Fifty years of hockey in Nashville? Really?

by becka on Aug 10, 2010 1:24 PM EDT

Well, that is what I thought when I first heard the Dixie Flyers dropped the puck on their inaugural season in 1962. How could a historian resist that – especially when she has a research paper due in December.

This fall I am entering into the final semesters of my master’s program in history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As a break from my thesis research, I have chosen a new topic to write about: the history of hockey in Nashville. In addition to some general history about the different leagues – NHL, ECHL, EHL – my paper will cover Nashville hockey from the Dixie Flyers and the South Stars to the Knights and finally the Predators. One of the reasons I joined this blog is that I though it would be great way to get feedback from Nashville hockey fans. I hope to also glean some insight on what it means to be a hockey fan in Nashville and, with any luck, a few leads on source materials.

Although I am not new to hockey, I am definitely new to being a Predators fan. I am actually a life-long Chicago Blackhawks fan. (Don’t hate me.) I am a Chicago native transplanted to the south as a teenager. I come by my hockey fanaticism honestly: my grandfathers were both huge hockey fans, one even played adult neighborhood league hockey in the 1950s. I simply love hockey – I go to the Alabama Frozen Tide club team games; I have driven over to Atlanta for Thrashers and Knights games and up to Huntsville for Havoc games; and I used to go to the Birmingham Bulls (ECHL) and the short-lived Alabama Slammers games as often as I could.

A good friend of mine has been a Predators fan since the beginning. Because of him, I have been keeping an eye on the Predators for the past season. Luckily, Fox Sports South Nashville is available on my satellite and I was able to watch a good number of games. I went to my first Predators game on a student night. (This spring I also went to a Thrashers game – Phillips Arena has NOTHING on Bridgestone.) The atmosphere is amazing.

At this point, I completely fell in love with the team and the barn. So much so, I bought tickets the day after the team clinched their spot in the playoffs. As it turned out, my two favorite teams ended up playing each other. Honestly, I was probably the happiest fan in the building regardless of the outcome. It was very strange to be in Bridgestone and NOT be rooting for the Predators. However, part of me was still excited that the Preds won Game 3. Two days later I drove up for Game 4, so I got the best of both worlds that week. And now, I am a season ticket holder (well, the 10 game plan since I live three hours away).

So, do any of you have memories of seeing the Dixie Flyers, South Stars, or Knights before the Predators came to town?

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nice read

go job and good luck with your paper. i grew up in nashville (35 now) but now live in southern TN. i vaguely remember going to a knights game when i was a kid, but it was mostly the Sounds. (that’s what happens when you grow up in the south. your grandparents grow up on baseball instead of hockey). i do seem to remember another minor league team just before the Preds came to be. the Nashville Ice Flyers i think? they werent around for long. anyways, good luck with your paper. if you ever want to carpool, my gf and i have 23 game packs and we live just outside of fayetteville, TN. so give us a holler. lol. Go Preds!

by robjustice on Aug 10, 2010 2:18 PM EDT reply actions

Dixie Flyers

As Vanderbilt students 1963-67, we could count on the yellow-sweatered Nashville Dixie Flyers for a great evening at Municipal Auditorium. A girl I dated took me to my first game. She’s been my wife for 43 years now. Anyhow, the team’s attraction was twofold: 1) economic, since $3.00 bought a ticket for a seat as close to the ice as available; 2) blood lust, since the Flyers were better at battering heads than directing accurate shots on goal. They left a lot of blood on the ice. Flyers captain Ted McCaskill was everybody’s favorite. One year—I believe it was 1966—Teddy potted 60 goals and earned 65 assists in 72 games. He later had a couple of cups of coffee in the NHL. At the time Teddy had a toddler son he called Kirkie. Eventually, as longtime residents of Los Angeles, we saw Kirk McCaskill pitch for the California Angels. When we returned to Nashville at long last, our first impulse was to sign up for full season tickets and bleed Predators blue. Our crowds at Bridgestone Arena are sometimes criticized for lack of decorum, but they are positively polite compared to the old gang at Dixie Flyers games. I can still hear that group of rude regulars who sang, "Howja…howja…howja like to bite my a**."

by Hockey Hillbilly on Aug 10, 2010 3:12 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs

And now a word from...

the (much) better hockey fan in our family. She feels any reminiscence of the Dixie Flyers that doesn’t include the team’s first captain, Red Murphy, is at the least misleading. Red’s fists spilled much of that blood on Municipal Auditorium’s ice. She also fondly recalls Lloyd Hinchberger, who might as well have brought a bag of Krispy Kremes to the penalty box for regular snacks, and Marv Edwards, whose goal tending kept the Flyers in more games than they deserved. After all, she points out, the Flyers were two-time champions of the Eastern Hockey League.

by Hockey Hillbilly on Aug 10, 2010 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs

These are great memories, folks, thanks for sharing!

On the Forecheck is SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators. Catch me on Twitter at @Forechecker.

by Dirk Hoag on Aug 10, 2010 4:11 PM EDT up reply actions

I’m rec’ing both of those because I love these kind of stories. I’m too young to know “old-time hockey,” so I have to live vicariously through others.

SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.

by Doogie2K on Aug 13, 2010 9:05 PM EDT up reply actions

I can remember going to see the Dixie Flyers as a young child with my dad—it was definitely before I started first grade—when we moved to Richmond VA in 1964 I told all my new friends that that was my favorite team. (They were most perplexed—they couldn’t remember the Green Bay Packers EVER playing the Dixie Flyers.) I remember it was played at the then new Municipal Auditorium and I am pretty sure there was chicken wire instead of glass to protect viewers. Once we returned to Nashville, we went to a few more games, but the Flyers were gone so to me it was just “hockey”…I wasn’t really following the team as much as the game. I’d watch it on TV when it happened to be on, but never sought it out. Same after I grew up. I was a fan of the game but not a fan of any particular team. It was only after the Preds came to Nashville that I started going to the games and paying attention to more than the score in the sports section. My company got tickets the first few years and then I started getting my own because I don’t like sharing. I’d say in the past 6 years I haven’t missed more than 20 games altogether.

by Adzy aka Lisa Halsey on Aug 10, 2010 3:15 PM EDT reply actions

I Met

red murphy 2 or 3 years ago at marble slab (now closed) in gallatin. he saw my preds sweatshirt and asked if i was a fan. he and his wife were season ticket holders and went to most every game. i didnt live here then but knew a little general history of the flyers years here. he told a couple good stories and they went on their way. you might could find him and ask for an interview. based on our conversation that day he would welcome the chance to tell you all you need to know about the dixie flyers.

by predswilrule on Aug 10, 2010 4:15 PM EDT reply actions

You might also check...

into the whereabouts of Flo Pilote, a Flyer who later owned and operated “The Penalty Box,” a tavern in Hermitage. This comes from an old Vandy buddy who tipped a few in Flo’s joint and recalls the Flo’s French-Canadian accent stood out in a room full of drawls.

by Hockey Hillbilly on Aug 10, 2010 5:31 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks!

Just thought I’d check this before I left work and, wow, what great stories! A big Thank You to everyone who responded so far. I will probably comment more later this evening.

by becka on Aug 10, 2010 4:56 PM EDT reply actions

PLEASE

make sure you allow us to read your finished product… after you get your “A” of course.

by predswilrule on Aug 11, 2010 4:41 PM EDT up reply actions

Hallway Hockey

My first hockey experience was probably around 1967 when I attended a Dixie Flyers game with my Dad and my friend Mac who introduced me to an odd form of hockey played in his basement hallway with rulers and bottle caps on our knees. Based on our expertise in that area, I convinced my dad to take us to a game. We sat in the first row of the upper level at Municipal. The most memorable thing about the evening was Mac getting hit right in the chest with a puck that knocked the breath out of him. I though he was going to die because he couldn’t breathe and he was flopping all over the place. I got the puck and I think he still has it to this day.

by Preds On The Glass on Aug 10, 2010 8:47 PM EDT reply actions

Hockey fans always have some of the best stories...

I am sure I will be thanking y’all repeatedly over the course of the next few months as I write this paper (and prepare a presentation as well). You have given me some great leads. I have managed to eke out an outline and start formulating some section themes – all this a week before school even starts.

I will definitely look into finding Red Murphy and Flo Pilote. They would make for great oral histories.

If any of you are interested, in addition to posting more questions and comments, I will keep everyone posted on my research.

by becka on Aug 10, 2010 10:12 PM EDT reply actions

My first hockey exposure...

…was the Nashville South Stars, in the early 1980’s. The South Stars happened to feature Ryan Suter’s dad, Bob Suter, who was fresh off the Miracle on Ice, which I thought was so cool, since the country was still buzzing from winning the gold medal. Those guys were all heroes. Archie Henderson was the resident goon for the Stars, as I recall, and if I’m not mistaken, Archie also later coached another of the many minor league reincarnations here in Nashville. If you will shoot me an e-mail Becka, I will give you contact info of a walking encyclopedia of Nashville hockey history… kernellt@bellsouth.net

by NashCub on Aug 11, 2010 7:54 AM EDT reply actions

Here is another lead for you. http://fans.predators.nhl.com/topic/5721/t/Joe-Zorica-of-Dixie-Flyers.html Funny—same people posting on this as are posting here today. More info on Joe Zorica and Flo Pilote.

by Adzy aka Lisa Halsey on Aug 11, 2010 12:53 PM EDT reply actions

Thanks so much!

These leads are great! I am actually heading to Nashville today to camp out in the library for a few hours looking at old newspaper articles.

by becka on Aug 13, 2010 9:18 AM EDT reply actions

Incidentally, I think there needs to be a hockey history blog on SBN. There’s Inhistoric, but they never cover hockey, so far as I’ve seen. We could get Robert L (Eyes on the Prize, SIHR member), Bruce McCurdy (Copper & Blue), Dominik (Lighthouse Hockey)…it’d be a grand old time, especially in the summer when there’s nothing else to bloody write about. Unless you like legal shenanigans, I guess.

SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.

by Doogie2K on Aug 13, 2010 9:10 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

That’s an excellent point, at least something to act as a hub for hockey history posts…

On the Forecheck is SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators. Catch me on Twitter at @Forechecker.

by Dirk Hoag on Aug 13, 2010 9:21 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

I absolutely love all those posts, and hockey, more than any sport other than maybe baseball, is steeped in its own history and traditions. It makes a lot of sense.

SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.

by Doogie2K on Aug 14, 2010 1:59 AM EDT up reply actions