I am writing this love letter, so to speak, to all the hockey fans in Nashville that so greatly supported the Predators during this year’s thrilling Stanley Cup Playoff run.  While I don’t speak for hockey fans everywhere or even hockey folks in Minnesota, I know that many feel as I do, that the city of Nashville provided a great boost of energy and promotion for the sport of hockey in general and the NHL in particular.

Nashville is not new to hockey. Their NHL team hasn’t been around as long as most others, but the city still has a long and proud professional hockey pedigree. Of course, what the city and Predators’ fans experienced this year was an excitement that went to a new and awesome level.

I would be wherever I would be, in our hockey-crazed state and folks would be saying, “got to get home to see the National Anthem.” I wanted to get home to see the National Anthem as well. This is a unique honor bestowed almost entirely to Chicago Stadium and Blackhawks’ games. Not anymore.

I admit to being a country music fan. So maybe my circle of friends is a little more inclined to want to see their various favorite country artists sing our Anthem, but we all know the excitement created by the city of Nashville went far beyond that.

We heard broadcasters report on the decibel levels in the arena. Players were comparing these levels to Chicago’s United Center and a couple of others. Broadcasts were showing thousands of people in the streets wearing the yellow Predators’ jerseys, cheering their team along. We saw country music celebrity testimonials between periods that went something like this: “I’m just a country boy from Georgia who had seen hockey on TV, but once I saw it in person, I was hooked.”  They would go on to explain why. It was all great. And you could hear in their voices, they had become true fans. 

And for all of us, isn’t it fun to watch others watch through their eyes and their words, discover a love and appreciation for a game we have long loved and appreciated? It was really fun.

Even NBA icon Charles Barkley could not more loudly sing the praises of the excitement of the Stanley Cup Playoff energy in Nashville. I cannot recall his exact words, but I recall him in essence saying that the NBA could only wish to have such energy and excitement in their buildings. He said maybe only the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls could have attained such a level of excitement. If you live in Nashville, you have to be proud and maybe amazed by such praise.  

The NHL’s broadcast partners did a great job of capturing country music celebrities in game and intermission interviews and so on. And it doesn’t hurt that Carrie Underwood is married to the captain of the Predators, Mike Fisher. In an intermission interview, when asked how she felt about fighting in the sport, her response was one of basically having no problem with it. She said she was confident her husband could handle himself. Mike Milbury’s response was awesome: “I knew I was going to like you,” he said with a wry smile. Does anybody not like Carrie Underwood?

And so it went. I hope the NHL has been able to take this great promotion and excitement created by the town of Nashville and the country music industry to places outside of the already hockey crazed. In any event, the city of Nashville provided a renewed excitement and energy to a sport that is all about energy and excitement. While some in the great city of Nashville may be disappointed with the end result, I would hope most are proud of what was brought to the city and to this great sport.

With all the above said, the Preds lost to a great Penguins’ team. There is no denying that. I got an additional thrill as a former player of mine, Chad Ruhwedel, hoisted the Stanley Cup. Chad played a good number of minutes throughout the playoffs for the Penguins and I am sure hoisting the cup was a surreal experience for him. 

What makes this story more amazing, is Chad is from San Diego. I don’t know how many San Diego natives have raised the cup; possibly none and for sure, not many. Chad moved from San Diego but for only one year of AAA midget in Los Angeles and then made our Sioux Falls Stampede USHL team where he played two years. That’s quite an unusual jump, from a West Coast state and then only one year of AAA. Chad’s parents are some of the greatest people you will ever meet. Chad was a captain for us, and a great captain I can say without hesitation. He then went on to UMass Lowell and was a captain there as well. He could not be a greater role model. I could not be happier for this young man and his equally awesome family. All awesome stuff.  From San Diego, wow! What a journey!

A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Kevin Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. He was the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen from 2012-14. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s. His book “Leading From the Ice” is available at amazon.com.