Why haven't the Predators sold out Games 3 & 4 yet?

It could indeed be a problem. My wife and I are trying to get a babysitter for Wednesday, and that was offered as a reason one option couldn’t.

Also part of what’s used to determine kid’s eligibility for Sp. Ed or gifted.. along with the school’s performance. Parents have been inundated with robocalls about “get kids to bed early, and make sure they eat a good breakfast”… when you hear about an 8pm start, they immediately say “nope, can’t do it”

It’s all about teaching the test, and here’s the test.

You took the world out of my mouth, plain and simple.

rec’d

Being relatively new to Nashville I may be off base here so if I am, please forgive me. But in the almost 2 years I’ve been here, I’ve learned one thing about Nashvillans: you are proud people. The fact that the hockey team gets little attendance and is seen as a joke (I don’t think they are a joke, but others do outside Nashville) would be good enough reason for people to go to games. I hear left and right about people complaining about the Preds threatening to leave and I find myself thinking that maybe you should do something about it and go to a game. Obviously I am not referring to those on this board because most here go to the games. As a Nashville transplant, and hearing people complain about things I’m just floored by why they don’t just go to games. I would think that based on what I do know about people here is that they would want to go and support this team as community pride to prove outsiders wrong that this can be a hockey town.

I will agree with you about the difference of a couple thousand fans not being noticeabletip the players. But it’s definitely noticeable to the pocketbook of an organization that has to scratch and claw for every penny. The playoff revenue is just gravy I agree, but it should also be sellout gravy.

True… So very true..Perfectly stated!!

And, welcome to OtF.

Support for your team is support for your team and either you have it or you don’t. If you can’t sell out a playoff game then your community clearly doesn’t support the team. No amount of excuses will change that.

A stadium with 2000 empty seats compared to a complete sell-out with a crap of load standing room only tickets sold may or may not be noticeable- that’s not really the point. Either you’re sold out or your not. And it matters.

It matters to the NHL, it matters to the fans, and most of all it matters to the players. They may all give lip service to going out and playing hard regardless of whether or not the stadium is sold out, but if the game isn’t sold out the players are going to be asked after the game if it had an affect on their play, they’re going to be asked if it made work harder or made them feel somewhat aloof, so they’ll be thinking about it and responding to questions about it, doubt could creep in as well as a frustrating sense that they’re busting their asses for a community that doesn’t care.

It’s not the end of the world by any means but selling out the stadium matters especially during the playoffs and it’s just another aspect of the series that your team will have to overcome should it not sell out. That’s just a fact.

It’s better for you as fans to admit that it does suck and it is a problem than to make excuses and accept it and act like it doesn’t mean anything. It means everything. Maybe offering up excuses is your way of dealing with a seemingly insurmountable task of promoting a kick ass sport? Instead, try getting motivated.

I hope for the sake of the NHL and the City of Nashville that it is sold-out. You guys have a good team that needs and deserves your support.

I commented something similar on the SCH website a couple of days ago in response to someone’s comment about the Preds attendance. Nashville is definitely not a traditional hockey market by any stretch of the imagination. It is a young market and it often takes generations for a sport to become fully integrated in any area where it previously was not part of popular culture. Prior to the Preds, the Nashville area only had two minor league teams that I’m aware of.

That being said, economic times are rough and my understanding is that Nashville does have to get its regular season ticket sales up for the sake of survival. I have great respect for the Preds organization though for giving its fanbase a product consistently worth watching since the lockout, especially with what I imagine is a tight budget and an unsure future in a historically unproven market. I hope for all you Preds fans (and hockey fans in general) in the Nashville area that it all works out for you. Being a Hawks fan for over 40 years, I wish I could say the same of our former ownership. We had an established market, but ownership did everything possible to drive that fanbase away from the sport. Thank god for Rocky Wirtz.

Finally, I hate when people diss on a team because of attendance. I don’t see any correlation between attendance and judging a team’s performance or the heart of the fans that do come out to the games – or choose to root from a bar or from their sofa at home. There were even seats available at the UC the day before each of the games. Regarding the Preds, it’s hard to convert mediocre season ticket sales into sellouts for early round playoff games. We see it every year for many newer NHL teams. It’s simple reality and not a big deal IMO.

Of the 14 to 16 or so games I’ve been able to attend this year, I’ve taken one (or more) of my three children to probably 8 of them. Part of the draw (for me) is a family-friendly atmosphere of Preds games.

In fact, over the past few seasons, the Preds offered a “Family Four Pack”, which was 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs, and 4 sodas for $99. We did that several times because you really can’t beat that price for professional level sports.

Middle of the week with kids in school and just finishing night classes for my BA doesn’t help my case with the wife in asking for more time away from the family. As much as I love the Preds and the sport of hockey, there is a certain reality that some just have to face. I’ve gone to quite a few games this season (I know 16 is nothing when looking at the overall home schedule, but I do what I can with the budget I have).

I sit in a short row, and two families fill the two rows: the three of us, and a family of five. The kids range in age from 7 or so to 15. And that’s in lower-arena seats. People question the commitment of the fan base here, but five tickets at $88 apiece is a pretty expensive family night out. The fans here are rabid, and the numbers are growing (slowly). You see more kids playing street hockey here than throwing a football or baseball, and I doubt that was the case at all before the Predators were here. A Brentwood team (Nashville ‘burb) has the state champion in high school hockey. A Brentwood native is the Hobey Baker award, and I hope that his eventual presence on the roster here builds the fan base, as well. It’ll make for a great story…

But surely his absence doesn’t explain all the items you note above.

11 is pretty late for a school night, but it’s not going to have a long-term impact on my kids’ academic performance. But they’ll remembering being there for playoff wins for a long time. Go Preds!

unless your in the igloo in Pittsburgh, since they switched the home teams’ colors to dark colors. It makes no sense, at least to me.

why have we never done that?

would we do that when the away team wears white?

unless you ask Kellie Pickler. Seriously, here are a couple of anecdotal stories:

There was a kid at a game with a sign that said “Tootoo is my buddy.” Tootoo skated over to the glass and asked “Are you my buddy?” Made the kid’s day, no month, no, year, probably.

Met him at a meet-and-greet one night. While he was signing my son’s jersey, the people in line behind us told Tootoo that it was my son’s birthday. He took the time to joke with my son that he’d sing to him, but that he was a terrible singer. Just really friendly, and always seems to have a big smile on his face when he’s interacting with fans. Thanks them for coming out to support the team (when they thank him for an autograph).

People hate an agitator because that’s his role.

And yeah, it’ll sell out. Lots of people waiting to get tickets at the box office window on game night, I’m sure.

Decided to google an image of your coach, so that I could come up with a witty comeback to your last remark. Went to igoogle.com, entered “Dallas Stars coach,” clicked images, and this is one of the images that resulted:

Totally serious. Try it!

But since they’re in 1st & 2nd grade, no TCAPs yet.

What the owners agreed to was not to exercise an option to break the lease through 2012. In order to do so, they’d have to lose $20 million and miss the 14K attendance mark first (things which aren’t happening anyway).

Yet the reporting around it makes it sound like they’ve decided to just stick around for a couple years more – a very, very different spin on the situation.

I’m fairly new to hockey, and no other sport I’ve followed has had so much discussion about relocation of teams.

I can definitely see how that could kill a fan base before it had time to grow.

I don’t think you’ll find anybody online who’s taken on the “Nashville attendance” critics more often and aggressively than myself, but I do think it’s an interesting question. Personally, I think the late starts during the week are a big negative for a lot of folks.