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020 and closed all of its physical stores that year. The brand later returned online, but the old Long Island Modell’s stores are gone.
2. Herman’s World of Sporting Goods
- Sporting Goods Era: 1924–1996
- Founder and Namesake: Herman Steinlauf
- Long Island Footprint: Four stores by the early 1980s and eight by 1992
Herman’s was the Dick’s Sporting Goods of an earlier generation. Newsday traced the sporting goods business to a 1924 expansion of a Manhattan record store founded by Herman Steinlauf. The chain eventually became known for serious equipment departments covering golf, skiing, fishing, team sports, exercise gear, and other athletic needs. Herman’s had four Long Island stores by the early 1980s and doubled that number by 1992, making the name familiar to shoppers across Nassau and Suffolk. The company had 117 stores when it entered bankruptcy liquidation in 1996. For Long Islanders who bought their first set of golf clubs, baseball equipment, or ski gear there, the green-and-white Herman’s name remains difficult to forget.
3. Sports Authority
- Years Active: 1987–2016
- Long Island Footprint: Multiple Nassau and Suffolk stores, including locations in Riverhead and Bohemia
Sports Authority represented the arrival of the enormous sporting goods superstore. Instead of specializing in one or two sports, the chain put team equipment, fitness machines, golf gear, bicycles, camping supplies, sneakers, apparel, and seasonal merchandise under one huge roof. Long Island stores became familiar anchors in suburban shopping centers during the 1990s and 2000s. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016, initially announcing selected closures before ultimately liquidating the entire U.S. chain. Its disappearance left large retail spaces behind and marked the end of one of the dominant sporting goods names of the big-box era.
4. Snow Shed
- Years Active: 1982–2026
- Long Island Location: 1004 Route 112, Port Jefferson Station
Snow Shed was one of Suffolk County’s great specialty winter-sports stores. Opened in 1982, the Port Jefferson Station shop spent 44 years outfitting Long Islanders for ski and snowboard trips to the Catskills, Vermont, New Hampshire, and beyond. Customers could buy or rent skis, snowboards, boots, bindings, cross-country equipment, and winter clothing while also using the shop for hot waxes, stone grinds, base repairs, tune-ups, and binding work. Snow Shed closed in June 2026 after announcing that it could no longer keep the business going. Its closure ended one of Long Island’s longest-running specialty ski-shop traditions.
5. Eastern Mountain Sports
- Long Island Store: Carle Place
- Long Island Closing: 2017
Eastern Mountain Sports brought serious outdoor equipment to the middle of suburban Nassau County. Its Carle Place store on Glen Cove Road served Long Islanders shopping for hiking boots, tents, backpacks, climbing equipment, camping gear, kayaks, technical clothing, and winter equipment. EMS was particularly useful for customers who wanted outdoor gear that went beyond the inventory of a traditional team-sports store. In 2017, during the bankruptcy restructuring of parent company Eastern Outfitters, the Carle Place store—the chain’s only Long Island location at the time—was selected for closure. The EMS name survived elsewhere, but its Long Island store did not.
6. Footaction USA
- Classic Era: 1980s–2021
- Long Island Footprint: Major shopping malls, including Smith Haven and other Nassau and Suffolk centers
Footaction became part of Long Island mall culture during the years when athletic footwear moved from the gym into everyday fashion. Its stores were filled with basketball shoes, running shoes, team apparel, warm-up suits, caps, and the newest releases from Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, and other major brands. For young shoppers in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, a trip to the mall often meant checking Footaction even when there was no intention of buying anything. Parent company Foot Locker eventually decided to wind down the banner. It closed 120 Footaction stores during the fourth quarter of 2021, converting some locations to other banners and continuing the shutdown of the remaining stores afterward.
7. Bob’s Stores
- Chain Founded: 1954
- Final Long Island Stores: Centereach and West Islip
- Closed: 2024
Bob’s Stores occupied a place between a sporting goods shop, sneaker store, and discount clothing retailer. Long Island locations carried athletic footwear, workwear, licensed sports apparel, casual clothing, and seasonal merchandise. The chain went through repeated ownership changes and financial problems, and several Long Island stores closed during earlier restructurings. By 2024, the remaining Long Island locations were in Centereach and West Islip. When the company announced the shutdown of all Bob’s Stores that summer, those final two Long Island stores closed with the rest of the chain.
8. The Athlete’s Foot
- Chain Founded: 1971
- Long Island Footprint: Mall locations including Roosevelt Field, Smith Haven Mall, and other Long Island shopping centers
The Athlete’s Foot helped establish the idea that athletic shoes deserved a store of their own. Long before sneaker boutiques and limited-release culture became mainstream, the chain specialized in running, basketball, tennis, and casual athletic footwear. Long Island shoppers encountered The Athlete’s Foot in malls including Roosevelt Field and Smith Haven, along with other shopping centers during the great suburban mall era. The stores were smaller than the later sneaker superstores, but their walls of shoes made them a regular stop for generations of teenagers, runners, and athletes looking for the newest models.
9. Sno-Haus
- Founded: 1959
- Founder: Oscar Kornblatt
- Current Long Island Locations: Hempstead, Huntington Station, and Greenvale
Sno-Haus is one of the survivors on this list and one of Long Island’s true specialty-sports institutions. Oscar Kornblatt opened the first Sno-Haus Ski Shop in Hempstead in 1959, and Bob Merrill joined him three years later. The business built its reputation on skis, snowboards, rentals, tuning, repairs, and the kind of boot fitting that requires experienced people rather than an online size chart. In 2025, the owners of Sundown Greenvale brought Sno-Haus under their umbrella and rebranded the Greenvale store as Sno-Haus. Today the company operates in Hempstead, Huntington Station, and Greenvale, continuing a Long Island winter-sports tradition that dates back more than six decades.
10. Sundown Ski & Patio
- Long Island Era: Since the 1960s
- Current Stores: Farmingdale and Lake Grove
- Former Store: Levittown
Sundown became another familiar Long Island name for families preparing for winter weekends in the mountains. The company traces its ski and snowboard business to the 1960s and developed stores that sold skis, boards, boots, bindings, winter clothing, and rental packages while also operating tuning and repair services. Many longtime customers remember the Levittown store on Hempstead Turnpike, which has since closed. Sundown continues today with public stores in Farmingdale and Lake Grove, along with its Ronkonkoma warehouse. Few Long Island businesses illustrate the seasonal rhythm of suburban recreation quite like a ski shop that also became deeply involved in patio and outdoor furniture when winter ended.
11. Bunger Surf Shop
- Founded: 1962 as a retail operation
- Founder: Charlie Bunger Sr.
- Long Island Base: Babylon and West Babylon
Long Island sporting history is impossible to tell without surfing, and Bunger belongs near the center of that story. Charlie Bunger Sr. began shaping surfboards in Lindenhurst in 1961, first for neighborhood kids and then in growing numbers as surfing exploded in popularity. In 1962, he moved production into a larger building and opened his first retail shop in Copiague. The family business eventually became a Babylon Village institution, while Bunger surfboards continued to be made in West Babylon. More than six decades later, the Bunger family still operates the shop, connecting modern Long Island surfers with the earliest years of organized surf culture on the Island.
12. Long Beach Surf Shop
- Founded: 1984
- Location: 70 West Park Avenue, Long Beach
- Status: Still operating
Long Beach has one of the strongest surf cultures in New York, and Long Beach Surf Shop has been part of it since 1984. The family-owned store sits only minutes from the ocean and carries hundreds of surfboards along with wetsuits, footwear, beach clothing, accessories, and other equipment. Its longevity says something about the growth of surfing on Long Island from a niche pursuit into a major part of South Shore life. Through changing board designs, brands, styles, storms, and rebuilding years, the shop has remained tied to the beach community that surrounds it.
13. Lacrosse Unlimited
- Founded: 1990 on Long Island
- Specialty: Lacrosse equipment, custom stringing, and team apparel
- Status: Still operating and expanded nationally
No sport is more closely associated with Long Island high school athletics than lacrosse, making Lacrosse Unlimited one of the most natural names on this list. Founded on Long Island in 1990, the specialty retailer grew alongside the sport itself. Players relied on its stores for heads, shafts, gloves, helmets, pads, cleats, custom stringing, and team gear at a time when general sporting goods chains often carried only a limited lacrosse selection. Lacrosse Unlimited eventually expanded far beyond Long Island and now operates dozens of stores around the country, but its roots remain in the place that helped make lacrosse a suburban obsession.
14. Long Island Athletic Supply
- Founded: 1992
- Location: Farmingdale
- Specialty: Team uniforms, custom apparel, and athletic equipment
Some of Long Island’s most important sporting goods businesses were never built around casual walk-in shopping. Long Island Athletic Supply became a behind-the-scenes fixture for schools, youth leagues, clubs, colleges, and organizations that needed entire teams outfitted. The Farmingdale business provides uniforms, embroidery, screen printing, twill, heat pressing, equipment, and custom online team stores. For players and parents, the company’s work often appears not as a store logo but as the uniform worn on the field, court, rink, or sideline.
15. Schwab’s 2nd Wind
- Founded: 1979
- Founders: Harold Schwab and Ray Schwab
- Current Location: East Setauket
Schwab’s 2nd Wind began in 1979 as a small shoe-resoling operation run by Harold Schwab and his father, Ray, out of the family basement. The business soon moved to Port Jefferson and shifted toward selling running shoes before relocating to East Setauket in 1983. Its roots in competitive running helped give the store credibility with generations of runners who wanted knowledgeable fitting rather than simply grabbing a pair of sneakers from a shelf. The family business also developed a screen-printing and custom-apparel operation. It remains one of Suffolk County’s classic examples of a specialty athletic store growing from one sport and one family.
16. Lifestyles Sports
- Business Founded: 1979
- Long Island Since: 1993
- Current Retail Location: Wantagh
Lifestyles Sports began when Mike and Valerie Kruter opened a Brooklyn shop called The Clothesline in 1979. The family moved the business to Wantagh in 1993, doubled the retail space, and renamed it Lifestyles Sports. Over the years it expanded beyond sporting goods into athletic footwear, workwear, medical scrubs, custom apparel, embroidery, and team sales while remaining family owned. The Wantagh store continues to operate today, and the family has expanded its production operations on Long Island. In an era when so many independent sporting goods stores disappeared, Lifestyles represents the other side of the story: a local retailer that kept adapting.
17. Brands Cycle & Fitness
- Founded: 1954
- Location: Wantagh
- Specialty: Bicycles, cycling equipment, fitness equipment, and service
Brands Cycle & Fitness has served Long Island since 1954 and remains one of the Island’s best-known bicycle and fitness stores. The family-owned Wantagh business grew from a much smaller retail operation into a major cycling destination carrying bicycles, parts, helmets, clothing, accessories, and home-fitness equipment. The store also provides repairs, maintenance, rentals, and other services that cannot easily be duplicated by a warehouse website. For generations of Long Island kids and adults, buying a new bicycle at Brands was an event in itself.
18. Tennis East
- Location: 73 Main Street, Southampton
- Specialty: Tennis and racquet sports
- Status: Still operating
Tennis East represents another kind of Long Island specialty shop: a store built around the details of a single sport. Its Southampton location serves players looking for racquets, strings, shoes, clothing, grips, bags, and equipment along with the expertise that comes from a dedicated tennis retailer. The East End has long had a deep tennis culture, from private clubs to public courts and summer competition, giving a specialist like Tennis East a natural customer base. While the giant sporting goods chains tried to sell something for everyone, stores like this survived by knowing one game exceptionally well.
19. Port Jeff Sporting Goods
- Founded: 1971
- Founder: Richie LoNigro
- Independent Era Ended: 2018, when acquired by BSN Sports
Port Jeff Sporting Goods built its reputation through team sales rather than flashy mall retail. Founded in 1971, the Long Island company spent decades supplying schools, leagues, coaches, and athletic organizations with uniforms, apparel, and equipment. That kind of business depends heavily on relationships and repeat customers, and Port Jeff developed them over generations. In 2018, national team-sports supplier BSN Sports acquired the company after 47 years of independent operation. The acquisition ended the standalone Port Jeff era, but it also demonstrated how valuable the company’s Long Island customer network had become.
20. The New York Islanders Pro Shop at Cantiague Park
- Location: Cantiague Park Ice Rink, Hicksville
- Opened: 2012
- Historic Connection: Cantiague was an Islanders practice facility from 1979 to 1992
Cantiague Park occupies a special place in Long Island hockey history. The Islanders practiced there from 1979 to 1992, including during the years when the franchise won four consecutive Stanley Cups. In September 2012, the team returned to that history by opening an Islanders team store and full pro shop inside the Hicksville rink. The shop sold skates, sticks, hockey and figure-skating equipment and offered skate sharpening, while the Islanders used the opening to reconnect with young local players. For Long Island hockey families, buying equipment inside a rink with direct ties to the Islanders dynasty gave the pro shop a significance no ordinary mall store could match.
21. The Pro Shop at Newbridge Arena
- Location: Newbridge Arena, Bellmore
- Specialty: Hockey and figure-skating equipment, skate sales, and sharpening
- Status: Still operating
The Pro Shop at Newbridge Arena is the kind of sporting goods business that becomes inseparable from the rink around it. Located inside the Bellmore ice arena, the family-run shop has served the community for more than two decades. Hockey players and figure skaters can buy skates and equipment and have their blades sharpened without leaving the building. That convenience matters when practices, games, and skating sessions are part of weekly family life. Long Island once had countless small sports counters and pro shops like this, but the ones that remain continue a deeply local retail tradition.
22. Superior Ice Rink Pro Shop
- Location: Superior Ice Rink, Kings Park
- Rink Family Ownership Since: 1972
- Status: Pro shop still operating
Superior Ice Rink has been owned and operated by the McGuigan family since 1972, serving generations of North Shore hockey players and figure skaters. Its pro shop remains part of the rink experience, carrying sticks, gloves, helmets, tape, laces, mouth guards, and other equipment while providing expert skate sharpening. The shop may be smaller than a sporting goods superstore, but for a hockey player who needs a sharpened edge or replacement gear before getting on the ice, it serves a much more immediate purpose. That is why rink pro shops have remained such an important part of Long Island sports culture.
23. Champs Sports
- Classic Long Island Setting: Shopping malls
- Current Locations Include: Roosevelt Field and Green Acres Mall
- Status: Still operating
Champs Sports became a familiar part of the Long Island mall landscape as sneakers and professional-team apparel became inseparable from youth fashion. The stores concentrated on basketball shoes, running shoes, athletic clothing, caps, jerseys, and major footwear launches. Long Islanders remember Champs from malls across Nassau and Suffolk, and the name is still present today at Roosevelt Field in Garden City and Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream. While other chains disappeared, Champs survived the transition from the old mall era into modern sneaker retail.
24. Foot Locker
- Long Island Tradition: Decades of mall-based athletic footwear retail
- Current Locations Include: Roosevelt Field, Smith Haven Mall, and Green Acres Mall
- Status: Still operating
For generations of Long Island teenagers, Foot Locker was one of the first stops in the mall when a new pair of sneakers was needed. The familiar referee-striped employee shirts became as recognizable as the shoes themselves. Foot Locker stores carried basketball, running, training, and casual sneakers along with athletic clothing and accessories, and the chain became a central player in the rise of sneaker culture. Even after enormous changes in malls and retail, Foot Locker remains on Long Island at major centers including Roosevelt Field, Smith Haven Mall, and Green Acres Mall.
25. Baxter’s Sport Shop
- Longtime Location: 250 West Merrick Road, Valley Stream
- Documented Corporate History: Since 1984
- Specialty: Sporting goods and team equipment
Baxter’s Sport Shop represents the neighborhood sporting goods businesses that served local leagues and schools without ever needing the national visibility of Modell’s or Herman’s. The Valley Stream company has been documented on West Merrick Road since the 1980s and appears in local school records as a supplier of physical-education and athletic equipment. Stores like Baxter’s were especially important before online team-ordering systems became common, when coaches and league organizers depended on local sporting goods dealers for uniforms, equipment, and personal service. It is exactly the kind of Long Island sports retailer that belonged to the community around it.
For more New York retail history, see 25 Sporting Goods Stores New York City Has Lost and 20 Legendary Long Island Electronics, Stereo & Appliance Stores We Miss. You can also revisit our histories of E.J. Korvettes and Alexander’s, two stores that were once part of everyday shopping life for generations of New Yorkers.
Published September 10, 2026.
