Pred fans lend voices, checkbooks to cause
The news of the Nashville Predators’ demise has been greatly exaggerated. Or so it would seem after the events of this week. After months of doom and gloom and predictions of the impending sale of Nashville’s NHL franchise to prospective owners who made clear their intentions of moving the team, things have started looking up for Predator fans.
Members of a local group of Nashville businessmen have made major strides in securing capital and putting together a bid to buy the team; a bid which appears to be increasingly attractive to current owner Craig Leipold as well as to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and other members of the NHL offices who would have to approve any proposed deal. Members of the group traveled to New York along with Leipold on Wednesday to meet with Commissioner Bettman and by all reports, the meeting went very well and the local group ended the day looking like they had become the front-runners in the race to buy the team.
One of the leaders of this local group is businessman Herb Fritch who lives in the Nashville area but, as the ‘Tennessean’ reported last week, happens to own 400 acres of property in Warren County where he keeps elk, long-horned cattle and buffalos.
A Warren County connection to the Predators would certainly be a welcome piece of news to the many Warren County residents who own season tickets and the many others who buy individual game tickets. One of those local couples is Jeff and Angie Bandy who, along with their children Ethan and Ellen, own season tickets and make the approximately hour and a half drive to Nashville for games as often as they can. They were part of the estimated crowd of 7,500 that attended the Predators’ rally held at the Sommet Center Thursday.
The rally’s goal was to sell season tickets to help reach the all-important goal of averaging 14,000 in paid attendance per game in the upcoming season. Making this mark will ensure the team’s lease with the city will remain in effect and will render it nearly impossible for the team to be moved in the short term.
The rally was also important in that the local group, Leipold and the NHL office were all closely monitoring it in order to evaluate the amount of support for the team in the mid-state area. Organizers originally set a goal for selling 200 to 300 new season tickets over the course of the day but as the event came to a close at 9 p.m., they reported 726 new season tickets had been sold in 15 hours. The Predators also unveiled their newly designed home and away jerseys for the 2007-2008 season. The event was deemed an overwhelming success and provided a huge boost of confidence to the local group.
Governor Phil Bredesen and his wife Andrea were featured speakers at the rally and were a big hit with the crowd as they at one point grabbed a fan’s sign to hold up. The sign featured a slightly off-color phrase letting their true feelings be known to anyone wishing to take the team away.
Another well-received speaker was the anonymous hockey blogger known only as Eklund. His Web site, hockeybuzz.com, is one of the most trusted hockey rumor sites on the Internet and he routinely breaks big hockey news before anyone else. Eklund flew from Philadelphia to Nashville at his own expense to be part of the rally and to show his support to keep the Predators in Nashville. His Web site reported on Friday that the local group is now the only group currently negotiating with the team and could begin the process of finalizing a deal within a week. He went on to say that William ‘Boots’ Del Biaggio, the potential buyer who was thought to be the front-runner before the emergence of the locals, currently believes that the local group will prevail and that he will continue to wait for a potential expansion club to come his way.
So perhaps the roller coaster ride that devoted Predator fans have been on is about to come to a close, but no one will be breathing easy until everything is official.
And even if the locals become the new owner, it is vital that attendance averages at least 14,000 per game and hopefully reaches the 16,000 mark that the group said would allow them to adequately fund a competitive team year-in and year-out. Anyone interested in buying tickets can visit www.nashville predators.com or call the team at 615-770-PUCK.