Legionnaire11

i don't think St. Louis ever wore those. Keenan refused to let his team look so terrible

I think that you have to take the picks. I don't see how buffalo signed Vanek for such a huge number, they should have taken the picks. Anaheim already has a young core of great talent. Next summer they'll re-stock their farm system with high picks. They're still a really good team, and now they'll have a ton of assets in their pocket to either develop or trade. Either way, they're getting a lot in return for Penner, too much IMO. Lowe on the other hand has overpaid for his guy, yes he brings 29 goals, but only 15 assists. And that was on a cup championship team. What is he going to do on the Oilers? PLUS he loses 3 draft picks next summer. Rounds 1-3. When has a player of Penner's ability ever been worth those kind of picks? No, Burke made the right decision. It's really the only decision you could logically make.

just completed "Ambush at Corellia" Book 1 of the Corellian Trilogy. It was pretty boring through the first half, but fired up towards the end. Up next is "Assault at Selonia" which is Book 2

Well, the new wife and I are doing great. We're selling our current townhome and getting plenty of activity cleaning and fixing things up. not formal exercise, but it's better than sitting on the couch watching TV. we're about to make an offer on 2 acres, and if I get it, I plan on doing a lot of clearing of brush and trees on my own. That should be some good work for the body. Plus then i'll have 2 acres to walk and run around with some privacy. I'll also be building a 2 car garage myself.

no way! those jerseys were 1000x better than anything they've had since then

That question was asked at the press conference, Freeman said that there is NO WAY for Boots to become majority owner of the team. Also, Boots has cut his ties with AEG and KC. Basically, the way they've outlined things is that Boots all along wanted to have more control of an NHL team than what he had in San Jose. He was originally trying to land an expansion team in KC once AEG contracted with him to do so, other than that, he has no interest in KC. Originally, he was interested in the Preds if there was a possibility to move them, but once it became clear that we would hit 14k next season and the local group made a strong push, he really stopped pursuing them. Leipold was actually batting around the idea of staying on as a minority with the local group, but HE actually was the one who ended up inviting Boots to some meetings with the local guys. This works out for Boots because it looks like the way things will work is that he will run most of the hockey operations side of things and the local guys will run most of the business side of things. So, now Boots has his control of a hockey team, without having to put up nearly as much money, and without having to really deal with the business side of it. PLUS he gets to be a good guy in all of this buy helping to keep the team in Nashville. It's a great situation all around for him. The local guys get to be really good guys, save the team, drum up business support for the team and not ruin the team with their limited hockey knowledge. It's a great partnership!

have you read what some of the "fans" on here have posted???

that's what i've been saying forever. he runs a rumor site. and claims that it's a rumor site. rumors are usually wrong, sometimes they're right. Don't know about Detroit, but he's had a lot of Preds stuff before anyone else. I think he really has a contact in our organization and probably a few others. Either way, it's entertainment, it's an internet blog, not like he's sports editor for the new york times or something. Ek is an okay dude, if you don't like his blog then don't read it, but it's hardly reason for everyone to continually bash on the guy.

Press conference just ended, here is what happened... Letter of Intent Announcement Gerry Helper opens, turns over to Leipold Craig Leipold: we need to stop meeting like this. A lot has happened since may 24. Never lost sight that Nashville would have every opportunity to keep the team. What happened since may 24 was unexpected. Didn’t foresee Balsillie using the preds logo and selling tickets in Hamilton. Immediately after, Freeman entered the picture. Freeman kept pushing and working on a deal. It was at the July 18 meeting with the league, it was apparent to everyone involved that there was enough interest to keep the team here. Kept talking to Boots at the same time. Boots knows how the league works and has financial depth. This gives Boots an opportunity to become more heavily involved in an NHL franchise. The predators staff has been excellent, continuing to work through this. Thanks Our Team and The Zone for the ticket rally. 726 is the single biggest ticket sales day since the very first day of ticket sales 10 years ago. Excited to pass the torch to Freeman and Boots. They are ALL committed to Nashville. Expects a deal to be approved in September. Freeman put down $10M to make this a BINDING AGREEMENT. David Freeman: Thanks craig for the opportunity. This is the first step in a long process. Thanks the mayor for meeting and talking for the past week, listening to freeman’s concerns and putting the Preds at the top of his priorities. Questions…. -Freeman: There are 8 partners in the group. 7 are local. Herb Fritch from day 1. Waiting two more weeks to identify the rest of the local investors. Every one of them has similar motivations, they’re reluctant to come forward, but they’re all doing it for very pure reasons and just want to see the team stay in town. Boots Del Biaggio is the outside investor. -Chase Cole has done as much work for the locals as anybody. Chase: (can’t make out what he’s saying since he’s not at a mic) -Everybody in the group feels that same way that the government and media feels. Appreciates the media allowing the group to give a lot of no comment answers. -Boots is a minority owner. There are NO circumstances where he can become a majority owner of this team. Boots has a great interest in the NHL and loves hockey. -Plans started the day that Leipold made the announcement, they just kept it quiet -Leipold: I was really focused on exiting. The opportunity to get local owners was the way to go. The team needs the local connections and political support to make it happen. 14k does nothing for the long term viability of the franchise. I couldn’t make it happen, and was ready for someone else to take over. Thrilled that the team is staying. -Freeman: there is no assurance that the team will stay if hockey doesn’t succeed here. but Our belief is that if given a second chance, Nashville will support the team. They’ve written Leipold some large checks to back up that believe. Boots is not a threat to Nashville. His interest and the locals interests are similar, they want to show that Hockey can succeed in the heartland of America. -Buy tickets and show up at the games. There are some magic numbers such as 14k. They have no interest in breaking the lease, but the 14k number is important to revenue sharing and 14k has to be met to receive that full amount. The group is committed to owning the team for life. -The mayor recognizes the importance of the Preds to Nashville. can’t really comment on the possible changes in the lease. -Leipold: $193M sale price -Freeman: bringing Boots aboard with a significant contribution reduces the debt. That helps right away with the long term viability of the team. They’re doing everything they can to set up the club to succeed. Success is not just surviving financially, but winning on the ice. -Less than 25% of the purchase money is financed. very low amount of debt -Signed a letter of intent today, will turn that into a legal document and then ask the Board of Governors for their blessing. Work is ongoing behind the scenes with lawyers and accountants. -There’s a lot of difficult work left to be done. Today is a show of faith that they want to proceed down this path, they put their money where their mouth is. expect the best -haven’t spent any time working on selling tickets. Turned that over to plaster, Schultz and Samuels. Not worried about the corporate community. This is a wonderful town and this is now OUR TEAM. -Leipold: we are further down the road than they’ve been with any other group. It’s a complicated deal. Shouldn’t have any problems with the BoG vote. A deal like this, anything can happen, just getting this far is huge. There are still 4-6 weeks of discussions. But, the most difficult part is over. -This % of debt is very low for an ownership group, the league will view this as very favorable. -says that Freeman is very focused on making this work. admires him for doing things in this community that leipold hasn’t been able to do. -Freeman: up until today, they never knew for sure that they could pull this off. It was a longshot. They’ve been focused on getting a deal done and not and type of staffing issues. Only thing for certain is they want to keep Poile. -The decision making process will be a group decision. Trying to avoid a scenario where Freeman is identified as the head of the group. Does feel confident in his ability to make decisions though. His voice will be probably 1 of 5 (so 3 silent partners) -Leipold: can’t tell you how thrilled he is. can’t express in words what it means to him that the team is staying in Nashville. the thought of the preds moving to another market was not comforting at all. It’s fantastic for him. When they’re done here, he’s going to be buying season tickets!!! -there’s no deadline. They just want to move quickly and get it done at the BoG meeting in September. -will look at opportunities to use the arena on more nights, but have just been focused on getting to this point. End of broadcast.

haha, far from dead wings. "Our Team" says that we should make it to 11,000 season tickets by the start of the season. By the time single game tickets start selling, it looks like we may only need 1000-2000 actual walkups to each game next season to hit 14k. Last year we averaged nearly 4000 walkups per game. The rally was to let the NHL, Hamilton and KC hear our voice. It was actually a lot of fun, and it would be cool if every NHL city did this every summer as a show to the whole sports world that we're here and we care. It was 14 hours of non-stop hockey talk on the radio, arena was open all day, players were there, preds dancers were there to show people available seats, a big ticket sales push was on all day (over 700 new season tickets sold, that's huge, don't let canada fool you into thinking it's not), lunch was served, merchandise was sold, new jerseys were revealed, Eklund made a public appearance, the new owners were on hand, even the governor and first lady were there with their support. And unbelievable day of hockey celebration in the music city. It would only have been better under different circumstances. In a city like Detroit it would simply be an all day hockey party, and you know that yall would be all over that in the middle of a slow summer. I could just imagine what kind of rally cities like Edmonton and Calgary could put on.

some more possibly good news. There's small whispers that maybe AEG will take over the arena management from Powers Management. AEG is the company that runs the KC arena and who Boots has a deal with to bring a team to KC. However, if they take control of the Sommet Center, then moving the Preds to KC would still leave them with an empty arena in Nashville. So, there's the small chance that this would eliminate Boots and AEG's interest in moving the preds to KC and instead AEG would focus on getting an expansion or NBA team into KC. Nothing solid to back up that theory, just passing along the rumors.

Looks like the Letter of Intent will be signed today. It also looks like Del Biaggio is going to be joining the local team in this purchase. This gives us a huge financial boost, and also the certainty that as long as the local group is part of the ownership circle, that the team will stay in Nashville. Now, if things don't improve and we continue to struggle with corporate support, then it would seem that Del Biaggio would have an option to buy the local's share of the team and move them. If it gets to that point, then i'd say we don't deserve the team anyway. If we go through this whole ordeal, and the business community in Nashville still doesn't wake up to what the Preds mean for downtown Nashville, then why should the team stay? It's sad to think of that happening one day as a die-hard preds fan. But at least for the next few years it looks like a sunny forecast!!!

They showed a very strong fan base when they went to the Finals. They probably did enough that year to keep the plastic rat industry afloat for the next 100 years.

There are definitely cities that would probably get better attendance than Nashville. But like you say, at least give us our chance to build a fan base. 8 seasons? how is that enough? We've got to have time for the kids to grow up with the franchise and establish themselves to the point where they have disposable income to spend on hockey tickets. It will happen, you just have to give it time. This isn't an area where a lot of long time SEC football fans are going to jump on board right away if ever, but it's an area with tremendous growth and obviously the youth have caught on to hockey and the Predators. Pulling out now would be terrible. If we've already got a base of 12,000 or so fans from the start, imagine what it will be like when the youth grows up and can join in with that ticket buying base. and then another generation after that, and another, and another... exactly what you see in all of the established markets. see, St. Louis and Los Angeles when those teams are good. not exactly traditional hockey markets when they first arrived, but now, everyone accepts them without a second thought.

that would be outstanding!

Depends on what Lehtonen and Hossa do.

If they can find some scoring this year, they might contend for the 8th spot. Their D and goaltending is pretty solid.

I like them. I've always thought that Florida had some really nice uniforms. Them and the Preds have always been so similar in pattern with different colors. As far as expansion teams go, Sharks have had the best uniforms, but might have killed that this season. Overall, good design. Again, the piping looks goofy, but I guess we'll all be getting used to it in time and it won't be so weird then.

East: 1. Pittsburgh 2. Ottawa 3. Atlanta ------------ 4. NY Rangers 5. Buffalo 6. Philadelphia 7. New Jersey 8. Carolina ========= 9. Toronto 10. Tampa 11. NY Isles 12. Florida 13. Washington 14. Montreal 15. Boston West: 1. Detroit 2. Anaheim 3. Vancouver ------------ 4. San Jose 5. Colorado 6. Nashville 7. Calgary 8. Los Angeles ========= 9. Minnesota 10. Chicago 11. St. Louis 12. Dallas 13. Columbus 14. Edmonton 15. Phoenix

haha, i'd like to see that list

I don't remember if he ever actually took the ice did he? I seem to recall that he had a lot of skate problems and ended up just sitting on the bench for a period. could be wrong. this is the same team that tried to get Tonya Harding to skate for them for a game, I don't think she ever did it

http://predators.nhl.com/team/app/?service...rticleid=335378 Very solid signing for the third line, can step up to a scoring line as an injury replacement

Wings fans should know right?

it's what they HAVE to spend to reach the minimum.

I've thought about that before. I think most of us would really despise him for that. Now I think he could work out a deal with the local group where he stays on as part owner (51% or 49% which ever he wants), and we could live with that and it still ends up beinga really good deal. But if he doesn't sell at all, that's a bad, bad move.