Welcome to Nashville. Home of the Predators.
In almost every way, Nashville trumps Memphis. Even if you don't like country music. And as Benetti will attest, the enthusiasm they have for their NHL team far surpasses the fervor Memphis expresses toward their Grizzlies.
As one fan we met put it: "My cat likes to watch the Grizzlies at home, and we make fun of him for it." That fan is a Preds regular who says I look ike Vince Gill, one of the team's celebrity faithful.
That's him celebrating a goal, which is a lengthly process here. First, they watch the puck go into the net. Then a horn blares, rendering the crowd temporarily deaf. Next we hear a customized version of Tim McGraw's "I Like it, I Love it" with the line "Don't know what it is 'bout those Predators' scoring" tossed in in place of the original lyric. Finally, "Rock n' Roll Part 2" (the "hey" song) blares and the crowd shouts "you suck!" and "we're gonna beat the hell out of you!"
By now, play has resumed for about 2 minutes and nobody has noticed.
They love their chants here, though. Most of them include the word "suck", but our favorite came with one minute remaining in each period. The PA announcer says "one minute remaining," and the crowd responds with a "thanks, Paul." It was great.
(Benetti note--in a very close second place was a jeer levied at the opposing goalie. It went like this:
Noreena! Noreena! You suck. You suck. It's all your fault. It's all your fault.
Poor Frederik Noreena, whose shoelaces will be hidden for the next week.)
Other things that happened - multiple knock-down fights (real crowd-pleasers):
A player fired a puck at one of the boards so hard the glass shattered. There were more than four minutes remaining in the 2nd period when it happened. They took the intermission then, replaced the glass, and came back to play the remaining 24 minutes and change of the game all at once:
The Predators won the game, 3-0.
Fat lady on the scoreboard at end of game seems so easy. It's not done nearly enough.
(It could easily be overdone, though. Don't get any ideas, hordes of teams reading this for ideas.)
Benetti took this picture of me with one of the Predator cheerleaders:
I know, weird right? Cheerleaders at a hockey game? They don't really do anything, but after the picture I'm warming to the idea.
Oh, and the Columbus Blue Jackets? Not very good, but we'll follow them home anyway, just to make sure.
-david (with a hint of Benetti)
1 comment:
that goalie chant reminds me a little of "Weasley Is Our King"
and some of these are about as weird as the "ball two" chant at Hurricane baseball games
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