Tuesday's news: Have the Nashville Predators offended the Hockey Gods?

If our fans don’t want to be labeled hillbillies and rednecks then the “you suck” chants have to go.

Our objective is not to make the arena more hospitable for opposing players.

Sorry if you disagree.

Like Habs fans are known to do. Or ignore the anthem and cheer through it like Hawks fans are known to do.

Or throw octopi on the ice.

…or waffles (as is the case in Toronto).

There are a lot of things done in hockey that make it a truly unique and fan-centric sport. The chants are another component of that.

You know…we still cheer when an injured player leaves the ice. We acknowledge departed players (like Vokoun) with pretty fantastic video montages. We have carved a pretty unique niche for ourselves with the chants and that has been recognized around the league (both positive and negative, of course). A lot of my family lives in Windsor, Ontario. The ones that have visited here and gone to a Predators game love the atmosphere and actually thought the chants were cool/funny/interesting.

And we do cheer for our team. I was at the St. Louis game for the impromptu ovation. I have watched our fans send our team home for the summer with a standing ovation and audible passion, even though we lost in the first round…and the same ovation was present when we exited the playoffs in the first round again…and again, ad nauseum.

You want to lose the “hillbilly” stigma? Stop playing some of the horrid country music. That does more to solidify the “redneck” stereotype than anything the fans in the stands are chanting.

Plus, there are many things said in other arenas that are far, far worse than what we do. The absurdity of saying a team “sucks”, even though that team might be beating us 4-1, is part of the fun of it all. It’s all tongue-in-cheek.

I think there’s a big difference between the “he shoots, he scores, you suck!” sort of chants during a game, and actually asserting in a calm and rational manner that a world-class player has a glaring deficiency in skills.

The first comes naturally to me, and doesn’t feel any different than cheering for my own team. Saying the opposing goalie sucks is the same as saying the Preds’ goal scorer is awesome—either way, the point I’m getting at in that situation is that the Predators on the ice played better than the opposition. A little bit of good-natured heckling never hurt anything, in my opinion.

The latter situation is indeed a different matter, and one I find distasteful. If a player is good, he is good, regardless of who he plays for. But, I think you should take a good look at some of the other fans around the league, and see how they behave. If we look like hockey hicks to the rest of the league, it’s most definitely not because a few of us insult opposing players.

Honestly, I’d say most of the league automatically respects us more than Canadian/original six , and west coast fans, at the least…See this classless example of humanity for why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qFfuLy_fs

Do Chicago, Detroit, or Dallas suck???

Also, pop up blocker seems to be affecting my “reply” button.

Would you rather beat a good team or a team that sucks???

Gretzky
That probably just pissed the hockey gods off more. (I kid, I kid)