Road Trip For Fans Fun..But Long

Saturday many fans, myself included, loaded up into buses and cars and made the treacherous trek from cold, but dry Atlanta to an ice encrusted Music City...Nashville. The trip in the buses took a little longer than originally planned, but Mother Nature couldn't keep nearly 500 Thrasher fans from descending upon Nashville.

We finally made it into the parking lot across the street from the Sommet Center and piled out of the buses on a frozen tundra of a parking lot where we commenced to making a lot of noise and having a nice tailgate party. Members of the Nasty Nest had made their way there before we got there and had the site already prepared and the party was in full swing.

We made our way indoors to the Sommet Center and fell upon unsuspecting Preds fans in a way that made more than one raise an eyebrow. We gathered around the glass for warm ups and made a ton of noise and basically turned the Sommet Center into Blueland (north) for the entire warms ups. This earned us a few stick taps on the glass as the players skated by and were warming up.

The game started and in typical Thrasher fashion this season we fell quickly to a 2 goal deficit but clawed our way back and by the end of the second period we found ourselves tied 3-3. The Preds came out in the 3rd period and 7 seconds into the period struck for the game winner. Our boys in Blue played their hearts out and I thought the officiating was a little one sided for most of the game. We got hosed out of a Evander Kane goal with a whistle that supposedly was blown mere milliseconds before the puck crossed the red line.

With the final sound of the horn the Predators walked off the ice the proud owner of 2 NHL points and the Atlanta Thrashers walked off with bubkus. For Thrasher fans it was a bitter pill to swallow because quite frankly the Preds fans I bumped into were pretty much asshole about the whole thing. I pride myself and the fans of the team as being pretty good sports and though we like to give some good natured ribbing I don't think we're very rude when we win or lose. My experience of the Sommet Center was not as kind. As I was walking back out to the bus I was mobbed and told that "You suck!!" more than once. To which I say, there is no call for that.

Overall I found Predator fans to be dicks and their atmosphere one that was less than hospitable and that was why I was disappointed when we lost because at least if we had won they might have been a little more humble, alas that's the game of hockey though. What I think hurts more about that loss is the effect it had in the standings. Had we won that game we would still be in 6th place, instead we are on the outside looking in when it comes to playoff spots right now, having dropped to 9th place.

The ride back was long and quiet and because we had nothing to celebrate I think the mood on the buses was one of "Let's get the hell home"

I hope the players really recognized and understood the support we give them. I would like to think that they appreciate that type of effort because it came neither easy..nor cheap. That we lost is something I can accept, after all it's a game and nobody knows the outcome, that's what makes sports so compelling.