Legionnaire11

Madmartigan! nice!! but still, Weller could have fought Tootoo. Instigator or not. What he did got a match penalty anyway... oh wait, because he did it to Tootoo, the NHL rescinded the match penalty.

no, I was just sharing it since we're on the topic of elbows and headshots. as for Tootoo, I think the kid is a great story, but anyone who has been around me long enough knows that he's my (now second) least favorite player on the Preds, Scott Nichol is currently worse than Tootoo I believe. And it's not that I like to defend Tootoo's actions, I just think that they are overblown most of the time. Every hit he makes, or every fight he gets in somehow turns into the worst thing ever to happen in hockey when it hits the message boards. Is there crap like the Robidas hit where he earns that reputation? absolutely. But too many people let something like that cloud their judgement on other hits/fights. Then you've got a guy like Scott Nichol who will spear a dude in the package, and no one says a thing. Tootoo is miles ahead of Nichol in the class and sportsmanship department.

some classy responses from the classiest fans in the league Was it a dirty hit? yes, not as bad as it could have been, it does appear that he hit with the shoulder first and followed through with the forearm (yeah, the elbow is at the end of the forearm). But to Praise Weller for an even dirtier cheap shot is BS. You people are the same fans who were trashing Tootoo for not dropping the gloves and squaring up, but it's perfectly fine for Weller to clothsline a guy? whatever As for having no ability. Tootoo already has 2 points in 5 games this season. If he keeps it up, he's on pace for 30+ anyone watching him this season can tell that he's turning it around this year.

ah, yeah we ended up not buying that house. we're sticking with the current one through the winter and plan on looking again in the spring. --------------------------------------- okay. as for the Preds right now. What can I say? the fans of nashville and the team itself are disproving every argument I had this summer. I will always fight, tooth and nail to save this team. I wouldn't be a fan if I didn't. But it's quite shameful to see how this city as a whole has responded so far. Are they waiting for local ownership to come on? or did this summer finally kill any chance we had of planting a solid root in Nashville? The team, is playing terrible. The first two games they came out and looked like a team that was ready to win a playoff series. Flat out dominated two top teams in Colorado and Dallas. Perhaps it gave them big heads and now they think they're more talented than they actually are, but the last 3 games have been embarassing to watch. I've never seen a preds team that seemed to care less about working hard and fighting for a win. I hope things turn around quickly. I hope that attendance spikes after october. I hope the players turn it around on the ice... ...but I don't see either of those things happening right now.

yes it does!! You have no idea how much we all wish this would go away. While 29 other markets are talking about, goals, penalties, fights, etc... we're talking about attendance, leases, city government... it SUCKS!!!

when did I say I didn't have tickets or was fixing a barn? if I said that, i'd like to see it. I might have said I didn't know if I'd be able to get tickets again this year, but I ended up stretching thin for it, couldn't miss out on this season of all seasons.

probably an attempt to sway the city gov't so that they miss the deadline and he can get back in. But if they believe that he's sincere with this sudden change of heart, they're the biggest bunch of fools ever. He has one intention and one intention only. David Freeman pretty much summed up what all of us preds fans feel. David Freeman, president and chief executive officer of 36 Venture Capital and leading the local effort to buy the Predators, issued the following statement: "I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment on Jim Basillie or any of his activities, statements or certainly his obvious intentions. "The Predators belong to Nashville. Quite frankly, I'm tired of our community's resolve to retain the Predators on a permanent basis being questioned by outsiders that neither contribute to our community nor care about our community. In effect, they question the character and commitment of our city and our people. This is our home. This is 'Our Team.' "I believe that we will thoughtfully and successfully complete our discussions with the city very soon and that Mayor Dean will be able to present recommendations to the Sports Authority and the Metro Council that will allow us to complete our transaction by October 31. "In the meantime, to paraphrase one of my favorite fans, 'Keep your damn hands off our hockey team!'"

yeah, calling someone an idiot is really personal bashing. Glad you've been watching hockey for a long time, it's a shame that more people haven't. Though, I would have sworn that we're discussing off ice issues which don't recquire any knowledge of the actual game? 3 seats for 4 seasons. For someone who was a supporter, and is supposedly so connected with supporters... you do an aweful lot of poo-pooing on the situation here. oh, so it's your friends who are the ultimate authority, I see! You must also know that most people in Nashville who even know that the sports authority exists, thinks that it's a useless entity and is full of folks who aren't even sports insiders? Umm, I get it from folks who actually work for the Predators. Probably a little more knowledgable about it than the sports authority. did I not say that I took that one over there? Was this not a friendly conversation until you popped in? Do I like to argue? maybe. Do I like to come on another team's boards to debunk the idiocy that is spread by people who live 600 miles away and have no interest in my city at all? yes. like I said 100 times here, say what you want about me, it's not a big deal. this is a message board, we all have opinions, most of them wrong. at the end of the day I can sleep soundly, even with this whole fiasco taking place here. It would seem that most people who aren't involved one bit aren't able to do so.

yes, players do read message boards. not all players, but some do. I have yet to see any who post though. Pete Weber does post on the preds boards, and several preds have mentioned to fans in person that they have ventured over to read the boards from time to time. I would assume that it's no different with wings players or any other team.

Radulov really needs a legit 1st line center to fully realize his potential. Arnott and Legwand are nice in their own respect, but neither of them is any more than a decent second line center. Just look at what Radulov did with Forsberg last season, he became a really scoring threat. as for his passing skills, yeah he racked up a ton of assists in juniors. not many people realize that he has that kind of vision and skill, they assume he's just a typical russian sniper. in fact, when he was drafted, many scouts agreed that his all around offensive ability was second only to Ovechkin, but he lacked the defensive game which is what dropped him down to #15. anyway, like I said, the last two games were not included on any of the ticket plans other than full season tickets. as for buying season tickets in exchange for our players, you'll have to do better than that most of the players here bought at least 10 season tickets themselves, so youd have to at least double that if you want to get them away from us. Jason Arnott even bought 1,000 tickets to the opener. These guys love playing in Nashville, the fact that they're willing to shell out so much money for tickets to keep the team here should tell you something. It's just a very frustrating time. Think about what has happened to us so far. Just 4 seasons into our history, Leipold makes his "Playoff Pledge", where he raised season ticket prices for the 5th season in exchange for guaranteeing that the team would make the playoffs. Of course, he didn't add anyone to the roster. Traded away some popular players (ronning, dunham, fitzgerald) and after Legwand was injured the team lost the final 11 or 15 games and missed the playoffs. That really turned a lot of people off at that point. Then the following season (6th) we finally make the playoffs and have a great series with the Wings... The buzz was huge here! of course, then came the lockout. So, season after the lockout we did great, attendance built throughout the year, and then the disappointing loss to the sharks. But it was still a nice season and last season our attendance went even higher (even though most outside of nashville like to pretend our attendance was never getting better). Another himuliating loss to the sharks hurt, but season tickets were on the rise since we had a great team and Forsberg. Then came this whole sale fiasco, and even though we had the rally, and all of the goodwill. Half of that effort was needed just to replace all of the existing season ticket holders that canceled after the news came out. This will be a difficult season, but things were getting better before this summer, and they'll get better again. Our season ticket base is larger than it has been since the 2nd or 3rd season, and that doesn't even include the couple thousand from last season who canceled. get them back on board and every 13k game becomes 15k, every 14k game becomes 16k and every 15k game is a sell out. ditching this market now is a mistake.

that's your opinion. I think it's wrong

what about 4-0 win over colorado and 4-1 win over dallas? jumping the gun a little aren't you?

didn't see it since I turned off the game in disgust before that happened. anyway, from what i'm reading on the Preds boards is that Tootoo's hit was boarderline malicious and especially given his reputation, could be a suspension. But Weller should get more, but since tootoo came back to the game, it won't be that much. I don't believe tootoo was faking, usually he'd bounce right back up and be ready to throw down. So, if he stayed down, then he was obviously out of it for a second. ---------------------- honestly, the way the NHL seems to handle these things, I wouldn't be surprised if nothing at all happens. They like to penalize for injuries, yet they let other things go that are the exact same actions if there is no injury.

probert, I haven't been arguing anything on here, just answering people's questions. You're the one who has just come up in this thread trying to put me in a negative light. and great, you used to live here.. USED TO. so that means that you know so much more about what's going on here than me right? you're an idiot man. and where do I post these debates on the preds boards? the only one i've taken there is the Tootoo fight. -------------------------- as for the season ticket holders. well there are no more 3 or 6 game packs. But you used to live here, so you should know that right? and yes, 13 game packs and 21 game packs are season ticket holders. Can you not do math? I think I laid it out for you pretty simply. There are 41 home games each season. 1 season ticket equals 41 games. 2 of the 21 game packs equals 42 games. Therefore, 2 of the 21 game packs equals 1 season ticket. 3 of the 13 game packs equals 39 games. Therefore, 3 of the 13 game packs equals 1 season ticket. all 3 packages (41, 21, 13) have playoff priority, they all get the season ticket holder perks. -------------------- 104.5 is the flagship of the Predators. the program director George Plaster actually organized most of the rally this summer and is a member of Our Team. Sorry that you happened to hear some Titans coverage on there, it's a 24 hour sports station, so they're not going to go hockey 24 hours a day. They talk preds for a few hours every day though, sorry you missed out on it. The simple fact is that football is more popular here, what the hell do you expect? So, you can continue being bitter about Nashville and the Predators for whatever reason, but you're a little out of line on this one. go back and look at every season through our history. October is always the worst attendance. Neither of game 2 or 3 was in the mini plans, so the only tickets sold were to full season ticket holders and walk up buyers. Come back at the end of the season and look at the attendance. Our second half attendance is always miles ahead of first half attendance. it's called AVERAGE attendance. not first 3 games attendance. There are still 38 left, a little too soon for you to be making a judgement isn't it?

yeah, Leclaire seems to have it together this season. I don't think Columbus us all of the horses in line yet, but give them another year or two and Hitch will have them built into one hardass team.

oh sorry, i'm kinda new here so I didn't know. I'll try to stick with Wings topics from now on I picked the locks to be Detroit Anaheim San Jose Vancouver Colorado and the definitely nots as Columbus Chicago Edmonton Phoenix So the remaining 3 spots would be fought for by Nashville St. Louis Dallas Minnesota Los Angeles Calgary I think Nashville is the strongest of the bunch. LA and St. Louis have questions in goal which probably knocks them out of contention in the long run. Once again, I think Nashville makes it by being in a division with 3 weak (though improved) teams. Of course, last season we all thought those 3 would be better too.

not to mention that Balsillie never actually put any money up. I have a feeling that if he had put the $10M down, the BoG would have suddenly been a lot more tolerant of his actions.

well... they're probably going to make a profit this season. Very small, but a profit. If they make the playoffs, then it's guaranteed. Payroll right now is just over $34M I think. Arnott is locked in through 2011 Mason through 2010 Hamhuis through 2010 Zidlicky through 2010 The new owners say that they will aim for the midpoint of the salary cap/floor when the attendance comes around. That probably doesn't allow for the top level elite stars, but with a good GM like Poile, he can put something together with second level stars. The team is obviously competitive this season and looking like a tough playoff team. And this is while we're missing Sullivan and Weber, our top forward and defenseman. Last night was just one of those where you get off to a terrible start and it's over from there. Now, it seems like this will be the last season for Legwand and Dumont in nashville, but that will allow us to lock up Suter and Weber. It's going to be tight like that for a few years probably unless Boots is feeling generous and opens up his wallet. But again. all of this is just the immediate future. Their goal IS to keep the team here at any cost because they see the future coming. They know that the fanbase is growing and will continue to grow. They know that if given enough of a chance, that Nashville will make all of the current issues seem like a long ago bad dream. Everyone outside of nashville is only interested in the quick fix. "Did you make a dollar today? NO? well then better move them". You don't deal with problems by running away from them. You don't grow a league by saturating existing markets. The NHL must stick with all of it's existing markets and work to make them all rock solid, it's the only way for the league to grow.

I said places LIKE detroit. i'm not making it detroit v nashville. I never have. You might want to go back and check out which side of the argument likes to turn things into detroit v nashville. Now, when did they ask the city for $4M? don't accuse me of having bad information when you're bringing numbers into this that have never existed. they initially asked for an extra $3M in tax breaks, but that number has since gone way down. They have also asked for an additional $7M for renovations, which is not much more from the current budget that is already set which pays millions for arena upkeep every year anyway. Don't know why you find 19k ticket holders to be far fetched. It's not exact, just a guess, but it's much closer than yours. Just how many do you think there are? We know that there is almost 10k full season ticket equivilents. This is not a phony number thrown out by the team. In case you've been asleep, there is no sale yet. Craig Leipold is still in charge, so he's certainly not throwing out phony numbers to paint a rosy picture. These numbers come from Our Team Nashville who get them confirmed from the Sports Authority. We also know that 6k of those are actual full season tickets. That leaves the remaining 4k FST equivilents to be divided between 21 game half season packages (not very popular) and 13 game 1/4 season packages (very popular). Even the smallest number possible would be to divide them all by half season packages which is 8k ticket holders. in addition to the 6k full season ticket holders means that we have no less than 14k people in nashville who have some sort of ticket package. Of course, we know that the remaining 4k is not made up entire of half season packages. my best guess is that there are 3k half season packages. Which adds 1.5k full season tickets. leaving 2.5k full season tickets to be made up by 1/4 season packages. 2.5k X 4 = 10k. 6k full season ticket holders = 6k season tickets + 3k half season ticket holders = 1.5k season tickets + 10k 1/4 season ticket holders = 2.5k season tickets = 19k ticket holders with 10k season tickets it's not that difficult. also consider that we averaged roughly 4k per game in walk ups/individual game sales. Those are people going to probably 3-5 games a year. We'll go for the higher side of that at 5 per year since you think the interest is so low... 41 dates X 4k walkups = 164,000 now we'll divide that by the 5 visits per year from each walkup buyer = an additional 32,800 people who buy tickets to see the Predators. add that to the 19k we have with ticket packages. You're looking at almost 52,000 people in Nashville who have enough interest in hockey to buy tickets throughout the season. So, you can easily see how your estimate of 15,000 people interested in hockey is absolutely false. haven't even hit on the growth of Nashville yet. 1.5M right now and we're averaging 14k per game. What happens when the city hits 2M? 2.5M? it will be sold out every night. New growth in the area, plus the existing youth in the area means that the Predators will have the support down the road and shows how giving up on Nashville after 9 years (8 seasons) is way too premature. ---------------------------------------- okay, now proceed to tell me again how my numbers are all wrong, and i'm dillusional and hockey is just not meant for nashville

there has to be a better financial structure in place for that. Or you have to cut 1/3 of the league, of course, when you do that then the media brings a s*** storm on the league even bigger than what they pulled out on the XFL. The salary cap is great, but it is majorly flawed. The PA is really to blame for this. Their only interest is in growing their bank accounts as fast as they can right now. If you took the PA out of the equation, and then realistically looked at the NHL's finances and standing in the sports world, you would probably come up with a hard cap of about $19M and an individual player cap at about $2M. And it would have strict limits on when it can raise and by how much it can raise. Instead, to get the PA to agree with it (and yes, it's a good first step), we had to take this floating cap/floor deal that has already priced the bottom 1/3 of the league out of competition again. How many teams were able to spend $35-40M under the uncapped system? now they're being forced to spend it because of the floor. Not only that, but the wealthy teams are able to spend up to the cap and still make a boat load of profit. which is another thing, all the complaining about paying into revenue sharing. Look at New York, Toronto and Detroit. Teams that were spend in the past at least $20M over the current cap and still making profits back then. These guys are making a lot of money now with the cap in place and are still able to spend above and beyond the bottom rung teams. Given the choice, all of these owners would take the current system and pay a little into revenue sharing. ---------------------------------------------------- as for what BRTD said about the league killing itself by not expanding sooner and reaching more areas sooner. That is a dead on analysis. As much as the original 6 is talked up around the league for their history, that group did more harm to the league than anyone is willing to admit. I think at one time 4 of the 6 teams (including the Red Wings) were all under the same ownership family. And when expansion was brought up, they quickly nixed the ideas or made their demands impossible to meet. They concealed hockey in the northeast until the late 60's and farted away precious years of expansion and visibility that the other leagues were building up.

definitely have to give King the advantage. Looked like Darcy got him under the right eye a little bit, but it could have been from his helmet. When they interviewed hordichuk at intermission, he had a big lump on his forehead and a black eye. Started out pretty good, but as it went one, you could tell that Hordichuk was just outsized and he did a lot of hugging. Still, a pretty good, lengthy bout. St. Louis got two early goals, and won a big fight in between. Definitely a good recipe for securing the momentum early and dominating a game.

15k package holders goes something like this... We have almost 10k full season ticket equivilents. 6k full season tickets. So that leaves the other 4k to be divided up by 21 game packs and 13 game packs. Mostly 13 games. roughly 3k half season (21) packages, plus the 6k full season makes 9k people and 7.5k full seasons. and then we're left with 2.5k to be made up of 1/4 season (13) packages. which would actually add another 10k people with some kind of ticket package. Total of 19k people holding 10k full season ticket equivilents. 19k ticket holders. give them more time to get into the game more, and build their desire for hockey more. they'll buy more games, bigger packages. and then there is no problem. ------------------------------------------------------------ as for the new owners making money here. They have said already that they will make no money from the team. if and when they ever make a profit, it will go right back into the team. they are prepared to lose money, but they are also prepared to sell to boots down the road (probably farther than most people outside of nashville think) if the situation becomes unworkable. I'd say they'll give it another 6-8 years to try and get the paid attendance up to 16k per game ever night. At that point they'd be making good money and icing a higher payroll. They will do a better job of selling the team and sport to this city. They will do a better job of managing the arena and booking other events there. In fact, the major portion of the renovation money they're asking for right now is to turn an unused rehearsal hall on the back of the building into a smaller (2-3k seat) concert venue so they can book more acts there that wouldn't otherwise be able to play a 10k seat arena setup. Will it all work? who knows, i'd like to say it will, given time. More and more kids growing up and being able to afford tickets. That's the biggest area of the fan base right now are the kids. There are too many older folks around town who will just never get into hockey because they were never exposed to it. But the generation growing up with it now, they need more time before they can become the ticket holding core. Which really kills me when you hear people in places like Detroit saying that hockey will never work in Nashville. They're basing it on 9 years of existence and comparing to places where, not only have they had enough time for a generation to grow up with the team and become ticket buyers, they've had entire generations born, live a full life and die all while the team has been in town. If we're supposed to be held to the same standard as those markets, then you'd have to say that we haven't done too bad really.

absolutely. First, they haven't asked for any more money from tax payers. They've simply asked that they be able to keep more of the tax money that they generate, which wouldn't be there anyway if the team left. Right now I believe the team pays the city something like 10% of every ticket sold. Whereas concerts at Sommet only pay the city 3%. Parking is not part of this. Parking in Nashville is not part of the city, and the only parking area that the Predators own is the garage that is built into Sommet. Central Parking Systems is an independant parking management company that runs all of the downtown lots. They set the prices and get the money. Not the preds, not metro government. Central Parking is one of the biggest complaints people have here in Nashville. Not just preds fans, but anyone who comes here. Hopefully nashville can get out of that deal down the road and get something more favorable to the citizens. No one disputes that Leipold lost all that money. But the thing is, no one is feeling sorry for him for spending so unwisely. The Predators reportedly have spent more money on marketing and advertising than any team in the league since the franchise was born... you'd never believe that if you lived here. Advertising has been sparse at best. And now that Leipold is just playing the waiting game to get out of town there is NO advertising at all. He lost a lot of money, but it's his fault. Attendance wasn't great before the team got good, but he went out and increased the payroll anyway, that was his choice that he can't blame on anyone else. We went from a $23M payroll and 12-13k attendance and we lost money then... so how is it logical for him to increase the payroll to $39M when we still had 13k attendance? there's $16M in losses right off the top. He was concerned with winning a cup, when he should have been focused on building the fan base with better ticket prices and better marketing. Where he spent the $50M in marketing, we'll never know, but it was obviously money that was not well spent. The Predators did recieve the most revenue sharing money last season. So what? that's the rules that every team in the league agreed on. The Preds met every criteria to receive the money, so they got it. Part of revenue sharing requirements is that teams meet a certain attendance mark. It was something like 13k last season. If they were absolutely pitiful and only drew 10k, they wouldn't have gotten the money. So yes, the teams at the bottom are getting free money, but they aren't total charity cases, they still have to meet certain goals to recieve the money. This season the mark is up to like 13.5k and next season it will be 14k. That's the 14k that everyone is tossing around. It's the same number for the out clause in the lease, which is what all of the media has been talking about. But truthfully the local group has no plans on breaking the lease, otherwise they wouldn't be putting their necks out there to save the team. They're working on a new lease agreement in fact. The reason 14k is still out there is simply to qualify for full revenue sharing. oh yeah, and the money for upgrades is already budgeted for several years in advance. they want a little bit more, but not much more than is already on the books. The titans get a lot more money from the city, but no one questions that.

there are a lot more than 15,000 who care about hockey here. But there are probably only 15,000 who care enough to buy a ticket package. Season before the lockout (first playoff season) the prices were incredibly affordable. But they've shot way up since then. 03-04 ......... 07-08 $95 ............. $150 $85 ............. $115 N/A ............. $110 N/A ............. $81 $60 ............. $75 $50 ............. $49-69 $26 ............. $34-40 $19 ............. $26-29 $12 ............. $17-19 I think it's crazy. The object should have been to get people in the doors first and get them hooked on hockey. And then when you have consistent good crowds that need their hockey fix, then you raise prices. But just look at those seats on the glass, they've gone up about $18 each year. Well here... just take a look at the league averages... 03-04 Season 05-06 Season 06-07 Season ------------------------------------------------- Now tell me how it makes sense for Nashville to be only $3 behind Detroit in average ticket price? Leipold can cry about losing money and poor attendance, but it's pretty obvious that he's not the greatest businessman in the world. He has ruined several companies in the past and now ruined the Predators. Hopefully the new local owners will be able to pull this thing together and get this whole mess under control. It can work here, but they have to be smart about it.