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Sunday, October 11, 1998
It's hockey night in Nashville
Country music capital flips for Predators
One by one they walked out on to a red carpet and into the arena to the largest applause of their lives, this lineup of leftovers and hopefuls, treated like stars on Oscar night.
Welcome to Hockey Night in Nashville, where so far the first-year Predators can make only one claim in Music City. "We're going to to be the best in the league at something," coach Barry Trotz said. "We're deep in anthem singers."
Welcome to Hockey Night in Nashville, where thousands of fans gathered outside the arena in the afternoon, just to be there, wearing jerseys, wearing hats, wearing hockey clothes for the first time in their lives, being part of what is being called the New Ice Age.
SELLOUT
"I never thought it was going to be as exciting as it has been," said Craig Leipold, the rainwear manufacturer from Wisconsin who is majority owner of the expansion Predators. "To be part of this tonight is something I'm incredibly proud of. Every family member I have is here. They've come from 11 different states. It's so exciting."
Just ask the sold-out crowd at the opulent Nashville Arena, where everyone and everything got cheered last night.
Never mind that the Predators lost 1-0 to the Florida Panthers. The fans cheered stick checks. They cheered when their own team took a penalty. They cheered wildly for the first fight -- a battle between Patrick Cote and Florida's Peter Worrell that the linesmen clearly let continue longer than they should have. They even cheered when the team director of business operations was introduced.
This was one happy crowd. They will learn. It's hard to be happy all the time when your best player is named Sergei Krivokrasov. But the fans here didn't seem to care. It's all so new.
"I've brought my wife to all kinds of sporting events and she hates everything," said Rick Wey, from nearby Brentwood, a 41-year-old fan wearing a Predators jersey. "Tonight, she is all fired up. I looked over at her and I expect her to say she wants to leave and she's reading the rule book.
"I can tell you one thing -- we're definitely coming back."
The opening-night euphoria was contagious from crowd to players to team executives in a less-than-thrilling expansion-like game against the Panthers.
"It was an unbelievable feeling walking in here tonight," Predators captain Tom Fitzgerald said. "The way the people greeted us outside, the guys were so fired up they wanted to strap on their blades and go out and play right away.
"And there are a lot of fans here who don't care a lick about the game."
"I don't want to say they're ignorant," former Blues winger Blair Atcheynum said. "But ..."
But they do have an unusual cheer: "Get Bit."
Whatever that means. They chant it at the beginning of the period. They chant it at the end. They chant it when the scoreboard urges fans to do so.
On the first night, the sounds of Nashville were hockey sounds and the emotions were many. For David Poile, the executive vice-president of hockey operations, this was another milestone night in his hockey life. He flew in Cliff Fletcher and Bill Putnam, the two men who first hired him out of university, to work in the National Hockey League. He brought in his children from different universities.
His father, Hall of Famer Bud Poile, came carrying a cane. He brought in the wife of his late chief scout from Washington, Jack Button, and the wife of the late owner of his farm team in Portland. He forgot no one.
"You don't how important this is to so many of us," said Barry Trotz, the rookie coach of the Predators.
"It's a long way from where I began in Regina. It's a long way for a lot of us."