On July 21st, Nashville’s NHL ownership group, Predators Holdings, LLC purchased the 27% share that had once been owned by  San Jose venture capitalist William “Boots” Del Biaggio. Transactions of this kind are usually marked by the involved entities and will sometimes get a passing mention on the business page of the local paper.  But this is not your typical boilerplate story about the business of professional sports.

The fifteen point two million dollars invested in bringing that share back into the hands of Tennessee investors represents a step towards keeping the promise made by the Predators Organization  that, at least from a fiduciary standpoint,  they will do what they can to keep the franchise in Nashville.  This latest development comes as the team is seeing an organizational shift towards increased optimism and a deeper commitment to creating a winning program.

Getting from there to here has not always been easy for Nashville.  The team’s steady growth lost a considerable amount of it’s momentum after the 2005 lockout.  The following season, Nashville  struggled and the Predators’  original owner, Craig Liepold made a tentative agreement to sell the Predators to RIM head Jim Balsillie.  Irregularities with the way it was  handled  led to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman putting a stop to the deal.

The 2007 season opened with an undercurrent of  growing acrimony between Nashville fans who were feeling leery of investing money and loyalty into a team that seemed to be on its way North and fans in Canada who felt betrayed by Bettman and frustrated at what they saw as his continual effort to dilute the cultural identity of hockey as a Canadian sport.  The troubled, sometimes tenuous feel about whether the the Predators had truly found a home in Nashville was aided by the news that an arrangement had been made to sell 27% of the organization to Del Biaggio, who promptly began to lobby for the team to be moved to Kansas City.

Concerns about such a move were answered by a local ownership group, which was  headed up at the time by David Freeman.  On August 1st, 2007,  his group declared it’s intention to keep the team in Nashville.  With concomitant funding and support from the Mayor’s Office and the city’s sports authority, the NHL Board of Directors approved the sale of the team to Freeman’s group on November 29th of that year.

Freeman’s  financial issues with the IRS led to his stepping down as head of the investors’ group earlier this year. His sucessor, Tom Cigarran,  is the new chariman and has stepped easily into his role as  the  face of the Predators’ ownership group.  Early in his tenure, Ciggaran demonstrated that he was not afraid to address issues that had been very much on the minds of Nashville’s fan base.  When Predators GM David Poile and Head Coach Barry Trotz announced that there would be more aggressive measures taken to improve the teams’ offensive potential and a retooling of their approach to special teams, Cigarran was supportive and stressed that he is taking a long, very positive view of Nashville’s future.

Cigarran was no less vocal and optimistic about this latest chapter in Predators history.  “This is a significant step forward to strengthen our franchise’s financial position,” Cigarran said. “We have worked with Todd Neilson (trustee for Boots Del Biaggio’s estate) to arrive at reasonable terms. This transaction eliminates a significant future liability and allows the Predators to move forward.”

This step answers any questions about what the ownership is willing to do to make the Predators suceed in Nashville.  The other pieces of the puzzle:  organizational outreach, fan response and team sucess are needed to prove the Predators will have staying power as part of Nashville’s sports community.

While getting ready to watch Saturday morning’s exhibition of drill after drill after drill, I thought back to a tweet I’d gotten from one of the eight people who are nice enough to read my writing. They mentioned that Gelinas and crew were in Rink B. At the time I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I’d spent two days wondering why Gelinas had shaved his head and totally missed the most important piece of information that SLPreds had so kindly provided.

There was another rink.

There was another rink where something other than synchronized skating was going on and I wasn’t there. I contemplated this as the zamboni made it’s zen-like, circling path around the rink and wondered if I should just call it a day and write some haiku about the whole week.

rookies on their blades
skating in a formation
the coach taps his stick

lost hockey writer
watches players circle ’round
“Why bald, Gelinas?”

And then the meditative, white void that was the rink was changed by the presence of Colin Wilson, who set up the goals, brought out buckets of pucks and proceeded to skate around, slapping pucks against the walls and into the nets. He devoted a couple of minutes to doing puck tricks on the blade of his stick and it was then that I realized that there was training and then there was theatre. Oh, we were seeing the boys put through their paces to be sure, but there was something about the whole thing that just felt too formal, too polished, too much like everyone had their company manners dialed to ten.

The Rookies’ opening act on Saturday was Colin Wilson and Puckie.

Somewhere the real hockey, the game that the rookies seemed to be itching to play when they were doing the Boy Scouts on Ice routine, was happening. After the usual exercises were over I noticed some of the fans who had been watching were headed down a hallway into -HUZZAH!- the other rink.

This was where the real scrimmaging was going on. This was where the guys were yelling, checking each other hard, teaching some lessons at the crease and generally acting like hockey players. Budish, Ellis, and Roussel were in the same great form as last year, only a little older and one year closer to wearing Predators laundry. Watson was everything Poile promised he would be. I, along with all the other fans, watched in bliss as we saw the future of Nashville’s team and I have to tell you, the kids are all right.

Wrapping Things Up At Camp Smilodon

Sunday afternoon brought more fans and harder play since it was almost all about scrimmaging this time. In place of the Busby Berkeley set piece was something closer to what would happen if anyone ever did a mashup of Lord of the Flies and Rollerball.

Hey, there’s Piggy! Let’s get him!

The festivities ended with the presentation of the Best of Camp Cup to the yellow scrimmage team. They paraded it around the rink to cheers from their teammates and the fans and then dropped to do a “Stanley Cup Pose” to the imaginary photographers and hoi polloi on the other side of the rink. With that, camp was over and the speculation about who would end up playing in the Den with the Big Cats was about to begin.

Team Yellow is ready for their closeup and the chance to bring the real thing to Nashville.

Arnott casts a long shadow over Lower Broad in Nashville

Drafts, trades, and the not so magical state of liminality better known as Freeagentapalooza are reminders to sports fans that it is dangerous to get too attached. We may dearly love what they do in play, the character they bring to the team culture and what their presence brings to our city but still, unless its a native son or someone who is able to really set down roots, most of them will depart sooner or later.

It is unavoidable that Nashville loses a hand full of people who just never quite get a toehold on the team. Scatchard, Grebeshkov, everyone else, best of luck and I hope you find your place in hockey. Then there are the more familiar faces who either decide to leave or are edged out by time and changes. I always found the Vern Fiddler Dance of Denial to the penalty box and Greg DeVries’ asides during the Predators video clips to be almost as entertaining as the games themselves, but I knew we wouldn’t have those forever. Let’s pause for a moment and remember the players who left for other teams during this past season and wish them well at their new homes.

Ryan Jones Jones will be in his dotage and some of his fans will still see him as the sweet, goofy kid brother figure he seemed to typify as he worked hard to improve his game and find his groove as part of the Predators program. He had discovered his strengths and was working to create a playing style that made the most of them when he was picked up on waivers by Edmonton. We’re looking forward to seeing a healed and ready Ryan representing for the Oilers this coming Fall. Best of luck to ya, big guy!

Dan Ellis Ellis departed for Tampa Bay earlier this month, taking with him his mighty net-fu and one half of Saskatoon’s answer to Ren and Stimpy. Wade Belak has never had a better straight man and will have a tough time finding such a perfect foil in the current crop of Big Cats. The denizens of the ‘Stone and the crew at the Murfreesboro Road McDonalds are all going to miss you, Elly!

Dan Hamhuis I’m going to take an unpopular stance and say that too much is being made of what he had to say about playing in Nashville earlier this week. He isn’t the first player to leave Nashville and suggest that playing in a nontraditional market has its own set of challenges. He’s been a popular whipping boy for message board warriors for the last two years and this introspective, generally soft spoken athlete has exercised far more restraint than some of his colleagues would have if subjected to the same verbal abuse. Hammer brought heart to the game and strong sense of community involvement when he was off the ice. Time to wish him well as he and his family start a new life closer to home.

Jason Arnott I guess it was time and I’m happy to see that he’s getting to go back to the team that put him on the map with that Stanley Cup winning goal in 2000. I was also very glad to see that the New Jersey club was excited about his return. Still, its hard to imagine not having Arnott’s laconic presence and wry humor as a part of the post game coverage. Anyone who is not sure if he made a difference just has to look back at his late season return to the ice last year. The only return from IR that has galvanized Nashville so intensely before was Steve Sullivan’s reentry after a two year absence. Arnott brought the Gary Cooper vibe. Lucky Devils! He will be missed here.

Gentlemen, I raise my iced tea to you and offer a libation to the Hockey Gods for your continued success.

Now babies, enough with the melancholy already. I have to tell you about the last two days of rookie development camp and then we’re gonna work our way back in time when men played in kilts and the pucks were logs!

The annual Skate of the Union at Bridgestone had respectable attendance figures for a hockey event at one of the hottest times of the year in Middle Tennessee. Right now, butts are usually in bleachers at youth soccer matches. Local pro sports speculation often focuses more on what’s happening at the Flaming Thumbtacks’ camp than the doings at the ‘Plex. That there was a need for crowd control at all speaks well of the dedication of the Preds Faithful.

The fan chatter about this year’s event concerned the possibility that merchandise would be thin given the extent of the damage inflicted by flood waters to the lower levels of Bridgestone last May. This was belied by the gleeful packs of kids and some adults carrying armloads of sticks and assorted gear to the checkout table. Aside from one man who actually shouted “GIMME!” when he saw a lone Warrior stick among the pile of Eaton castoffs with Hamhuis’ name on them, everyone else was picking up sticks that bore names with far more favor in Predsnation. Artifacts of the tenure of recently departed captain Jason Arnott and ’09/’10 standout Patric Hornqvist were particularly sought after last Thursday. Tots, teen girls and members of “The Train” were also hot on the hunt for anything bearing the name and number of fan favorite Jordin Tootoo. The common denominator was that everyone wanted a little saber-toothed mojo for themselves.

Following the sale was the annual town meeting between representatives of the coaching staff, the owners, the players and the fans. For fans, this can be a frustrating endeavor, because even though questions are taken beforehand, there is still the element of spin that precedes the substance and tonight’s address was no exception. The essential message from the dias was one of “commitment to a winning team” This was driven home repeatedly by a representative of the owner’s group, head coach, Barry Trotz, and well, nearly everyone else onstage.

While most of the people onstage kept the message vague and hopeful, Predators GM David Poile went to the heart of the matter and brought up some key talking points that fans and observers had been wondering about. He mentioned the emphasis on adding size to the team and how his latest draft picks and some of the trades would afford some strength and offensive power to the ’10/’11 edition Predators. He said that in addition to the newest draftees, there is a considerable amount of size and talent coming up through the development system. According to Poile, Milwaukee and development camp stalwarts Budish, Blum and Pickard will all get a chance to play at the ‘Stone this coming season. The Arnott trade netted Nashville Ryan Parent, a young, big, aggressive d-man who looks very promising. He also mentioned signing some impressive free agents, Sergei Kostitsyn and Matthew Lombardi. Lombardi was welcomed onstage to applause from the crowd and a standing ovation as he put on his Predators sweater.

Per Poile and Trotz, there would be new systems in place this year for PP and PK and as far as offense goes, “this is going to be make or break time”.

The biggest announcement of the night came when Poile and Trotz discussed how they decided who would wear the ‘C’ following the departure of Jason Arnott. To them, it was an easy decision. Their choice, Shea Weber, is someone who had garnered a lot of positive attention at the Vancouver Olympics and who has come up through the system, in fact, he is the first captain to have been drafted and developed by Nashville. Weber responded to the applause and praise with a great deal of humility.

“How does that ‘C’ feel?” Trotz asked.

“A little heavy,” was the response from Weber.

Like Lombardi, he is focused on what he can bring to the team this year. When asked which captains he would model himself after, he responded that he had worked under some great captains but he would stay the same as he was and imbue the role with his own personal style.

During the Q&A that closed out the meeting, Lombardi stated that Nashville looked like a great fit for him and his family. Fans were advised that efforts were still being made to improve the parking situation. The locker rooms were completely destroyed but they would be rebuilt and would be better than ever by the time the season started. Fox Sports had inked a multiyear agreement to show even more games.

And yes, someone had to ask it. Would Radulov ever return?

David Poile stated with a bit of an eyeroll that Radulov had a three year contract with the KHL that he intended to honor. He went on to say that he had talked to him and that he was very positive about the Predators organization and was “itching and hungry to come back to Nashville.”

With that, and some more teases about changes in special teams, the meeting was over for another year.

The recent comments made by now Vancouver Canucks defenseman Dan Hamhuis about Nashville as a (non traditional) hockey market has raised the question. It also has left some Nashville fans with a sour feeling about the defenseman who was a pillar of the community while playing six years in Nashville after being drafted in the first round by the Predators in 2001.

Hamhuis stung Nashville a couple of times since leaving the team, signing a 6 year deal with the Canucks. First there was the Canadian Press story stating how excited he was to be in a place where he would no longer be anonymous. Ok, fair enough. But in the same interview, Hamhuis also stated that he looked forward to getting out of the first round of the playoffs, as if he had no role at all in the fate of his former team’s 5 playoff appearances in six years.

But then, on July 7th, the Vancouver Canucks held their annual Summer Summit where team officials talk about the upcoming year. Hamhuis was in attendance and when asked about the couple thousand fans in attendance stated that it was like a November home game in Nashville. Burn. And ouch. While it is not a secret that Predators attendance goes up after the Titans stop playing, it is also unfair and wrong to continue this false sense up north that Nashville doesn’t support their team and that hockey has no place in Tennessee.

Some people speculate that Hammer’s words were taken out of context. Watch for yourself and decide:

That said, how did other players, switching teams talk about their former teams in the new cities media outlets?

Since Predators goalie Dan Ellis signed with Tampa Bay on July 1st, he’s been all over the media on TSN in Canada and as a special guest for a podcast show done by a Lightening blogger. While in neither phone interview was Ellis asked about his time in Nashville, he only had good things to say, speaking of the talent the Preds have in Pekka Rinne as well as how the Predators organization hooked Ellis up with the Gatorade Institute to work on his conditioning issue of losing several pounds per game.

Sergei Gonchar went from the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he won a Stanley Cup in 2009, to the Ottawa Senators. Gonchar is clearly excited about having a chance to play for a Canadian team for the first time in his 15 year NHL career, stating to the Canadian Press that “Playing in Canadian cities is something that has always been special for me and now it’s going to happen for me every night, so it’s going to be special for me every night.” But the story also made it clear that re-signing with the Penguins was his first choice.

What about players leaving non-traditional hockey markets for new teams?

Colby Armstrong went from the Atlanta Thrashers to the Toronto Maple Leafs. In a conference call with media in Toronto Colby talks about how excited he is to play back home in Canada, but when asked to reflect on his time with the Thrashers, Colby stated that “my wife and I fell in love with it (Atlanta)” and that “it was tough to leave” summing up with “it was a great two years. ”

And what about the newest Predators unrestricted free agent signing, Matthew Lombardi? Lombardi signed with Nashville from Phoenix and was one of the top available UFAs. In an interview with NHL.com, Lombardi stated that he “enjoyed [his] time in Phoenix”… “It’s a great place to play, I made some really good friends and it was a great opportunity for me there. It’s tough to leave, but that’s part of the business. You’ve got to move on.”

I’m sure when specifically asked about his time in Nashville, Hamhuis would offer up the standard line about really enjoying the community and being happy to have played for such a great organization, as the players highlighted in this story have done. But why go out of his way to jab at Nashville’s fans to his new fans back in British Columbia?

Other than disgruntled players who felt they were wronged by their organization, like the recent comments Ethan Moreau said about the Oilers, players typically don’t throw their team under the bus. Hopefully this will not be the start of a new trend.

You are invited to follow me on twitter @fanhuddlepreds

LeBron who? For all anyone knew, LeBron could have been working out with former UAH Charger captain Dwayne Blais and Mitch Korn at the ‘Plex. There were no names, not even a bar code to indicate who was who to the Preds faithful in the stands. Did it matter? Only a little. Hours and miles away from the premiere of LeBron’s one-man show, “An Evening With Brett Favre”, the story at Centennial was all about Blais and Korn saying “Jump!” and the rookies asking “How high?”

The goalie cubs were drilled and drilled again while at the other end of the rink Blais barked orders at the skaters, commanding them to turn six feet plus and nearly two hundred pounds of hockey player on something thinner than one of those pretty little dimes with ships on them.

Watching the forwards go through their paces is a bit like watching a very stringent dance teacher. As they spin, skid, turn and then skate at top speed. Blais praises some players and taps his sick impatiently on the ice when two rookies collide and end up in a pile. Gravity is nobody’s friend as they skid and try to do the neat as a pin turns that seem to come like breathing to the veterans. In spite of this, he barks and taps, demanding that they focus as they wait in line, run through their routine and then wait again. Everyone is consciously defying the laws of physics and their own tendency to think. The objective, to let the primal that was employed to hunt to take over, only now in the name of play. It doesn’t take long for some of the players begin to show their game face, their posture indicating that this would soon be second nature. The steps, the dance is starting to feel right and they’re going to be ready to play (by Nashville standards) fairly soon.

Almost everyone is all concentration right now. We have still yet to see anything like the gleeful, barking mad enthusiasm that Ryan Ellis exhibited during the expo day at last year’s camp. Maybe that is still to come. I hope so. Having written that, it is only fair to add that the urge to play in the face of all of this drilling is strong. Players slap the pucks that slide within range against the boards, likely in part for the noise but also possibly to get some sense of completion and reassurance that within this work is a game to be played.

The looping, swooping drills and the barrage of frozen rubber being fired at the goalies is almost hypnotic. What can’t possibly be forgotten by anyone is that there is teaching but there is also the underlying need to be teachable now and coachable in the future. A lot is at stake here. that everyone is watching to see who stands out and who will need more tiem to develop and mature.

At the end of the session we saw the return of what could only be described as controlled Ragnoroc. Multiple pucks flew as the players rifled pucks at the goalies and the coaches skated around and through the madness, picking out instances where players did well and seeing areas where there was room for improvement. As we head towards the midpoint of rookie, it will be interesting if we are given a look at who is leading, who is being lead and who will wear navy in Nashville in 10-11.

Tip of the Kats gimme cap to SLPreds for letting me know via Twitter that the person facilitating the power skating exercises was not Gelinas. Thanks!